LTI Pilot Program Position Application Thread

Archive Long Term Incentives Pilot Program (LTIPP)
23

Background

Name: Wintermute
Position I am applying for: Council
TG: @callenvde
Twitter: @wintermute_t @cvant_
Affiliations (Currently I am working with, invested in, etc.): Wintermute has relationships and investments across major DAOs and Protocols. We are a delegate across Uniswap, Optimism, Arbitrum, Compound, Aave, and dYdX. We have an extensive investment list in which all COIs will be explicit to fellow council members.

Note: If elected as a Council member, Wintermute plans to forego any compensation and requests that the foregone compensation be retained by the Arbitrum DAO or put towards the LTIP budget.

Why You

Why would You be the best candidate for this position?

Since 2018, Wintermute has been an active member and contributor to the DeFi ecosystem through our trading, investing, and governance arms. We are a large delegate across major DAOs including Arbitrum with the sole purpose of leveraging our knowledge and infrastructure to advance the decentralized economy.

We have direct experience and knowledge with growing a protocol, incentive programs, and grants councils:

  • dYdX Grants Committee member & Multi-sig signer since Dec 15, 2021, to current date. Where we are responsible for aiding in the screening and approval of grants for the dYdX ecosystem that has been instrumental to its growth and transition to V4.
  • Trustee of the dYdX Operations subDAO - Nov 2022 to Dec 2023. Responsibilities included setting up the payment infrastructure, hiring contractors, legal restructuring, and launch of Genesis for the dYdX Chain.
  • A Step Towards a More Equitable Liquidity Provider Reward Structure - A proposal focused towards addressing the calculation of incentives towards liquidity providers on dYdX to provide a more equitable outcome.
  • V4 Vanguard - A myriad of proposals targeting incentives, token utility, and protocol parameters on dYdX to improve utility, emission cost, and alignment.

Furthermore, as with many other delegates we participated in STIP Round 1 assessing all grant applications and providing rationale for our selections based on core characteristics that we believed were most beneficial to Arbitrum.

STIP Twitter Thread

STIP Notion Document

Previous STIP Core Selection Characteristics:

  • STIP Goal Alignment - Grant applications should be conducive with the goals of the STIP.
  • Innovative Grant Disbursement - Innovative incentive designs are a plus as they will provide new data and insights.
  • Justifiable Grant Size - Grant size must be reasonable given the short timeframe and should have a clear overview of how tokens will be distributed.
  • Potential Long-lasting Benefits - The incentive design has the potential to bring long-lasting benefits.

During this process, we worked with a lot of grant applicants providing feedback on their applications which largerly focused on grant size and grant distribution.

Ultimately, we believe we bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the Council with clear alignment to the Arbitrum ecosystem. We would be honoured to be selected as a Council member and provide delegates with a set of strong grant applications that will continue to grow the Arbitrum ecosystem.

What do you think a good incentive application looks like?

Regardless of the rubric it’s assessed against, a good incentive application should exhibit:

  • Clear and concise rationale behind their grant size, why they require the grant, and how they think their grant will benefit the Arbitrum ecosystem over the medium to long term.

  • A brief explanation and backstory of their protocol/dApp, including relevant features, functionality, and target audience with accompanying data.

  • A thoughtful and well-laid-out distribution plan that clearly describes where and how the grant will be used over the 12-week timeline (KPIs are a plus!). This will allow users to have a clear understanding of how they could benefit from the program. It will also allow Council members to assess if there is any misuse of funds.

  • Alignment with both the goals of the LTIP and Section 6 of the Arbitrum Constitution (sustainable, user-focused, neutral and open, inclusive).

  • Co-marketing initiatives (weekly or bi-weekly) via social channels providing highlights, relevant data points, and explanations of current and future incentives.

In conjunction these features require applicants to have a solid understanding of why they require the grant and how they plan to use the grant to achieve their desired goal; a goal that is beneficial to the Arbitrum ecosystem and that can be easily understood by the community, council members, and advisors.

What are your goals for this program?

The authors and contributors of this proposal have already done a fantastic job at tackling some of the pitfalls of the STIP. Therefore, our primary goals of this program as a Council member are two fold:

  1. Ensure that ARB delegates and voters receive a list of grant applications that are high quality, high impact, and have the best shot at generating long term benefits to the Arbitrum ecosystem.

  2. Establish a solid operational foundation of heuristics, resources, and data that can be leveraged far beyond the pilot program for both future grant applicants and contributors.

Thank you!

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