These comments and thoughts reflect my personal opinions on this proposal as a member of the Arbitrum Representative Council (ARC). These do not necessarily represent the overall views of the council, Treasure DAO or provide an indication of final voting decision by the ARC.
I have recused myself from discussing the LTIPP council applications with my fellow Treasure ARC members since I am one of the applicants myself, though I am dissatisfied with the process and feel the need to post that on this forum so that there might be a transparent discussion about these issues. Let me first say that I am very much in favor of the LTIPP, there is a need for more funding within Arbitrum and I think this proposal is a good iteration on the STIP. I have therefore also personally voted to fund the program with the highest possible amount (45.815m). Yet, when this proposal passed some issues arose:
- Although not explicitly mentioned in the LTIPP proposal, the council seats were supposed to be filled by individuals. To me this makes sense; having councils on councils obscures accountability (which a lot of the applicants want to increase, as per their application) and potentially causes conflicts of interest (individuals can recuse themselves from a vote if there is a potential conflict of interest, councils cannot). Since the rules of the LTIPP proposal allow it, you could argue it being excusable and an error on the side of the proposal itself, yet we are also talking about a 45 million fund here (details like these should be in order).
- A new rule was added to the Council Elections on Snapshot, that was not included in the LTIPP proposal, namely: ‘Applicants may not vote for themselves’. When asked about this rule @Matt_StableLab replied ‘personally don’t like the no self-voting rule but the community seemed to think that was the fairest way’. It is unclear to me which ‘community’ and how they reached this conclusion. I was not aware, or have seen any open discussions about the implementation of this rule. I have tried to get access to the LTIPP chats to possibly get some more info on this decision, even though I do not fully agree to having a discussion like this on a private TG channel. To me personally, not discussing this decision with the wider DAO; let alone not voting on this decision as the DAO means that a small, closed off group of people have decided to impede on the governance rights of the whole of Arbitrum. To me this is unacceptable, and not what decentralization entails.
- Some members of the ARC applied to the LTIPP Council as individuals, such as myself. According to @Matt_StableLab, Treasure DAO voting for any of us would be against the rule: ‘Applicants may not vote for themselves’. Even though I might be a member of the ARC, that does not mean that I myself am Treasure DAO. I am my own person, with my own opinions and my own morality. Therefore, I not only think that this ruling is unfair; the rule itself is not specific enough as to when someone is voting for themselves (are all Treasure DAO and Treasure DAO game partner members excluded, and when are you a Treasure DAO member?) and the specifics are made up on the spot without any transparency or vote from the wider DAO. This again makes a small and private group of people able to decide on the fate of this program.
- For Treasure DAO specifically, not voting would mean that all of the people who have delegated their $ARB to us apparently mean nothing anymore. It’s not just the $ARB that Treasure DAO has in its Treasury, but all Treasure DAO’s members that are potentially excluded from voting here. It would be the same as excluding all members of a political party from voting for said political party. I personally, and with me a lot of other $magic believers, delegated my $ARB to Treasure DAO under the assumption that we would be stronger when united. With this arbitrary decision made by a few people behind closed doors, we wouldn’t have a vote at all.
- One of my goals for this program was: ‘Bringing public funding to the next level and having Arbitrum be a place where financial gains flow back to the DAO, the project and its users; thus minimizing the need for VCs in the long run.’. With the decision to exclude applicants to vote for themselves we are excluding the two builders (Treasure DAO and GMX) that the Arbitrum Foundation has rewarded with the most $ARB due to their outsized and early contributions to building up the Arbitrum network. Besides that, we are also excluding another important builder on Arbitrum, MUX protocol. Therefore, in my opinion, this unilateral decision hurts the DAO by having the people in charge of the LTIPP funding not being builders, because they have no voting right in who get to be the people in charge.