A lot of messages, this is nice. Let’s go step by step.
While this work theoretically, doesn’t necessarily work practically. Being the program basically the entry level of the DAO, evaluating on the basis on tx volumes, users and liquidity will just show skewed results. Let’s explain with the example of Pear protocol. If we look in their dune dashboard, they have generated since inception around $300M in volume and onboarded around 2k users. And this is great.
But, this protocol is in the categories of the big guns: we have a few each season, and if we went to measure in term of DeFi numbers, they would likely account for 99.99% of the numbers generated in the whole season. Because, inherently, we can’t compare a protocol such as this one with a startup in the African region that wants to serve on and offramp and access to stablecoin.
For sure, there could be maybe a way to normalize meausures. But knowing the place of this program, which again is the entry grant program of the DAO, it likely makes more sense to understand how many of the project financed are effectively sticking around in Arbitrum with their initial idea + if they pivoted. And, for outstanding results like Pear, we can just highlight how even an entry program can deliver more “fat” results if targeted toward specific areas.
Obviously open to suggestion on this topic.
This is already available in the questbook platform, in which the proposal is present in his final form alongside the review both from a rubric standpoint and a general review from the DA. We can try and make this info available also in the forum in the reporting for convenience if this is what the DAO desires.
I thought about that, yes. The simplest and maybe most effective mechanism would be a bonus per completed project. But it would introduce a bit of a perverted mechanism: a DA would be encouraged to not only approve only the proposal that he/she thinks can be delivered but also make the team modify the proposal in a way that milestones are way easier to complete and reach, thus reducing the effectiveness of the whole proposal. Remember: most of the times, in season 1 and 2, the proposal has been actively discussed with the grantees (in the questbook discord, accessible to everybody btw), with a back and forth toward the modification of milestones. The activity of DA is to try and tailor the proposal: if we move toward a completion bonus for DAs (or a penalty slash for uncompleted projects) we might just lose alignment of incentives.
This was something that was also brainstormed in the proposal. Main problem is the following: after 6 months, both in the orbit domain and in the other domains, we will only see partial results, because projects once approved will have 6 months to complete. The main issue I have with a 6 months trial is that that 6 months trial can’t be properly evaluated before 10-12 months, thus making it potentially ineffective.
Unfortunately, no. This data point was never added to season 1 and 2, and had no ownership for this task to be completed. I know that some delegates are looking into samples of this data and want to show off some partial results during this discussion to have more clarity.
For what is worth, this is exactly why the 3 months check after completion was added: tracking what grantees have been doing after the program.
I can totally see the point here. Here is also the current counterargument, from the perspective of someone that has been on the other side of the barricade (aka the DAs one): while compensation is for sure good, is also slightly undervalued in my opinion. Reason is simple: this program is growing overtime, which means more and more projects will come to apply. As you remember from LTIPP, the workload is basically almost linearly related to the amount of proposal. Season 1 and 2 saw a surge, due to both more popularity of the program and increased cap. I personally expect in season 3 to have even more requests. Considering the 4 domains have had an average amount of proposals of 128, it means that technically in Season 2 the DAO has paid through the 6 months salary of each DA every evaluation $375 (8k*6/128). And yes, there is a ton of variance here but we need to give reference numbers as well. To give a comparison, in Season 1 this cost was $654. I expect this cost to drop lower in Season 3.
Why am I saying all of this? The cost of labour for DAs is directly dependant on the commitment and analysis and time and energy that each DAs put in every proposal. My fear is that if we lower the base salary, DAs won’t be incentivised to do a good job to be honest. And so to apply your framework, I would only see it possible if we effectively increase, by a semi-decent amount, overall opex, which I am not sure this is what the DAO wants.
Again, on this I am open to any suggestion. All the data above comes from a mix of objective data point, and also having the pulse and experience of day to day operation on my side.
Effectively the whole DeFi part is covered in the “New Protocols and Ideas”. If you look at the Season 2 report for New Protocols and Ideas you will see that there has been a certain amount of DeFi protocols approved. Likely, this % is higher depending on the definition that you give to DeFi.
On the marketing/incentives: a lot of grantee ask, in their milestones, a part of funds to be used for this purpose. On a general note, we have tend to cut these milestones, either to reallocate to others or just save on the proposal, for 2 main reasons: the program always been oversubscribed means that trimming the nice-to-have compared to the must-have has allowed for more accepted grantees, and also sometimes is quite difficult to evaluate how a team can be effective on marketing, especially if they are bootstrapping a project. This is also one of the reasons why we have created this secondary tunnel (for a subset of proposals) in the AF/GCP/whatever other program we will have: collaborating with them might translate in marketing from these entities that have skillset and capacity of reach that single teams don’t usually have.
Let me know if i answered your question, or if i misunderstood it.
As told to @raam, open to any change here as well 
But while I am not a marketing person, the choice was made to give a better brand identity to the program.
I am pretty sure we will see proposals and sinergies materialize in relation to the DAO event budget, like side events attached to the main ones through this program for example. Excited tbh to see what will happen.
On the Security Service Subsidy Fund, we can for sure try to work and see what type of cointegration can happen. Top of my head, I’ll be honest, I don’t see it right away due to their scope being extremely more narrow (audit) and larger (capital), but I also see how a program that has been approved in Season 3 here being directed in future to the SSSF, or even viceversa.
Maybe here there is a misunderstanding: while the active phase of Season 2 has completed a couple of weeks ago, we have now a period of low capacity of 6 months in which grantees will keep working toward their goal. The results above, for season 2, are partial, and will be de facto complete in around 5 and a half months from now.
As indication tho I can tell you that the rate and speed of completion is higher in season 2 so far compared to season 1. And, to be brutally honest, most of this comes from the experience that has been accrued by the team that has managed both seasons.
Yes. Ideally you would check in 3 months, 6 months, 12 months after completion. There is only a problem: who can do that?
Let me explain. This program will last 1 year at full capacity + 6 months at low capacity. Let’s say it will start in january (as it is now probably february btw). Let’s say in December 2025 you approve, for example, 10 projects. These projects will have 6 months to complete their path: june 2026. PM and DAs have expenses covered up until that date. But the check after completion for these 10 projects will happen only in september 2026. Which, is a time that is not covered currently by OpEx. The main idea is that there will only be a tail of projects falling into a window that could not be covered (not necessarily a project needs 6 months), and that there will be goodwill from the team/pm as well. A more robust solution is continuity through a renewal into a season 4, but it poses a problem in case team will change, because checking in on grantees that you didn’t specifically approved can be quite hard.
There is definitely margin of improvement here, which should come from a more robust structure that is potentially internalized by the DAO. I am not sure we are there yet.
We, the DAs, have partially done this. Was not part of the mandate, but in some cases, also for rejected proposals, there have been mentorship calls. Especially @Juandi is a dragon due to his experience with his company.
Trust me tho, this requires an amount of time and energy that is not trivial. Including mentorship in the program means creating an overarching structure that is not here yet. I think the low hanging fruit of having successful projects going from the program to the Arbitrum Foundation as a growth path is something that should be implemented first.
There is a misunderstanding here. Is pretty clear that a 50k budget won’t suffice for developers, at all. The goal is mainly on what we can achieve with this budget: KOL, streams, newsletter, advocacy, and in general involvement of web2 users through web2 personas that should be funneled in the program through a strong person/team that has enough connection to bridge this gap (and we are working behind the scene to source strong candidates for this).
We will do our best to create reports that will be appealing. However, to be extremely honest, we are talking about report such as amount of proposals, budget, milestones, % of completion, specific notes etc. Something that by nature, I am afraid, is a bit boring.