Thank you, @lobbyfi and @paulofonseca, for your support and for voting “FOR, with POAP”! 
We’re thrilled to have your backing and truly appreciate the trust you’ve placed in the proposal.
We would absolutely love to have you join us at ETH Bucharest 2025! It’s shaping up to be an incredible event, and having your presence there would make it even more special.
Please let us know if there’s anything we can assist with to make it happen!
Thank you, @Dragonfly, for your support and feedback! 
We’re glad to have your vote in favor and truly appreciate your perspective on the POAP activation.
Your suggestion to coordinate with the Arbitrum Foundation and customize POAP-related materials for this event at a lower cost is a fantastic idea. There might be some discussions open in between the Foundation and POAP.
Thanks again for your insights, and we hope to continue delivering value for the community!
Thank you for your detailed feedback and for taking the time to share your concerns. We deeply value the scrutiny you’ve applied, as it helps us refine and clarify the proposal.
We understand your concerns regarding the budget, particularly compared to similar sponsorships approved through Questbook. While we acknowledge that our proposal exceeds the typical threshold, the increase reflects specific deliverables unique to this partnership, such as the exposure, booth production, dedicated speaking slot, bounty tracks, technical workshops,etc. However, we recognize that further justification could have strengthened the proposal and will take this feedback into account for future submissions.
To provide more clarity:
Main Stage Talk & Workshop: The speaker and workshop host(s) are critical components of this sponsorship.
While final confirmations are pending, we already engaged high-quality speakers and developers from the Arbitrum ecosystem.
25m² Exhibition Booth: This will indeed be a physical booth. The production costs is included, as well as all operations and logistics.
Booth steerers, including travel and accommodation costs for representatives from the Arbitrum DAO was not factored into the total budget of this proposal.
VIP Tickets & Dinner: The tickets and dinner access are intended for the DAO representatives, partners, and key ecosystem members to maximize networking opportunities. We’re open to revisiting this allocation.
The sponsorship package funds are required ASAP prior to the event in order to ensure a proper logistics and operations preparation. The hackathon bounties will be paid out after the winnners are decided by the judges, thus post event.
We agree that tying deliverables to milestones is essential to maintain trust. If the proposal is approved, we commit to:
Providing a comprehensive post-event report with metrics on attendee engagement, hackathon outcomes, and ROI analysis.
Sharing updates throughout the planning and execution stages to keep the community informed and engaged.
Also, regarding this:
I would argue that this is excessively high. We were a team of nine people that worked for more than 6 weeks (plus prior preparations) to make this happen. Out of the nine team members, three worked full time on this project.
We at ETH Bucharest are doing this full-time, so we consider normal to be reimbursed for our time. This way we keep it healthy and have the juice to continue building and organzing these events.
This is also why we are able to deliver a great experience for the participants.
We hope these adjustments will address your concerns and demonstrate our commitment to maximizing the value of this proposal for the DAO. Thank you again for your feedback, and we remain open to further dialogue to refine the approach.
PS. We would love if you would consider changing your vote, but we respect any decision you would make about it.
Thank you so much for your support and insights! We’re thrilled to have your vote in favor (with POAP) and greatly appreciate your recognition of ETH Bucharest’s importance as a platform for enhancing Arbitrum’s presence and ecosystem.
Your suggestions are spot-on, and we’re committed to implementing them to maximize the event’s impact:
Post-Event Report: We will provide a comprehensive report detailing participation numbers, hackathon outcomes, and branding impact to ensure transparency and measure the success of the sponsorship.
Long-Term Tracking: We agree on the importance of retaining developers within the Arbitrum ecosystem and will explore mechanisms to track their engagement post-event.
Collaboration with Ecosystem Investment Funds: Connecting outstanding projects with resources such as incubation, funding, and developer support is an excellent idea. We’ll work to establish these connections to ensure long-term value for both Arbitrum and the projects.
Thank you again for your vote of confidence and actionable suggestions. We’re excited about the opportunity to make ETH Bucharest 2025 a meaningful milestone for the Arbitrum community!
Thank you for your thoughtful feedback and for raising these points! I’d like to address your concerns and clarify any misunderstandings.
The POAP activation is not part of the default sponsorship packages listed in the official deck.
It was proposed as a custom add-on to showcase Arbitrum’s technical capabilities by minting POAPs directly on the Arbitrum chain. This initiative aims to drive community engagement and highlight Arbitrum’s scalability during the event. However, we understand concerns about its cost, which is why it has been included as a voting option rather than a fixed component.
It seems there might have been a misunderstanding regarding the Arbitrum Foundation’s involvement.
The Foundation is not currently listed as a sponsor for ETH Bucharest 2025. If you’ve seen information suggesting otherwise, we’d appreciate it if you could clarify where this was mentioned so we can ensure accurate communication.
This proposal is specifically for the Arbitrum DAO to directly support ETH Bucharest, allowing the DAO to strengthen its presence and engagement in the Eastern Europe Ethereum community.
We chose the Genesis Block Package to ensure high visibility and impact for Arbitrum at ETH Bucharest 2025.
This tier provides opportunities like a main stage speaking slot, a workshop, and prime booth placement, which are key to positioning Arbitrum as a leader at the event.
Thank you again for your review and for highlighting these questions. If there are any other aspects of the proposal you’d like clarified, we’d be happy to provide additional details.
Thank you so much for your support and for voting FOR this proposal, including the POAP activation!
We completely agree with your perspective on the importance of strengthening Arbitrum’s visibility and engagement within the ecosystem through events like ETH Bucharest.
Your point about the ROI of sponsorships is well-taken—while immediate returns are hard to quantify, the long-term value of attracting talent and expanding the ecosystem is a key motivation behind this initiative.
We also acknowledge Entropy’s concerns regarding the administrative burden on delegates and agree that the DAO should work towards streamlining this process for future proposals. As you suggested, we are committed to providing a detailed post-event report with metrics to demonstrate the impact of this sponsorship and justify a partnership continuation in the future.
Thank you again for your thoughtful support and for recognizing the long-term potential of this partnership!
Thank you so much for your vote and support for the proposal! We’re thrilled that you see the value of ETH Bucharest and agree that it’s an important event for Arbitrum to have a presence at.
We completely understand your perspective on the POAP activation and appreciate your thoughtful feedback regarding its cost. Balancing innovative ideas with budget considerations is always a challenge, and your input helps us better refine our approach for the future.
We’d love to see you in Bucharest, and we’ll do everything we can to make this a memorable and impactful event for the Arbitrum community. Thank you again for your support and kind words!
Thank you so much for your vote and comments! We’re thrilled that you found the proposal well-detailed and that you recognize the value of starting early to ensure all aspects of branding and event preparation are executed effectively.
We’re glad to hear you support the POAP activation and appreciate your suggestion to consider alternative options like GitPOAP and Mintkudos, which are great tools.
Your idea to include professional video and photo content in the budget is great! We’ll take this suggestion into consideration as part of the execution phase.
Thank you again for your thoughtful feedback and support—we’re excited about the opportunities ETH Bucharest will bring to the Arbitrum community!
Thank you so much for your thoughtful support and detailed feedback! We’re thrilled that you see the value in sponsoring ETH Bucharest 2025 as a platform to showcase Stylus and expand the Arbitrum ecosystem.
We completely understand your perspective on the POAP activation and appreciate your feedback regarding its cost. Striking the right balance between innovation and value is essential, and we’re glad the proposal provides options to align with varying priorities.
Your suggestions to focus on optimizing hackathon engagement, improving developer follow-up support, and tracking outcomes are spot-on. These are critical areas we aim to prioritize, ensuring that Arbitrum’s investment in the event drives long-term value and community growth.
Thank you again for your support and insights—we’re excited to deliver a meaningful and impactful presence for Arbitrum at ETH Bucharest 2025!
Thank you for your feedback and for sharing your reasoning behind your vote. We completely understand your concerns about ensuring a strong presence from key Arbitrum representatives at ETH Bucharest 2025.
You raise an important point about the impact of having high-context individuals at sponsored events to maximize ROI. While we’re still in the process of confirming specific attendees from Offchain Labs, Arbitrum Foundation, and the DAO, we are committed to ensuring that key representatives will be present to actively engage with participants, lead workshops, and represent Arbitrum at the booth.
Your input is incredibly valuable, and we’ll work to finalize and communicate these details as soon as possible to provide greater clarity and confidence in the execution of this sponsorship. Thank you again for your candid feedback—it helps us improve and deliver better outcomes for the community.
Voting FOR this proposal with POAP
While we prefered without POAP, the current vote is decidely in favor of POAP and we prefer to see this go ahead even with POAP rather than without
While 15k for POAP is a little high, it does provide good gamified visibility and showcase Arbitrum, so can make sense.
other rationale:
Thank you very much for your response. For now, I don’t plan to change my vote because the main concerns remain the same despite your answers and explanations.
To be clear: I’m not against people getting paid for their work. I agree with what you say and think is how it should be. My concern comes from the % of the budget going to the team/Ops.
I decided to vote ‘Against.’ in snapshot even though @ostanescu.eth was very willing to answer all the questions, I still feel the budget is excessively high, and there are no clear KPIs. Additionally, removing the VIPs and adding 15k POAPs makes it seem like they want the budget regardless of justification.
To be clear, I support promoting the ARBITRUM brand and agenda at events.
We are voting for this proposal because ETH Bucharest 2025 will help Arbitrum reach more developers and grow the community in Eastern Europe. It gives Arbitrum a chance to show its technology, like Stylus, and support creative new projects at the hackathon. This partnership will make Arbitrum stronger and help more people use Layer 2 solutions.
It’s just that their website says we’re already sponsors, so I thought maybe the Foundation sponsored it.
I liked the idea of this great event, everything sounds like such a win deal that will help a lot of people te get informed of what we are doing, but then the budget seems unnecessarily high… Thank you very much for your proposal. I just wish we can make adjustments on the VIP sponsorship and the speakers dinner… so for the moment. i’m gonna have to vote against it.
Note: All rates above include a 10% discount as part of the proposal.
In addition to the above deliverables, the Genesis Package contributes to critical event infrastructure and operations:
Hackathon Bounty Pool: 100% allocated to builders—no part goes to the organizers.
POAP Activation: Optional—discounted to $13,500. The proposal can be approved with or without it.
Genesis Package Discount: Final price reduced from $35,000 to $31,500 (10% discount applied).
Total Sponsorship Cost:
The Genesis Package is a comprehensive sponsorship tier that provides Arbitrum with prime visibility and engagement opportunities at ETH Bucharest 2025. In addition to the core deliverables, this package also contributes pro-rata to essential event infrastructure and operational costs, ensuring a high-quality attendee experience.
a. Speaking Opportunity: Main Stage (1-Hour Talk) - $5,500
b. Workshop Session: Pre-Hackathon Technical Workshop - $4,500
c. Exhibition Space (25m² Booth) - $8,000
d. Brand Exposure: Digital, Print, and On-Site Branding - $6,500
e. VIP Access and Tickets - $5,500
f. Additional Visibility: Website, Social Media, and Discounted Tickets - $5,500
In addition to the above deliverables, the Genesis Package contributes pro-rata to key infrastructure and operational costs that are essential to delivering a high-quality conference experience. These include:
Note: above is just an example. This exact split is still TBD.
This $27,000 ($24,300 after discount) budget is entirely allocated to builders through hackathon bounties and prizes. No part of this amount goes to the event organizers. It is strictly set aside to reward participants who build and deliver innovative projects during the hackathon.
The ARB x POAP Activation is a gamified engagement strategy that encourages attendees to interact with Arbitrum’s workshops, talks, and hackathon activities. By minting custom POAPs on the Arbitrum chain, we aim to highlight Arbitrum’s technical scalability and provide attendees with an engaging, on-chain experience that increases foot traffic and reinforces Arbitrum’s brand presence.
Strategy and Alignment: Strategic planning to align the activation with Arbitrum’s business and ecosystem goals.
Custom POAP Design: Creation of up to 7 unique POAPs within a single collection, tailored to event activities (workshops, talks, hackathon milestones).
Seamless Minting Tools: Technical setup to ensure an accessible minting experience for both web3-native users and those onboarding via email.
Physical and Digital Distribution Tools:
Setup for POAP Drops: Creation and execution of up to 7 POAP drops aligned with key event activities.
Custom Branding Layers: Integration of Arbitrum’s visual identity across each POAP drop, ensuring consistent branding and high-quality delivery.
Custom Minting Templates: Design reusable templates for a visually branded and seamless minting experience, providing long-term value for Arbitrum across future activations.
POAP Passport Design: A gamified POAP Passport offering up to 3 benefits (e.g., raffle entries, prizes, or rewards) integrated into the activation.
GDPR-Compliant Setup: Technical implementation ensuring full compliance with EU regulations, tailored for seamless and secure data handling.
This budget covers both the technical infrastructure and creative execution required to deliver a smooth, engaging, and professional POAP activation. It ensures a meaningful experience for attendees while aligning with Arbitrum’s goals to showcase its scalability, enhance brand visibility, and engage the Ethereum community.
We want to emphasize that this activation is not included to secure a larger budget allocation but because we genuinely believe it will enhance the impact of Arbitrum’s presence at ETH Bucharest 2025. The POAP activation serves as a tool to increase attendee engagement, highlight Arbitrum’s technology, and create memorable interactions at the event.
That said, we fully respect the DAO’s decision-making process. Should the DAO vote against the POAP activation, we are completely fine with proceeding without it, focusing instead on the core sponsorship deliverables.
I have voted FOR, without POAP on this proposal. I understand some Delegates’ concerns regarding the cost, which may seem high for a conference that isn’t as large as DevCon or EthCC. However, I believe it is crucial for Arbitrum to continue investing in raising awareness and attracting builders, especially given the fierce competition among L2s.
This hackathon has the potential to fund great projects and motivates teams whose contributions could far outweigh the associated costs. I also appreciate the recent post from @ostanescu.eth, which provided further clarity on the expense breakdown
I voted FOR, without the POAP.
While I understand the appeal for it, this add-on would result in an increase of over 24%, and I would rather see the Sponsorship to pass rather to fail because it became too expensive.
Hi @ostanescu.eth, thank you for bringing this proposal forward. It is good to see Arbitrum represented in Eastern Europe and based on the photos/reporting, the first year of the conference was a successful event. After reviewing your proposal and the linked sponsorship deck we have a few questions
At this point, we are struggling to see a reason for paying north of 50K for this sponsorship.
