Update: This experiment ran from September 1st, 2024 to January 1st, 2026. You can see the results at paulofi.vercel.app. There will be no more rewards after January 1st, 2026. Thank you!
TL;DR: By the end of each year, I pledge to pay every wallet that delegates ARB to me, a share of 10% of all the money I earn in that year, that originates from Arbitrum DAO.
I quit my job at the end of June 2024 and decided to participate in GovHack Brussels the following week, where me and @andreiv submitted a proposal for how proposals.app could help the governance processes in Arbitrum DAO. We ended up winning the GovHack, and then in October 2024 got awarded a grant from the Questbook New Protocols and Ideas domain.
Given all of that, I decided to become an active delegate in Arbitrum DAO in the middle of September 2024, and ever since, I have been reading every proposal in the forum, attending almost all the calls in the governance calendar, endlessly chatting in the delegates telegram group and actively contributing to its regular Friday chaos, and much more. At the beginning of November 2024 I gave a workshop about DAOs, governance and the Arbitrum DAO in the first Arbitrum Stylus Hackathon in the world, that took place in Bucharest, and I’ve also been paid monthly by the new version of the Delegates Incentive Program for my delegate activity in the months of November and December 2024. You can see how I ranked amongst the other delegates in this dashboard, in each of those months.
I think it’s pretty clear that I’ve demonstrated that I want to be an Arbitrum DAO Delegate for the long run and that I’ve been quite active in Arbitrum DAO. And that’s because I deeply believe that this is the biggest actual DAO in the whole world and I want to dedicate myself to contribute to it for the foreseeable future. Both by building proposals.app to serve Arbitrum DAO, and by being a very active delegate.
But… despite all my past contributions, it has been really hard to get more tokenholders to delegate their voting power to me. This is for a myriad of reasons, but this post details most of the main ones.
So for the past several weeks, I’ve been thinking about actively doing something about this.
And it’s time for me to put my money where my mouth is.
Introducing… the 10% Delegatooor Kickback Program.
Since I am the only delegate in Arbitrum DAO who has voluntarily disclosed all of my earnings that originated from the Arbitrum DAO treasury, I’m now publicly pledging that at the end of each year, I will pay every wallet that delegates voting power to me a proportion of 10% of all of my earnings for that year.
Here’s how it’s going to work:
- If you have ARB tokens, you can delegate or redelegate them to me, here.
- Then I will use the voting power you entrusted in me, to vote in every proposal, with a careful vote rational and to participate in all delegate activities in the DAO, making my most honest contributions to improve Arbitrum DAO and to honor the voting power you’ve entrusted in me.
- Every time I earn money that originated from the Arbitrum DAO treasury, I will report it in this Voluntary Disclosure forum thread.
- I will also immediately transfer 10% of each payment I receive to this 3 of 4 multisig where the signers are me, @cupofjoseph and @emjicy. As you can see, this multisig already has 10% of all my previous earnings since I started contributing to Arbitrum DAO, in July 2024.
- At the end of each year, I will calculate what was the overall share of voting power each delegatooor entrusted in me, and that I used to cast my votes on every offchain and onchain Arbitrum DAO proposal.
- Then I will split the amount in the multisig proportionally and transfer each proportional share to every wallet that has delegated ARB to me, during that year.
Here’s a concrete example, let’s imagine that at the end of the year, I’ve received delegation from 3 wallets:
-
Alice’s wallet has delegated 20 ARB (aVP) to me, that I used to cast 10 votes (aV)
-
Bob’s wallet has delegate 10 ARB (bVP) to me, that I used to cast 5 votes (bV)
-
and Charlie’s wallet has delegated 100 ARB (cVP) to me, that I used to cast 1 vote (cV)
Each delegatooor’s share will be calculated like this:
-
Alice’s share is 57.14% of my overall casted voting power in the whole year.
(aVP * aV) / ( (aVP * aV) + (bVP * bV) + (cVP * cV) ) = 57.14% -
Bob’s share is 14.29% of my overall casted voting power in the whole year.
(bVP * bV) / ( (aVP * aV) + (bVP * bV) + (cVP * cV) ) = 14.29% -
and Charlie’s share is 28.57% of my overall casted voting power in the whole year.
(cVP * cV) / ( (aVP * aV) + (bVP * bV) + (cVP * cV) ) = 28.57%
So finally, if by the end of the year, there is a total of 500 ARB in the multisig:
- Alice’s wallet receives 275.81 ARB, which is 57.14% of all funds in the multisig
- Bob’s wallet receives 71.43 ARB, which is 14.29% of all funds in the multisig
- Charlie’s wallet receives 142.86 ARB, which is 28.57% of all funds in the multisig
That’s it! 
Here is an example spreadsheet that you can copy and play around with the amounts in the stroked boxes, to see how this would work in more detail.
If you have ARB tokens that you are currently delegating and getting zero returns on, or ARB tokens that you are thinking about delegating for the first time, I would be honored to represent your voting power in Arbitrum DAO, and I will even pay you a proportional share of 10% of my earnings for the trust you’ve put in me, by being my precious delegatooor.
➔ Delegate ARB to paulofonseca.eth here or here
Thank you anon!
FAQ
Why 10%, especifically?
Because it’s a nice round number and easy to calculate, but also because historically, 10% has been the percentage for paying tithe.
How do I know that the delegatooors will actually get paid at the end of the year?
Well, you don’t really… You would have to trust that the payments really get made at the end of year. And you would have to trust that I keep transferring 10% of each received payment, into the multisig. The funds are in a 3 of 4 multisig controlled by me, Paulo, @cupojoseph and @emjicy. So you would have to trust that at the end of the year, we submit and sign the correct transactions.
How much money exactly, will 10% of your earnings be, by the end of 2025?
I also don’t know. Right now is a bit over $2000 USD, and I will probably be getting paid from the Delegate Incentive Program somewhere between $5000 and $7000 USD a month for as long as the program will be active. Then, there’s probably other sources of earnings like participating in working groups in the DAO, and the share of money I personally receive from grants that proposals.app would get from Arbitrum DAO.
