Treasure DAO’s Arbitrum Council (ARC) has voted FOR this proposal (with Karma).
The Arbitrum DAO’s ability to consistently make high-quality decisions is integral to the growth and prosperity of the ecosystem. Delegates, as the key decision-makers in the DAO, currently fulfil their crucial role without compensation and delegates proactively participate out of goodwill. The proposed solution aims to address these issues by introducing incentives and rewards for delegates actively engaging in governance activities. We do think substantial changes will need to be made to accommodate a future in which separation of verticals within Arbitrum becomes more of a reality, but given the experimental and short-duration basis of the program we are supportive of the proposal as it currently stands.
While we acknowledge the positive steps taken by this proposal, it’s important to recognize its potential imperfections and incompleteness. The quantitative approach to delegate engagement within this framework, even with the Bonus System, may struggle to capture the nuanced aspects of good delegate action, for example providing feedback on pre-forum ideas and attending calls and workshops. Additionally, we also recognize the maximum monthly reward of 5,000 ARB may not sufficiently compensate delegates for full-time engagement and activity within the DAO.
We feel that arbitrarily capping the number of delegates to receive incentives for their governance efforts is unnecessary given there already being requirements, like the voting power and historical participation, that significantly filter and reduce the eligibility for this program. Although this plateau gives delegates a clear and static amount of incentives for their contributions, it also favours the conglomeration of governance efforts through not extending incentives to lesser contributing delegates at all and could therefore by proxy increase delegate centralization. On this same note, the proposed tier system in the ‘DRAFT’ version seems rigid, by having arbitrary cut-offs on incentives awarded to each tier. We feel that having a more dynamic system of incentives on a continuum, instead of strict tiers, makes more sense in getting a fairer amount of incentives for the efforts put in by the delegates.
In light of these considerations, we express our support for this experimental framework. However, we advocate for its complementation and augmentation with additional contribution and incentive frameworks. These frameworks should be designed to encourage and reward delegates and community members who contribute in less easily quantified ways. Furthermore, we advocate for a more dynamic and wider range of incentivisation of delegates by removing the cap and tier system and replacing it with a more direct continuum based incentivisation system. This way, smaller delegates who can put in less hours but still contribute their part will also get incentivized for their work, leading to a more inclusive and decentralised Arbitrum.
We applaud Seed Latam for addressing this important topic head on, and look forward to the introduction of a starting framework which can be further refined and built upon over time.