Blockworks Research will vote to ABSTAIN from this proposal on Snapshot.
First of all, thank you @Immutablelawyer and Axis Advisory for authoring this proposal and the related work performed.
It’s undeniable that this is an extremely important cause, and it makes sense for the Arbitrum DAO to support it. However, before being comfortable with voting on a funding amount on Snapshot, we think that more specifics have to be added to the proposal:
- In its current form, the usage of funds is too ambiguous and there’s no way to quantify what benefits could arise from larger allocations. We would prefer to see an estimated breakdown of how different-sized allocations would be leveraged by both DEF and Coin Center. Moreover, litigation proceedings concerning certain crypto-specific matters in the US have been mentioned a few times. Could the two entities provide expected expense breakdowns connected to these?
- The proposal doesn’t give any details on how ARB would be liquidated, the funding structure (i.e., are funds transferred at once or vested over time), and how the two recipients would continue updating the DAO on their developments and the usage of funds (especially given that it seems as though Axis Advisory cannot be actively involved in the process going forward without a capital allocation).
- The proposal needs to include a risk section, going over any potential threats that may arise against any Arbitrum-related entity from funding such a cause.
- How much runway do the two entities have, and do they rely on donations to stay operational (how easy has it historically been to get funding)? If both entities are struggling to stay afloat, will the DAO be relied upon to enable operations to continue in the future?
Apologies if some of the aforementioned details have already been answered during calls. Nevertheless, we feel that it’s important to have these specifics added to the proposal itself to create accountability, inform voters of any possible risks, and set good precedents for similar requests that may arise in the future.