ChainLinkGod will vote against AIP-1.05.
This proposal looks to be a pure optics play and does more harm than good, introducing risk for both the DAO and the Foundation. I acknowledge that the initial communications around AIP-1 and the Administrative Budget Wallet were poor, leading to much confusion in the community (including myself). However, I believe this has been largely rectified through the publishing of the Transparency Report and the AIP-1.1 / AIP-1.2 proposals.
I have some specific points on each of the asks here.
This seems to only serve as a power play, adding an additional unnecessary step before ultimately just transferring funds back and into a vesting smart contract, delaying the ability of the Foundation to support the growth of the Arbitrum ecosystem. The level of control the DAO has over the Foundation is already unprecedented, with the ability to change the Foundation directors, the mandates of the Foundation, and with AIP-1.1, the rate at which the Foundation can receive vested funds.
I am not a lawyer, and therefore do not know the full extent of the legal consequences or challenges this would introduce, but this seems like a highly risky move to make given the current regulatory environment, especially without input from a formal legal counsel first.
Speaking practically, this would also be an expensive and impractical move generally. The Foundation would have to incur three consequence instances of slippage/price impact, considering the ARB will simply need to be sold again later to cover Foundation costs: (1) initial sale, (2) buyback, and (3) follow up sale. Any volatility these purchases and sales could create (from both the actual sales and market reaction) would also be of little to no benefit to anymore.
It’s also likely that a portion of the fiat obtained from the ARB sale have already been spent or generally the amount of fiat held by the Foundation may not be enough to repurchase the full 10M ARB back, meaning the resulting optics play would still be fairly weak (can’t say the full amount was repurchased). Engaging with a market maker for these additional purchases/sales may also introduce additional costs that otherwise would not have occurred.
Expanding on what @gauntlet has stated, it’s not clear how a DAO vote would be able to enforce disclosure of an agreement that’s already been mutually agreed upon and signed and may have confidentiality clauses in it. Even if Wintermute were to agree, it may result in a poor relationship experience, and can create a poor precedent for when the Foundation engages with future vendors.
In general, I see this proposal bringing little to no benefit in the best case, and introducing unnecessary risk and costs to the DAO and the Foundation in the worst case. I believe the best action to take is to move forward, align on how the funds should and can be used going forward (AIP-1.1), rather than engaging in a power play move over past actions.