The below response reflects the views of L2BEAT’s governance team, composed of @krst and @Sinkas, and it’s based on the combined research, fact-checking and ideation of the two.
L2BEAT is voting FOR STIP backfunding proposal in the temperature check vote.
At first we were hesitant regarding this proposal, for the reasons already mentioned by other delegates:
- Initially, the spending limit for the STIP program has been set at 50M ARB through a DAO vote. Even though the original proposal did mention a possibility of extending this amount, it’s not a good precedent to immediately ignore this self-imposed limit with a follow-up proposal.
- There are concerns regarding the impact that the deployment of 20M additional ARB to the market through direct incentives will have on the short- and mid-term price of the ARB token.
- There was also a concern about the potential delay of STIP Round 2 and the long-term program development. That concern was raised especially by projects that did not make it to the list in this proposal or that did not apply for the STIP during round 1 at all.
- Lastly, there was a concern related to the fact that in our opinion the results of STIP Round 1 were far from perfect. As we have previously mentioned, we were not satisfied with the end results of the STIP voting as there was not enough time to review the applications and provide proper feedback. That includes the applications included in the back-funding list.
Given the concerns mentioned above, we engaged in a discussion with the team behind the backfund proposal. We held discussions both during our Office Hours calls as well as during public Twitter spaces and in Telegram group chats. The team addressed most of our concerns and while they were not completely dispelled, we got convinced that this proposal is safe to pass and will not be a blocker for future rounds.
It is worth noting that the team behind this proposal was very active in assembling a dedicated team to work on Round 2 and pushing the needle forward with the work in that front. In addition, the team showed dedication and perseverance in pushing this proposal through the temperature check, making themselves available for any questions we had and willing to find ways to address concerns raised by us or other parties. This was, and still is, a very promising signal for the actual execution of the proposal.
In addition, since STIP was designed to be a short-term experiment, doubling the number of projects in the program, and ensuring the inclusion of smaller projects, will provide us with more data on how this program is performing and allow us to draw better conclusions and lessons for the long-term program.
Considering all this, but especially considering the dedication and openness of the team, we have decided to support this proposal for the temp check, and we will continue to support the team in the execution and validation of the results.