Contributors looking for the previous iterations of the DAO’s Procedures, can find deprecated documents in the forum’s archive.
Following discussions and ratification via Snapshot vote, the following procedures are in effect until January 31st, 2026. To ensure that the DAO has ample time to discuss future revisions or inclusion into the Arbitrum Constitution without the DAO Procedure’s losing its validity, the Arbitrum Foundation reserves the right to extend their effectiveness by up to two months through March 31st, 2026 as long as a new version has not yet been officially ratified.
Important Terms
Contributor: An individual or entity who willingly engages in Arbitrum governance and/or is compensated via a DAO-approved program.
DAO-approved program: A structured initiative that is funded and/or authorized by the Arbitrum DAO through a formal governance vote (Tally or Snapshot) and designed to achieve defined objectives. Examples include the Arbitrum Audit Program, the Arbitrum D.A.O. Grant Program, and other comparable initiatives that receive DAO treasury funding or delegated authority.
Community Guidelines: The rules of engagement for the Arbitrum DAO forum as outlined and enforced by the Arbitrum Foundation.
Conflict of Interest (COI): A situation where a contributor, or any entity with which a contributor has a direct professional or financial relationship, stands to directly benefit from the outcome of a proposal or election.
Shielded Voting: On Snapshot, delegates’ votes are kept private during the voting process, but made public after the conclusion of the vote.
Arbitrum DAO’s Procedures
Voting Schedule
To improve predictability in the Arbitrum DAO’s operations, delegates agree to abide by the following vote scheduling guidelines.
Minimum Discussion Period of One Week
In accordance with the Arbitrum Constitution, delegates should follow the recommendation that proposals be open to discussion on the forums for at least one week before being put to a vote. This is to allow delegates ample time to review and provide feedback.
Start all votes on Thursdays
By starting both Snapshot and Tally votes on Thursday, on top of increasing predictability for delegates, the DAO would also prevent the scenario where votes begin/end on weekends.
Create Onchain AIPs on Tally on Mondays
In order for a Tally vote to start on Thursday, it must be posted on Monday given the 3-day delay from when a proposal is posted until voting begins.
Schedule Temperature Checks on Snapshot from Monday through Wednesday
Each batch of proposals ready to move to a Snapshot vote can be scheduled beforehand beginning on Monday and through Wednesday. Delegates are encouraged to post/schedule votes to begin before Thursday at 12 pm UTC. This can be achieved by setting the voting period to start in the future. While not a hard deadline, this will help ensure any votes start on Thursday for a majority of delegates worldwide.
DAO Holiday Break: December 18th, 2025 - January 5th, 2026
The DAO agrees to a holiday break to allow contributors a break and enable them to return refreshed for the new year. During this time contributors should aim to have no Snapshot or Tally voting occur from December 18th, 2025 to January 5th, 2026. To ensure this, temperature checks on Snapshot should begin no later than Thursday, December 11th, and Tally votes scheduled by Monday, December 1st. It is expected that proposal authors be cognizant of timelines and aim to have all voting wrapped up by Thursday, December 18th, if possible.
Differing from last year’s Holiday Break, it is permissible to post new proposals to the forum as to not overly delay certain initiatives. However, only emergency proposals should be put up to a vote.
Emergency Proposals
In the event of an emergency proposal that is time-sensitive in nature, any guidelines can be waived for the proposal to be put up to a vote immediately. While the determination of what constitutes an emergency vote is left to the proposer, the situation should be serious & time sensitive in nature, for example a Constitutional AIPs addressing a security matter or a treasury-related exploit attempt that is potentially not in the scope of the Security Council.
Election Standards
Self-Voting & Conflicts of Interest Policy
Contributors who disclose a conflict of interest are not expected to alter their voting in any way. Self-voting is not currently banned outright for the reasons stated in previous DAO-wide discussions and based on sentiment gathered from a subsequent temperature check. However, a contributor who repeatedly fails to disclose a conflict of interest before voting risks being removed from their compensated governance role.
Shielded Elections with Weighted Voting
Unless otherwise justified by the proposer, the Arbitrum DAO has agreed that the default Snapshot election type is to be weighted voting, as opposed to approval or ranked choice voting, and shielded.
Shielded voting encrypts votes during the voting period and decrypts them only after the vote closes. Put more simply, during the voting process, a voter’s position is private, and after the vote, positions are made public. Delegates can see who voted, but not their choice or the total VP per option. Shielded voting aims to mitigate bandwagon effects, minority voter apathy, and last-minute strategic voting. Participation rates and the impact of Shielded Elections is being monitored by Entropy.
Proposal authors still retain the optionality to justify why an election should not be shielded or weighted voting. Elections that lack justification but are posted as non-shielded or non-weighted voting should be considered void and either restarted immediately or pushed to the following Thursday.
For clarity purposes, the above mentioned requirements apply only to elections held on Snapshot. Procedures for the Security Council Elections are not altered in any way.
Minimum Application Period
In order to draw a sufficient number of high quality applicants, application periods should be a minimum of 14 days.
Where n = number of seats; proposal authors should seek to have at least n+3 applicants before starting the election. Since this may not always be possible, it is simply a recommendation and not a requirement.
DAO-Elected Member Replacement Process
The following process is for the replacement of a DAO-elected member who steps down from a program and no process has been previously defined in the primary proposal passed to initiate an initiative:
- If the initiative has an acting program manager or dedicated committee/council that manages the initiative, it is their responsibility to consult with all other involved parties to identify a suitable replacement or best path forward (including but not limited to possibly consolidating responsibilities across roles, renegotiating payment terms to reflect new duties, or not replacing a member due to the initiative coming to an end).
- If the initiative has no program manager or dedicated committee/council, the responsibility falls to the author of the proposal. In this event, they are entrusted with the same flexibility as the program manager and can decide the best course of action.
- If neither of these parties is suited to make the decision on member replacement, for the moment, the Arbitrum Foundation will be the determining party. Once ready, OpCo can assume this responsibility. Depending on the situation, the Arbitrum Foundation/OpCo may turn over the decision to the DAO and call for an election.
Whichever party ultimately makes the decision on the best course of action, they are expected to provide a short update with rationale and basic information for the DAO.
For the purposes of clarity, the above process is only for positions that are filled by a DAO-wide election, and no dedicated process to replace a member has been defined in the original proposal. If an initiative has a program manager/council-appointed position that needs replacement or filling, due to either an individual stepping down or underperforming, it will be left up to the discretion of the initiative owner/manager.
Voting Requirement for the Cancellation of Ongoing Initiatives
If not defined in the original proposal, the following wind-down voting requirement is to be considered the default.
A Snapshot vote where the number of FOR votes to wind down the initiative meets 3% of the votable supply. If there are more voting options than the basic FOR/AGAINST/ABSTAIN, the option with the largest number of votes will be applied, given that the options to modify/cancel an initiative together exceed the 3% of votable supply level. For the purpose of clarity, if a proposal only seeks to modify an existing initiative, this voting requirement will not apply.
The individual/entity that brings forward the proposal to cancel an ongoing initiative is expected to provide sufficient information and rationale to help inform the DAO of their intentions. Any individual/entity with the adequate 500k ARB of voting power to post a vote on Snapshot may move the proposal forward.
Delegating to the Arbitrum Exclude Address
ARB tokens allocated to DAO initiatives are not to be used in governance. To keep circulating voting supply from increasing, whenever possible, multi-sigs holding program funds should delegate to the Arbitrum Exclude Address. This is to prevent tokens from being included in quorum calculations. Individuals that do not want to participate in governance can also delegate their ARB to the Exclude Address. Instructions for how to do so have been outlined on this forum post.