Below you’ll find the ArbitrumDAO’s Procedures, as approved by a governance process on April 2, 2026. For more historical context, scroll to the bottom.
Predictable 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 offchain and onchain 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 Mondays
In order for an onchain vote to start on Thursday, it must be created on the Monday prior given the 3-day delay from when a proposal is posted until voting begins.
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.
Elections with Weighted Voting
Unless otherwise justified by the proposer, the Arbitrum DAO has agreed that the default offchain election type is to be weighted voting, as opposed to approval or ranked choice voting.
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:
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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).
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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.
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If neither of these parties is suited to make the decision on member replacement, for the moment, the OpCo will be the determining party.
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.
An offchain vote where the number of FOR votes to wind down the initiative meets 40% of delegated voting power (currently the non-constitutional mark under DVP quorum). 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 40% of delegated voting power. For the purpose of clarity, if a proposal only seeks to modify an existing initiative, this voting requirement procedure 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 an offchain vote may move the proposal forward.
DAO Holiday Break: December 18th, 2026 – January 4th, 2027
The purpose of the Holiday Break is to ensure that voters have a break and can return refreshed for the new year. The primary goal is for there to be no voting during the especially busy holiday period of December 24th – January 1st.
During this time, proposal authors should be cognizant of the Holiday Break in early December and aim to have all voting wrapped up by Thursday, December 17th, 2026 if possible. To ensure this, offchain votes would have to start no later than Thursday, December 10th, 2026, and onchain votes scheduled by Monday, November 30th, 2026. New proposals may still be posted to the forum during this period, so that the governance process is not slowed down too much.
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 AIP addressing a security matter.
Going forward, OpCo will have the authority to determine the Holiday Break period based on how the calendar falls in that given year. Their team will be responsible for announcing the specific dates at the beginning of the year and reminding delegates as the break approaches.
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.
Historical Context
The previous version of the DAO’s Procedures was voted for a trial period that was set to expire on January 31st, 2026. There was a stipulation that enabled the Arbitrum Foundation to extend the trial period by an additional 2 months. During that extension, the Arbitrum Foundation, Entropy Advisors and OpCo worked on gathering feedback from delegates, considered and made some amendments, and put a new version of the Code of Conduct forward through the governance process. The vote passed successfully and as of April 2026, the OpCo has assumed the responsibility for stewarding the Arbi DAO’s Procedures.
Past Versions
The above is the third amendment of the Code of Conduct and is now under the stewardship of the OpCo. You can find previous, now deprecated, versions in the links below.
Feedback & Review Process
With the Code of Conduct and DAO Procedures existing as living documents, the OpCo will serve as the steward of the documents and is responsible for maintaining them over time. Changes can be proposed and adopted through the following process:
Feedback and Observation. Any contributor may propose amendments by submitting feedback through a dedicated channel maintained by OpCo (for example a forum thread or dedicated google form). OpCo may also identify necessary changes based on its own observations of governance activity, enforcement gaps, or evolving DAO needs.
Drafting and Posting. When OpCo determines that a change is warranted, it will draft the proposed amendment and post it to the governance forum with a clear description of what is being changed and why.
Optimistic Approval. Proposed changes take effect automatically 14 days after being posted to the forum unless a combined 5% of DVP, calculated at the time of the forum post, raises objections through the appropriate governance forum amendment thread. This threshold, currently ~16.75M VP, is high enough to prevent trivial escalations from slowing down maintenance-type updates, but low enough that a coalition of small-medium sized delegates can trigger a vote on changes they consider substantive. The 14-day window is intended to give delegates sufficient time to review the proposed changes and OpCo will be responsible for monitoring objections and tallying the VP delegates.
- Escalation to an Offchain Vote. If sufficient VP raises an objection to the changes, the OpCo must then put the change to an offchain vote with a quorum set at the active non-constitutional quorum level.
Annual Review. In addition to the ongoing amendment process, OpCo will conduct a review of the Code of Conduct and DAO Procedures each January, soliciting community feedback and proposing any updates deemed necessary. This review serves as a regular checkpoint but does not preclude amendments at other times of the year.