Unifying Arbitrum DAO’s Vision, Mission, and Goals

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Unifying Arbitrum DAO’s Vision, Mission, and Goals

Please note that the following should be considered a rough draft as we seek feedback from the Arbitrum community and experts with brand and marketing experience to help make this more robust. That said, we think it is important to start seeking feedback as soon as possible. Following extensive conversations with key stakeholders and active delegates, we’ve strived to distill their thoughts and ideas into a cohesive vision for the Arbitrum DAO, presented below.

[Arbitrum’s Vision is] to accelerate the universal shift onchain by empowering the freedom to advance scalable, secure, and trust-minimized applications.

[Arbitrum’s Mission is] to bring secure, compelling, and full-featured rollups to the masses.

Arbitrum is in the midst of a hyper-growth phase. In 5 years, Arbitrum should be:

  • An expansive ecosystem of Orbit chains distributing high-quality blockspace through the Arbitrum tech stack. Every Orbit chain extends a unified Arbitrum brand.
  • An incubator that fosters native application and infrastructure development with Arbitrum One, becoming the most sought-after blockspace in crypto across a diverse range of verticals.
  • An ARB token recognized by the market as a result of value accrual from various sources in order to enhance rollup security.
  • Home to crypto’s most popular apps, many of which use Stylus as a mission-critical component to their codebase.
  • A strategic resource allocator capitalizing on Arbitrum’s growth by investing in infrastructure and applications that capture value in the ecosystem.
  • The premier tech suite providing flexibility and freedom to builders through features such as Timeboost, BoLD, custom gas tokens, sovereign governance, Stylus, and more.
  • Governed by the most robust DAO with aligned, active, sophisticated, and diverse delegates helping drive the ecosystem forward.
  • Supported by a sustainable, revenue-generating DAO with multi-faceted programs and efficient operational structures.
  • Committed to extending Ethereum’s values. Arbitrum is the default destination for users to interact with genuinely decentralized, trust-minimized technologies.
  • A household name with recognition on par with Bitcoin and Ethereum. Arbitrum is the gateway to Ethereum for new users from other chains and the real world.

In March 2023, the Arbitrum DAO was born with the launch of the ARB governance token. One of the largest and most widespread airdrops to date, the ARB token was distributed to over 580,000 unique addresses and 137 applications built on Arbitrum One. This moment marked a historic achievement, giving decentralized governance full control over all aspects of the execution environment; a pivotal step in the quest to scale Ethereum.

Over the past 15 months, tremendous progress has been made. Core developers announced the completion of Timeboost, Stylus, and BoLD. The Arbitrum Foundation quickly scaled to a team of over 30 contributors, and the Arbitrum DAO launched multiple grant programs, incentive initiatives, and investment ventures. Yet, one clear hole has emerged in the DAO, a lack of alignment on our objectives. When posed with the question, “What will Arbitrum look like in 5 years?”, it’s likely that developers, the Foundation, and the DAO’s many contributors would provide diverse answers. While Arbitrum’s bottom-up nature is one of its strengths, we now recognize the need for a unified vision—a north star to guide us. Additionally, a clear vision is required for the DAO to pursue its own brand and marketing strategies.

Today, each organization operating in the DAO must extrapolate for itself what it should work towards that contributes the most value to Arbitrum. Questions arise like should my organization work toward operational sustainability and painting a picture of ARB as a productive asset? Growth of Orbit? Growth of Stylus? Growth of Arbitrum one? Public Goods? etc. With a lack of visible direction, being an effective DAO operator becomes difficult. Additionally, the absence of concrete goals has made it challenging for the DAO to facilitate oversight and accountability. A system has been created where all the DAO can effectively do is judge “did this organization work hard” but lacks the ability to judge “did this organization do a good job moving Arbitrum forward?”

Arbitrum has always embraced the principle that the technology should speak for itself. As the largest layer-2 solution by nearly every metric, and the major rollup closest to reaching Stage 2, Arbitrum represents more than just outstanding tech. Arbitrum embodies Freedom:

  • Orbit Chains: Applications can now create their own fully customizable blockspace. Orbit chains act as Web3 servers tapping into the underlying liquidity and user base of Arbitrum One or any other chain.
  • Stylus: Provides the freedom to leverage the efficiencies of Rust, C, and C++ to write smart contracts without losing EVM compatibility.
  • Timeboost: A new transaction ordering policy with an express lane auction system that generates revenue for the DAO without hindering UX.

Ultimately, Arbitrum offers permissionless access to the best scaling tech stack in crypto, allowing any user, developer, or individual to build and interact with trust-minimized technologies in seconds.

Our Guiding Principles Thus Far

Since its creation, the Arbitrum DAO has been governed by its Constitution and seven community values:

  1. Ethereum-aligned: Arbitrum is part of the Ethereum ecosystem and community
  2. Sustainable: Focus on long-term health of the protocol over short-term gains
  3. Secure: Arbitrum is security minded
  4. Socially inclusive: Open and welcoming to all constructive participants
  5. Technically inclusive: Accessible for ordinary people with ordinary technology
  6. User-focused: Managed for the benefit of all users
  7. Neutral and open: Foster open innovation, interoperation, user choice, and healthy competition

These values have guided us thus far, but it is time to align on a grander vision. What is Arbitrum’s north star? What are the ecosystem and its numerous contributors (the DAO and its programs, Foundation, and development teams) working towards?

We have done our best with this first draft to align what we believe many key contributors think of as the DAO’s vision, mission, and goals, but we must solicit more community feedback and iterate before moving forward.

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Finally time to kickstart this discussion. Let me do an exercise and try to associate to all the bullet points current programs, stakeholders and relevant actors, so we can understand where we are at a more granular level compared to where we want to be in 5 years. Then we discuss the higher level.

So far the key stakeholders here seems like to be the Foundation and @Camelot. Likely, biggest painpoint here is the infra but i remember @davidgarcia mentioning foundation is working on this.

While I always think Arbitrum should be a base choice due to the underneath values and techs, we also need a more structured approach here with specific initiatives. Top of my head, this is solved with specific bootstrap programs that have to go toward a specific direction. We lack this and have left the role to Questbook, Thrive, and partially the Foundation (which i think is having the best results through thematic grants). There should be a more unified approach; yes, diversity is good but we are going in 100 directions in different programs, more focalized efforts with either a coordination entity or some sort of standardized reporting that allows us to compare apples to bananas might help. Pretty sure that beside grants there could be other tools to use.

This will be achieved with time. Weaponization of treasury and of initiatives like GCP is a source of avenue; timeboost could be another source. This is something that is complex from a strategic and economical standpoint and likely we will grow into it, but also needs some pre requisite that we lack like a financial program to manage treasury and others.

Pushing for specific initiatives and hackaton here to grow stylus is potentially key here; and tbh not sure what we have done about this, or anything arbitrum related in the past. GovHack can become an event that is not only a staple in major events (denver/ethcc/devcon), but could evolve into StylusHack, and in general ArbitrumTechHack. Paging @KlausBrave here. And yes the name i proposed sucks.

Partially done, as idea, by GCP, that effectively will invest in projects that are key in gaming. There is a merit in thinking about strategic grants as investments in protocols and teams. As of today, we have no coverage in this.

Not too much to add here; our dear overloard at offchainlabs have pushed a lot of amazing features and will keep doing this, and foundation with the recent bold validator vote is bootstrapping an important piece of this. Ball is in the field of the dao to push for visibility and value accrual of this in the rest of the crypto world (and world in general). A strategic plan to understand where to put more energy and a timeline could be helpful maybe?

The DIP program from @SEEDGov / @seedlatam is a great start, and other initiatives like the horizon one are also important. We should likely evolve the DIP program over time and the intersection with the staking initiative is a start to intersect delegates, technlogy and revenue. Is up to us to make it work, and the working group for active delegates will be key here. But we need an higher reach as well, that currently I wouldn’t know how to achieve, to involve more professional figures from the outside world.

One of the biggest gaps we have. We need a Dao budget, we need a treasury diversification program, we need to invest in specific initiatives, we need a CapCo. We need a lot of stuff, and likely we needed most of this already last year. As for trees, best time to plant one is 20y ago, second best time is now, feels like this should be a primary focus right now.

This is a bit abstract as goal, while extremely important. Think most participants currently not only share this value but also apply it to their day to day business/contribution. Having a way to evaluate if going right vs left is more ethereum aligned, and asking ourself this question more frequently, could help avoid complacency or strange unwanted drifts.

this will come naturally from all the above.

So, where are we now? If i look at the above, without adding anything new to this discussion (think there is plenty already on the plate) we have

  1. total gaps like economical sustainability of the DAO
  2. goals that we are already partially filling like the DAO participation: we have specific initiatives (dip in this case), we are specializing them and evolving them (arb staking program), we should keep the trajectory
  3. in between situations like the incubator.

This list is dense, likely non exhaustive and the implementation of goals will require ton of works: would it make sense to have priorities?

Plus, one of the main weakness we have, that can be turned into a strength point, is the lack of coordination of initiatives. There is some, but mostly because a few key stakeholders and delegates that are directly involved in certain initiatives take the burden of talking and synching with others, but we can increase ten folds this aspect achieving efficiency and a leveraged result. Answer is potentially the OpCo and other Cos.

Really glad that we are finally starting this discussion.

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We wanted to share the vision that Entropy started with before seeking out stakeholder input and editing to accommodate what we believe to be the majority opinion. Our original vision had focused on shifting the DAO’s priorities from growth to sustainability.

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I wholeheartedly agree with the proposal’s intent to unify Arbitrum DAO’s vision, mission, and goals. This step is crucial for aligning the community and providing a clear direction for all stakeholders involved. However, I believe there’s an opportunity for deeper exploration into what this vision truly entails.

Vision Clarity: While the proposal outlines a high-level vision, there seems to be a gap in understanding the granular details of what this vision looks like in practice. What does “a scalable, secure, and decentralized future for Ethereum” mean for the day-to-day operations, for developers, for users, or for the broader ecosystem?

Community Engagement: More work could be done in engaging the community to define this vision. Perhaps workshops, town halls, or even a dedicated vision summit could help. This would not only refine the vision but also ensure it resonates with everyone from developers to casual users.

Long-term vs. Short-term Goals: There’s a need to distinguish between immediate goals that can be achieved in the short term and those that are part of a longer-term vision. This distinction will help in setting realistic expectations and in planning resource allocation effectively.

Metrics of Success: How will we measure if we’re achieving this vision? Defining clear, measurable outcomes or milestones linked to the vision could provide a roadmap for progress, ensuring that the mission and goals are not just aspirational but actionable.

Inclusivity in Vision Crafting: It’s vital that this vision is crafted with inclusivity in mind, considering the diverse needs and perspectives within and outside the current Arbitrum community. This might involve reaching out to adjacent communities or industries that could benefit from or contribute to this vision.

Feedback Loop: Establishing a continuous feedback mechanism post-launch of this vision could be beneficial. This would allow for iterative improvements based on real-world application and evolving needs.

In essence, while I support the proposal, I encourage a more thorough exploration of what our vision means in practical terms. This deeper dive will not only strengthen the proposal but also ensure that the vision, once set, becomes a living document that evolves with the community it serves. Let’s not just agree on a vision; let’s craft one that inspires and guides our collective journey forward.

This response aims to support the proposal while pushing for a more comprehensive understanding and engagement around the vision, ensuring it’s not just set but deeply understood and embraced by the community.

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Firstly, thanks to @Entropy for raising this as a dedicated post, and for @JoJo’s comments.

This topic warrants a large and open discussion.

As active participants in governance, we’ve experienced firsthand the challenges of coordinating multiple programs and working groups without a shared vision and clear objectives. This lack of alignment stifles the effectiveness of all initiatives, potentially even leading to overlapping or redundant efforts.

For this reason, we are strongly in favour of aligning together on a long-term vision for the Arbitrum DAO, which can serve as a starting point for all future initiatives, to boost their effectiveness, and impact, and reduce wasteful spending of funds and efforts.

This would also help expand synergies across ecosystem actors, with a positive impact on collaboration and cross-pollination of initiatives, leading to second-order benefits to the whole ecosystem.

We have been looking at and discussing this internally for quite some time.

Initially, we critically analysed the Vision, Mission, and Goals provided. Whilst it makes a strong effort to describe a multi-faceted endpoint:

  • The vision is a complex phrase made up of technical and corporate wording;
  • It only partially serves as a guideline, but not a North Star that each DAO stakeholder should live by;
  • It needs to be translated into a tangible strategy to move forward;
  • And it lacks an exploration of relationships with Web2 and consumer-facing organizations and applications.

So, we thought we’d give it a crack ourselves, answering some key questions along the way to get us there.

In Castle’s Opinion…

We must collectively discuss and understand what Arbitrum is, what its goals are, and what its key pillars of contribution should be.

To a regular market participant, Arbitrum is hard to define, like the surface of water—appearing still, but with hidden currents beneath, constantly shifting and reflecting something different.

Many have seen this fluid, ever-changing nature as a curse, and in some ways, it hinders us now. But this dynamic and ethereal quality is also the very reason why we’re here, why Arbitrum thrives. It’s fluid and adaptable because of the vast array of currents in the ecosystem, many of which were lovingly and carefully crafted by a diverse and evolving community years ago. These currents, ideas, and contributions merge into something that cannot be easily replicated.

Another Layer 2 platform may launch with similar or greater technical features and short-term incentives, but this unique, flowing ecosystem, built over time by the hands of so many, cannot simply be cloned. It’s the collective, evolutionary process—the invisible threads of effort, innovation, and creativity—that make Arbitrum more than the sum of its parts. This is what makes it special.

What is Arbitrum?

What is Arbitrum’s North Star?

What are the Key Pillars of Contribution?

What should the ecosystem and its numerous contributors (the DAO and its programs, the Foundation, and development teams) be working towards?

The Bigger Picture

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The bigger picture of Arbitrum’s evolution is rooted in its ongoing efforts to create a self-sustaining ecosystem that is adaptable, scalable, and driven by community collaboration. Arbitrum’s journey has unfolded in distinct phases, each of which plays a crucial role in shaping its future, all aligned with its North Star and core pillars of contribution.

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  • Technology Stack: In the early stages, Arbitrum’s foundation was laid through innovative technology deployments like Arbitrum Nitro and more recently Stylus and Orbit Chains. These tools allowed developers to build scalable, efficient decentralized applications (dApps), enabling the Application Layer to thrive. This phase established Arbitrum as a technical leader, setting the groundwork for future growth.

    • North Star: Build a Network of Orbit Chains
    • Key Pillar of Contribution: Proliferating Arbitrum’s Technology

  • Applications: As the tech matured, the Application Layer became home to DeFi protocols, NFT platforms, and gaming dApps. This phase represents the initial impact of Arbitrum’s technology on the broader ecosystem, driving innovation and usage.

    • North Star: Attract Crypto’s Most Popular Applications and Businesses

  • Ecosystem: Currently, the ecosystem is at the heart of Arbitrum’s focus. Builders, DAOs, and the community are collaborating to ensure a vibrant and connected ecosystem that aligns with Ethereum values. This phase is about deepening the integration of different projects and participants, fostering a collaborative environment where ideas and development can flourish.

    • North Star: Foster a Thriving Developer Community
    • Key Pillar of Contribution: Expanding and Connecting the Ecosystem

  • Sustainable Revenue Model: Looking ahead, Arbitrum is striving to establish a sustainable revenue model through transaction fees, licensing, and ecosystem growth. This revenue will be critical to ensuring the platform’s long-term stability and success.

    • Key Pillar of Contribution: Building a Sustainable Tokenomics and Revenue Model

In this interconnected system, each component of Arbitrum’s ecosystem depends on the others, creating a continuous cycle of growth.

Ultimately, Arbitrum’s North Star guides the ecosystem toward becoming the leading platform for scalable applications, supported by a community-driven environment, innovative technology, and a sustainable revenue model. This vision is anchored by its pillars of contribution, which focus on expanding the ecosystem, proliferating technology, and building long-term financial sustainability.

In this interconnected system, each component of Arbitrum’s ecosystem depends on the others, creating a continuous cycle of growth.

Closing Remarks

We hope these remarks serve as a starting point for a more pragmatic conversation aimed at defining Arbitrum’s north star and long-term vision. By aligning on a clear path forward, we can work together to translate these discussions into strategic initiatives and programs that shape the future of Arbitrum’s ecosystem.

This collaborative effort will ensure that the entire community—builders, DAO members, and contributors—can coalesce around a unified direction, fostering innovation and growth that benefit everyone involved.

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gm, excited to see this conversation coming alive—it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while. I love the direction this is taking and fully agree with the vision being painted. I would like to contribute with a potential definition of the North Star.

The North Star should encompass:

  • A Vision of the Ecosystem: What we stand for and where we are heading.
  • A Philosophy: The core beliefs driving Arbitrum.
  • The Ultimate Goal: Every action should align with and contribute toward this goal.
  • A Marketing Message: Simple, impactful, and with broad appeal, resonating deeply with both builders and users.

For example, Optimism immediately centered around their North Star: Impact = Profit, emphasizing their focus on public goods and an impact-driven mission with a clear top-down approach. Whether it’s the right or wrong North Star, it’s clear, powerful, and actionable.

On the other hand, Arbitrum has always had a tech-first approach, leaving other ecosystem actors with the task—and burden—of creating the right environment for that tech to thrive. While Arbitrum excels on the technical side, we’ve yet to fully foster the collaborative ecosystem that @CastleCapital pointed out.

For example, compare Arbitrum Orbit with the Superchain narrative—a powerful, cohesive ecosystem where every chain supports one another. A rising tide that lifts all boats. In contrast, Orbit chains often feel isolated, with no clear reason or cohesive narrative—beyond the tech and scattered incentives—driving builders to build on Arbitrum.

We can change this. Castle highlighted the need to foster a thriving community of developers, applications, and chains. I agree, and we can distill this further into a clear, compelling question:

The Most Important Question for Builders:

Why should I build my app on Arbitrum?

This is what it all boils down to. If we position Arbitrum (and the Orbit chains) as the best place to launch, we can succeed in our mission. Apps attract users, users generate transactions, and transactions bring revenue. Builders attract other builders, creating synergies and composability between projects, pushing the ecosystem forward. Soon, users won’t even know or care what chain they’re on (just like in web2, where users are unaware of the underlying infrastructure—hello chain abstraction). To reiterate: **Builders are the foundation. ** Builders are all that matters, and we should make it extremely clear.

Suggestion for Arbitrum’s North Star:

Arbitrum is the Home of Builders. Arbitrum is the Home of Innovation.

How it fits:

  • An Evergreen Message: . It’s forward-looking yet welcoming. It provides a clear direction for every initiative. Does it make Arbitrum the Home of Builders?
  • Core Values: Arbitrum embodies freedom, openness, and a bottom-up approach— Builders need flexibility, freedom, and an environment that encourages continuous experimentation and innovation. Let’s provide a fertile ground for innovators.

It aligns seamlessly with the elements that @Entropy and @CastleCapital laid out, the principles of inclusivity, technological enablers, a strong DAO and a sustainable ARB, ecc.

Just to clarify, this is not a new concept.
All successful ( / hyped) ecosystems are focusing on builders.

  • Base: “we’ll onramp users for you”
  • Berachain: “we’ll provide embedded liquidity for your app”
  • Solana: “only here you can build new things”.

It’s only by making a simple, explicit, and widespread statement that we can win the most important and scarce resource in the space. If you are Builder, this is your place.

It then cascades down into strategies and elements across all layers:

  • A collaborative ecosystem for apps and chains.
  • Secure, fast, and customizable infrastructure to support builders’ needs.
  • Fast and seamless interoperability across chains, enabling the free movement of assets and users (link to proposal coming soon).
  • A DAO committed to supporting builder-first initiatives, ensuring the necessary tools and resources are always available for creators.
  • Grants and contests designed to encourage continuous innovation, ensuring that major apps constantly push boundaries.
  • Yield-generating mechanisms that attract developers and users by maximizing value for ETH, the most coveted asset.
  • A more cohesive narrative for Orbit chains, where chains support and enhance one another.

…and creates the flywheel that Castle outlined and the ongoing programs that @JoJo mentioned.

To truly accelerate the universal shift onchain, as Entropy stated, by empowering scalable, secure, and trust-minimized applications, we must establish Arbitrum as the Home of Builders and the Home of Innovation.

Now is the time to make Arbitrum the destination of choice for every visionary builder who wants to create the future of the onchain economy.

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As with most efforts to converge a such important questions as vision, mission, alignment and long term goals….this discourse is diverging.

I would like to offer my time to solve this.

Using a wisdom of crowds method:

  1. Independent judgements with wallet (deform survey)

  2. I will use my SimScore aggregation tool to prioritize the judgments, leading to priority list (average and token-weighted) and relationship graph.

  3. The top 5-10 ideas can then be the basis of debate.

  4. A rank vote or pairwise method could then finalize the ranking.

  5. Entropy could the. Craft a vision statement.

There is strong evidence that the above approach (Delphi Method - Estimate - talk - Estimate) can lead to convergence (consensus) without groupthink or social influence.

I suggest the question:

What are your 3 critical ideas that describe Arbitrum’s vision?

Let me know if you are interested and I’ll set up the deform survey.

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The top 3 ideas from this Discourse are:

  1. “We are strongly in favor of aligning together on a long-term vision for the Arbitrum DAO.” (Expressing support for a unified long-term vision.) 41% from center
  2. “More work could be done in engaging the community to define this vision.” (Stressing the importance of community involvement in shaping the vision.) 41% from center
  3. “There seems to be a gap in understanding the granular details of what this vision looks like in practice.” (Pointing out the need for clarity in the vision’s practical implications.)39% from center

The Outlier responses are:
27. “There is some coordination, but we can increase tenfold this aspect achieving efficiency.” (Recognizing the existing coordination but emphasizing the potential for significant improvement.)
28. “Biggest pain point here is the infra but I remember @davidgarcia mentioning the foundation is working on this.” (Identifying infrastructure as a critical issue being addressed by the foundation.) 19% from center
29. “There is merit in thinking about strategic grants as investments in protocols and teams.” 19% from center(Advocating for a shift in the approach to funding as a means of investment.) 16% from center

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Arbitrum’s Vision: Lead the global shift to blockchain by empowering the development of scalable, secure, and trustworthy applications.

Arbitrum’s Mission: Make blockchain technology more accessible with secure, powerful solutions that bundle multiple transactions to reduce costs and increase efficiency.