As part of the ‘Candidate Eligibility Evaluation’ phase, the Arbitrum Foundation and Entropy Advisors have reviewed all applications, and here are the results of the evaluation phase.
A direct representative or full-time employee at the operations subDAO of dYdX, an Arbitrum network competitor.
Applicants would have to fulfill all prerequisites to be categorized under the ‘Qualified applicants’ and cleared to run for the OAT elections. Applicants who are in the pending category will be automatically disqualified if they do not fulfill all prerequisites by March 26th, 23:59 UTC.
The ‘Candidate Eligibility Evaluation’ phase will be closed later today (Wednesday, March 26th) at 23:59 UTC, and a snapshot for the elections will be initiated on Thursday, March 27th, following the conclusion of the Candidate Introductions Call. The call has been added to the governance calendar, and you can also access it directly here.
Immediate Timelines:
Candidate Eligibility Evaluation: March 24th - March 26th (23:59 UTC)
Candidate Introductions Call: March 27th (13:00 - 14:30 UTC)
OAT elections: March 27th (after 14:30 UTC) - April 3rd
Disclaimer: I have worked with Valentin as a Supervisor of the dYdX Operations subDAO for the past 1.5 years+
The disqualification here makes no sense to me here and I wholly agree with @paulofonseca (the fact that I agree w/Paulo should already be a tell on how blatantly incorrect this is)
What makes dYdX, an app-chain solely restricted to perp-trading (and related products) similar to Arbitrum in any way shape or form that would cause a conflict of interest? dYdX is a Cosmos Chain, dYdX is a Layer-1, dYdX doesn’t have an ecosystem of projects on said L1, dYdX also isn’t aimed at competing with Arbitrum (and has never aimed to) in any way shape or form.
This is a total misunderstanding of what a conflict of interest is. Where there is a conflict of interest, the interest that has caused the conflict should be specifically outlined. In this case, what is that interest exactly? dYdX is an L1 (not an L2), it is a Cosmos Chain (not on Ethereum), so where exactly is this conflict?
But wouldn’t you then also have to say Solana is no competitor as its a L1 and not L2 and its not EVM but its system with rust?
Where do we as a DAO draw a line?
Valentin was disqualified for the following criteria:
be a direct representative or full-time employee at network competitors
We view dYdX as a competitor in a similar manner as Solana or Unichain, as it competes with DeFi applications on Arbitrum. Additionally, he is a full time employee to the operations subDAO of the dYdX ecosystem. Together, unfortunately, he satisfied the criteria.
The issue here isn’t that dYdX is a competitor—it’s that a role on the OAT committee requires 10+ hours per week and he works full-time at dydx. And, as a small but telling detail, the way this person’s team handles free speech on their own forum (banning any dissenting opinions) and ignoring any requests to explain specific expenses disqualifies him from any transparency-related positions. Just my two cents