Name: Wintermute Governance
ENS: wintermutegovernance.eth
Tally Profile URL: Tally | Wintermute Governance
This thread will be reserved for Wintermute’s voting rationale. Our delegate statement can be found here!
Grant Request - Curve Finance
Vote: For
Summary: While we are cautious of setting precedents of grants outside of incentive programs due to governance workload, we think this grant is justified. Curve’s lending architecture has proven to be rather successful and adds value to the Arbitrum ecosystem, we, therefore, are in support of matching Michael’s grant request.
GovHack at ETH CC (Brussels)
Vote: Abstain
Summary: This is a nice initiative and we can understand its appeal in fostering a strong Arbitrum community. In saying that, this is out of our mandate as a delegate and therefore, will be abstaining from voting.
[Non-Constitutional AIP] Front-end interface to force transaction inclusion during sequencer downtime
Vote: For
Summary: While we expect something to be spun up by the community in the case of any sequencer downtime, we understand the value in which a dedicated front-end could provide. Furthermore, the proposal was well-written, appropriately priced, and had clear deliverables.
Pilot Phase: M&A for Arbitrum DAO
Vote: For
Summary: The proposed M&A pilot sprint provides clear areas of focus and deliverables and the outlined costs seem somewhat reasonable. We look forward to seeing the end product of this pilot to further inform our decision for its next stage.
Streamlining the LTIPP Bounties
Vote: Abstain
Summary: Abstaining from voting given Wintermute is a part of the LTIPP Council.
Arbitrum Multi-sig Support Service (MSS)
Vote: FOR: Implement MSS and Reporting
Summary: We are supportive of this initiative and agree with its rationale. There is an increasing number of DAO initiatives of which all require multisig services, we are also seeing certain members receive overlapping payments as they span across multiple multisigs. The overall structure seems sufficient and we look forward to seeing it in practice.
Catalyze Gaming Ecosystem Growth on Arbitrum
Vote: For
Summary: While there has been a lot of controversy of the size of the GCP fund, we are supportive of the initiative. Firstly, the proposed structure, KPIs, responsibilities, and requirements of the program are well-defined and sufficient. Secondly, the DAO is investing into an industry that in a few strong cases has proven PMF with the likes of Axie Infinity, the Ronin Chain, and various other gaming ecosystems, making such a large investment of resources more palatable. A large fund of this size makes Arbitrum one of the main options for game studios and companies that require significant funding or investments, arguably making the probability of incubating the next successful gaming ecosystem a lot higher. However, we do share similar concerns over the total size of funds allocated to salaries, it certainly seems on the higher end and we found there to be a lack of sufficient justification, clarity, and visibility.
Constitutional AIP - Security Council Improvement Proposal
Vote: For
Summary: We support the proposed Security Council Improvement Proposal and value the DAO’s efforts to ensure Arbitrum remains at Stage 1.
ArbitrumDAO Contribution; Safeguarding Software Developers’ Rights
Vote: For
Summary: While not directly applicable to our Delegate Platform mandate, we will be supporting this proposal as we did with Uniswap. Both firms engage in important work that has a noticeable impact on DeFi and we think it’s appropriate for larger DAOs to support them under a reasonable grant request.
Set up a Sub-Committee for the Security Services Subsidy Fund
Vote: Against
Summary: While we may have been supportive of the sub-committee over a longer period, we don’t think the delay, additional costs, extra governance processes, size of the committee, and additional work created for sub-committee members make sense for an 8 week period. Such a program fits well within the ADPC mandate and should be administered accordingly.
AIP: Nova Fee Router Proposal (ArbOS 30)
Vote: For
Summary: A simple yet effective proposal that makes complete sense. We support the Nove Fee Router
AIP: Activate Stylus and Enable Next-Gen WebAssembly Smart Contracts (ArbOS 30)
Vote: For
Summary: Stylus is a significant addition to Arbitrum’s tech stack that should naturally find a home with traditional developers looking to transition to the blockchain industry. There is a clear market for it alongside evident smart contract efficiency improvements. We are super supportive of Stylus and look forward to its launch.
AIP: Support RIP-7212 for Account Abstraction Wallets (ArbOS 30)
Vote: For
Summary: Passkeys provide inherent and frictionless safety improvements for user wallets. We support the necessary changes in order for Arbitrum to verify the secp256r1 curve cheaply.
Election of STEP Program Manager
Vote: 60% Steakhouse 40% Avantgarde
Summary: Both Steakhouse and Avantgarde have solid applications with demonstrated experience working amongst DAOs, legal entities, and TradFi/RWA experience. Steakhouse’s application was very clear in their due diligence frameworks and reasoning for withdrawals, furthermore, their experience with MakerDAO and RWA initiatives makes them a perfect fit for the role as they already have all the underlying infrastructure set up. This is why they received the majority of our votes.
[NON-CONSTITUTIONAL] Pilot Phase: Arbitrum Ventures Initiative
Vote: For [No IRL Event]
Summary: Lino was very receptive to our initial feedback regarding the cost and overall structure of the program. We support the final version of the proposal and are much more comfortable with the outlined Pilot phase. As the DAO matures, we do think it’s important to clarify a guiding light when it comes to the deployment of funds into relevant ventures. Our main concern is that there is a great mismatch in human capital when it comes to tokenholders and community members establishing an investment thesis and dispersing funds accordingly as they are not professional venture funds. Nonetheless, the Pilot is reasonably priced and we still see the value of establishing an overall vision of what stakeholders think is valuable and worthy of funding for future endeavours. Lastly, we voted for no IRL event as we don’t think it’s necessary and an expense that can be avoided.
AIP: BoLD - permissionless validation for Arbitrum
Vote: For
Summary: We are in full support of BoLD!
STIP Addendum Votes
MUX STIP Bridge Challenge
Vote: Reject Funding
Summary: MUX had a great STIP period as did the Arbitrum ecosystem, they received a significant grant to incentivise trading and LPs. However, we can’t justify the additional 1.9M ARB spend for a few reasons:
- A large majority is once again spent on fee rebates, a cost that is purely the result of each protocol’s decision to charge users and something we don’t feel the DAO should be spending funds on to the extent outlined in the proposal.
- There has been a noticeable decreasing trend in DAU’s & trading volume (excluding volatility spikes), which suggest a decreasing demand for the product. DAU did not also significantly increase on average prior to STIP.
- There is little variation in the distribution mechanism in response to the above and no effort to attempt to improve on the prior mechanism.
- Lastly, ~66% of their 6M ARB was earned by 10 addresses. While there are clear anti-sybil measures, we don’t think this is great and likely outlines an overspending problem for the DAO.
Stargate STIP Bridge Challenge
Vote: Approve Funding
Summary: Given their approval but failure to KYC and then forego their STIP allocation, we think it’s fair for Stargate to have a new attempt. While we don’t typically support pure rebate programs there is sufficient variation in this proposal with significantly lower costs assuming V2 is up and running in time. We are particularly a fan of their OFT rebates as we think there is greater value in native gov token portability.
Solv STIP Bridge Challenge
Vote: Approve Funding
Summary: Solv has been quite the exception with extremely impressive usage statistics. Post STIP there has been a notable decline in TVL however, not enough to suggest that there is a lack of organic demand for the protocol. The ask is rather small and most of the incentives go towards funding liquidity for protocols through the Arbitrum ecosystem which is nice.
Umami Finance STIP Addendum
Vote: Approve Funding
Summary: Umami’s metrics have gone up a considerable amount during the STIP program with a decent amount of retention post incentives. They have demonstrated their ability to incorporate learning from the STIP and adjust their new incentive mechanism accordingly.
Dolomite STIP Addendum
Vote: Approve funding
Summary: Dolomite has shown impressive growth metrics with increasing TVL and borrow demand. They also saw a noticeable increase in their user base. Post incentives, their metrics have continued to grow and their incentive mechanism has proven successful.
Thetanuts Finance STIP Addendum
Vote: Approve funding
Summary: Thetanuts experienced impressive growth and success despite a relatively small grant request. Their new incentive mechanism incorporates other Arbitrum protocols contributing to composability and providing greater capital efficiency for onchain capital.
Disclaimer: Wintermute is an investor in Thetanuts
OpenOcean STIP Addendum
Vote: Approve funding
Summary: We were about cautious about supporting this request, however, OpenOceans STIP program generated positive results most notably - Volume and DAU. Their overall ARB distribution was widely disbursed with no clear signs of strong concentration. Given they displayed their ability to understand shortfalls and how they plan to structure the new round of incentives we are supportive of their bridge.
Angle DAO STIP Addendum
Vote: Approve Funding
Summary: Angle had a relatively successful STIP program achieving decent growth for their EUR stablecoin. They provided a lot insight into what went well and what went wrong and have decided to pivot their new incentive strategy accordingly. Their focus on stUSD will likely be more successful and they are focused on bootstrapping its usage across lending markets and perpetual dexes on Arbitrum which is far better than pure LM incentives. We have also urged the Angle team to be much more vigilant in their reporting.
Disclaimer: Wintermute is an investor in Angle Protocol
Socket Bridge STIP Addendum
Vote: Reject Funding
Summary: Socket showed some good growth metrics across users and volume, however, they failed to report and provide active feedback as to what went well and what went wrong in their STIP. We would’ve like to have seen greater reflection as to why they needed an additional 500k ARB. Furthermore, we don’t think spending this much ARB on bridge rebates is worth it.
Furucombo STIP Addendum
Vote: Reject funding
Summary: Ineligible request which is not in line with the program’s rules. Furthermore, the size is not sufficiently justified given the growth during STIP.
Stake DAO STIP Addendum
Vote: Reject funding
Summary: Rejection largely comes from unspent funds from the prior STIP round. We think these funds should be dispersed before applying for a bridge, lastly, there has been a lack of growth, however, this has ramped up as incentives have increased.
Savvy DAO STIP Addendum
Vote: Reject funding
Summary: We found the requested grant size to be too large given the growth of the protocol. Looking prior to STIP and the total age of the protocol, there has been any meaningful organic growth over time. As a result we don’t think it’s a good use of DAO funds.
Thales Protocol STIP Addendum
Vote: Approve funding
Summary: Thales has experienced sufficient growth to justify additional DAO expenditure and their requested grant size is reasonable. They have a good reward distribution model which has a large emphasis on onboarding users to Arbitrum in the easiest way possible.
Boost (Prev. RabbitHole) STIP Addendum
Vote: Reject funding
Summary: The STIP showed clear evidence of extremely high sybil ratios with activity falling off considerably post incentives. This level of inorganic traction is not justifiable from an expense POV, and while they have attempted to address this in the new proposal, we don’t think an additional 500k is appropriate given they are trailing this new anti-sybil measure.
Gains Network STIP Addendum
Vote: Approve funding
Summary: The Gains network saw a good amount of growth during STIP. Although the activity has died down, the team continues to invest in improving their product and demonstrated a significant level of reflection on their shortcoming and what can be improved. We like their new incentive mechanism and look forward to seeing the results of their bridge.
KyberSwap STIP Bridge Challenge
Vote: Approve funding
Summary: Kyberswap initially missed out on STIP due to their exploit, despite this, they’ve managed to come back strong and impressively publish strong volume and user metrics with no ARB incentives. We think they should receive a second chance.
Tide STIP Bridge Challenge
Vote: Reject funding
Summary: There was some decent growth and metrics, however, they largely missed their KPI numbers and still retain some ARB from the STIP program. We also found there to be a lack of verifiable data to truly understand the success of the program. Unfortunately, we cannot justify additional spend.
Sanko GameCorp STIP Addendum
Vote: Approve Funding
Summary: Sanko has shown some impressive growth metrics with decent retention. Their protocol is novel and adds significant value to the Arbitrum ecosystem. We particularly like their incentive mechanism and feel comfortable extending further funding.
1 Like
Pilot Stage – Treasury Backed Vaults research and development
Vote: Against
Summary: We do not support the current structure of the proposal and the overall idea. This is a large expense and the DAO should not be paying for development and audits prior to research being done. Sharing our forum response below:
This is an interesting idea, however, we do have some reservations about whether or not this is something the DAO needs as stated in its current form.
A mechanism like this seems good because the DAO refrains from selling ARB to fund grants, expenses, and investments. However, assuming most of the borrowed stablecoins are used to cover expenses (or grants/investments) at a modest LTV ratio we end up with more and more ARB locked up in the CDP as the price goes down or expenses go up (or both). So we are locking a large amount of ARB to access a small to moderate amount of stablecoins to cover expenses and this position remains locked until the debt is repaid which will either require the DAO to sell ARB (which is bad for the position) or finance it through other alternatives such as the current treasury diversification initiatives or sequencer revenue. We’d much prefer the DAO to continue focusing on treasury diversification efforts that are more capital efficient which can then be used to fund the DAO’s expenses.
Betting on Builders: Infinite Launchpad Proposal
Vote: Against
Summary: We appreciate all the effort, thought, and time that has gone into this. In saying this, we find it hard to justify the requested spend on behalf of the DAO.
We spent some time speaking with Daniel from RnDAO (who was extremely helpful and open) on their previous proposal which seems like it has now merged into this. But unfortunately, we struggled to agree on their outlined costs, the vision of CollabTech, and structure of the program. We understand there is a large market for CollabTech outside of Web3, but it is not clear to us that such demand exists currently as indicated by the lack of market, products, and results from the pilot phase. We would be more comfortable voting in favour, if the research and market analysis was funded with a small budget that delivered a clear scope of verticals where the rest of the resources were focused on (i.e., community building activities, vc investments, EiR RFPs). Their market and research model which is responsible for the delivery of market opportunities that direct their EiR programs also ran for the full length of the program which did not make sense to us as it should happen at the very beginning of the program or worst case, right before their last incubation cohort. Lastly, we found there to be a lot of double-dipping in team salaries across most of the modules leading to higher than necessary costs.
For the remaining parts of the proposal, we echo much of the same concerns others have mentioned - high costs and the potential for overlap in resources which leads to overspending. When thinking about the longevity of the program, firstly, this is a very expensive program, and secondly, most of the costs & benefits are heavily concentrated on the short-term (discounting successful incubations). So how do we ensure there is a longer-lasting benefit in line with ThankARB post-Infinite Launchpad? One suggestion is to have a portal that collates a lot of the information that is provided to EiRs, incubation projects, supporting material etc. This allows the DAO to assess the quality of information, provides clearer deliverables, and allows future builders to leverage material from this program.
ArbitrumHub Evolution: The Next Step in Streamlining Information Access and Raising Awareness for Arbitrum DAO
Vote: Against
Summary: The ArbitrumHub is a high-quality website that represents all the right information. We think it certainly has value within the DAO, however, we do not align with the requested funding amount and find it significantly high for the type of work. As it stands we believe there are sufficient resources available to the DAO and no lack of community discourse and tools to facilitate such discourse. Therefore, we unfortunately cannot justify this cost on behalf of the DAO.
Multisig Support Service (MSS) Elections
Summary:
Our selections for MSS were crafted from a few factors:
- Demonstrated experience within the Arbitrum DAO + Active participation: MSS is the perfect opportunity to recognise and reward those who consistently show up, provide feedback, and in general have great context about what’s going on in the DAO.
- Prior multisig experience.
- Diversity: Ensuring there is a sufficiently diverse group of multisig signers to increase robustness against potential malicious attacks or to encourage active discourse about opposing views.
- Reputation: Once again to ensure security of DAO funds held within the multisig. Having a large + positive reputation comes with greater costs when performing any adverse actions.
Selected candidates:
- JoJo
- Griff
- PGov
- AbdullahUmar
- Limes
- Castle
- Avantgarde
- Cattin
- Sinkas
- StableLab
- DisruptionJoe
- 404 DAO
- AlexLumley
1 Like
Approval of STEP committee recommendations
Vote: For
Summary: We support the recommended applicants and their allocations. Thanks to the STEP committee for their work!
Improving Predictability in Arbitrum DAO’s Operations
Vote: Improving Predictability
Summary: We are generally in favour of the proposal and think it’ll provide some welcomed structure to voting cycles. We are against the approval process as it ultimately creates more of a burden on delegates which is something the proposal is attempting to alleviate.
Jumpstart fund for DAO improvement
Vote: Against
Summary: Unfortunately, we do not agree with the problem statement enough to justify supporting this program. While we agree that the operational side of the DAO is not perfect as with any DAO, it’s far from being dysfunctional. Paying individuals to seek out problems for the sake of seeking out problems does not seem like a great use of DAO funds.
If an individual or group of individuals feel strongly about a certain problem within the Arbitrum DAO there is nothing stopping them from creating a brief problem statement and proposing a method to reach a solution in return for some funding from the DAO. This requires them to have enough confidence in bringing their proposal forward without spending too much time in its creation before funding is secured.
Furucombo’s Misuse of Funds
Vote: For
Summary: Terms and expectations were clearly outlined and accepted in the application phase of the STIP. Given there has been little discourse from the Furucombo team, and their misuse of funds, we are in support of their ban from any future Arbitrum incentive programs.
Gaming Catalyst Program (GCP) Council Voting
Vote: CoinflipCanada, David Bolger, Greg Canessa, Karthik Raju - Equal 25%
Summary:
After reading all applications we have settled on 4 candidates that we believe bring great experience and value to GCP. Our selected candidates span Gov Exp, Growth/ BD Exp, Ops Exp, and Venture Exp to create a well-rounded mix of Council members.
CoinflipCanada:
Coinflip has a long demonstrated record of substantial contribution to both the Arbitrum ecosystem and DAO. He is a great candidate for the Gov role within GCP and we have enjoyed working alongside him on the LTIPP Council.
David Bolger:
David’s experience leading gaming at Offchain Labs for over 2 years brings great value to the GCP. He has hands-on experience with gaming ecosystems inside and outside of Arbitrum including existing connections.
Greg Canessa:
Greg has extensive experience in the gaming industry outside of Web3. He has impressively worked on large titles and within well-known organisations driving major key verticles. His application is a great fit for the Operations role within the GCP Council.
Karthik Raju:
Karthik’s experience at Polychain, relationship with Arbitrum, and overall experience present a perfect fit for the Venture’s domain within the GCP Council.
Change Arbitrum Expansion Program to allow deployments of new Orbit chains on any blockchain
Vote: FOR: Any blockchain network
Summary: We are supportive of allowing Orbit chains to deploy on networks other than Ethereum. Companies looking for deployment solutions will find other solutions and therefore, restricting deployments to Ethereum is only a net loss for Arbitrum.
[Non-constitutional] Incentives Detox Proposal
Vote: For
Summary: In favour of putting a pause on incentives. The DAO has yet to experience a prolonged period of no incentives making it rather difficult to evaluate firstly the overall efficacy of incentives and secondly which protocols do/don’t need them.
Entropy Advisors: Exclusively Working With Arbitrum DAO
Vote: Fund Entropy
Summary: The team at Entropy have proven to already provide a substantial amount of value to the DAO prior to their proposal (MSS, Gas Fees, Proposal Cadences, etc.) and are focusing on areas that need to be addressed for the benefit of the DAO and its spending. We provided feedback to Entropy regarding concerns over team size & relevant salaries highlighting they’re on the higher end and we are unsure if such a large team is justified. We also raised concerns over conference travel, offsite, and small events as we don’t typically support such efforts from DAO funds. We also shared similar concerns over the bonus structure with other delegates, asked them to reduce their margin, and pushed for reporting regarding work and spending transparency. We are happy with the revised proposal as it addresses a large portion of our concerns and therefore, we will be supporting their proposal.
ArbitrumDAO Governance Analytics Dashboard
Vote: Against
Summary: We appreciate Curia’s effort towards trying to improve Arbitrum’s governance through their dashboard, however, we feel as if a lot of these insights can be done through a Dune dashboard which offers greater longevity due to no need for ongoing costs. Therefore, unfortunately, there is not a strong enough reason for us to justify DAO expenditure on this proposal.
Transparency and Standardized Metrics for Orbit Chains
Vote: Against
Summary:
We support the overall vision of growthepie and can certainly see its value further down the line, however, in Arbitrum’s current state we cannot justify the proposed spend for a few reasons. Firstly, Arbitrum Orbit chains’ collective TVL sits at ~$12M (according to L2beat) with Sanko collecting $9.16M. Therefore, such expenditure is premature given the current Arbitrum Orbit landscape. When looking at Website traffic for growthepie their monthly visits sit at around 8k-10k which is certainly on the smaller side compared to L2Beat’s ~250k. We understand that visits should increase with data options however, many commentors are painting this as a marketing exercise which is something we disagree with given the numbers. We are also worried that due to the high upfront cost, the DAO is essentially forced to continue paying for the product’s maintenance otherwise prior expenditure goes to waste. We’d feel more comfortable revisiting this proposal once we have seen an increase in Orbit Chain TVL and activity and if there is a distinct need from the DAO for such metrics.
ARB Staking: Unlock ARB Utility and Align Governance
Vote: For
Summary: We support the initial development and research of ARB staking as outlined in the proposal. Our biggest bit of feedback was the support for multifaucet reward collection which is being addressed, but we would also like to see the ability for a treasury buffer similar to MakerDAO. The DAO should be looking after their bottom line before considering sharing fees with ARB stakers and therefore, we would like to see this incorporated in its development
Strategic Treasury Management on Arbitrum
Vote: Against
Summary: While we are actually quite supportive of the proposal and our experience with Karpatkey and Gauntlet across other DAOs has been very positive, we agree with other delegates that such an initiative should go through a more structured process to determine 1) the allocation size and 2) vendor selection.
Should the DAO Default to using Shielded Voting for Snapshot Votes?
Vote: For Elections Only
Summary: We will be voting for ‘Elections Only’ largely due to wanting to encourage higher quality and fairer assessments from delegates during election processes.
Outside of elections, we are unsure if there is a clear purpose for having shielded voting for all Snapshots. Arguably the main benefit for the DAO will be the reduction in the Bandwagon Effect and we are unsure whether shielded voting actually solves Voter Apathy. Lastly, 11th Hour Voting is still likely to occur and there are better methods to deal with this e.g., decaying VP. The other main concern we had was that (and it may play into the Bandwagon Effect), visible Snapshots provide important signals and feedback about the DAO’s collective preference towards proposals, voting turnout, and split decisions that might force delegates to think deeper about their voting decision.
In saying that, Shielded Voting has some nice properties like pushing delegates to spend more time in the forums to decide their voting stance which might lead to lower voter turnout, but likely increases the quality of voting decisions. Even if voting rationales are made public which we think is completely fine, delegates will end up with greater context to inform their decision as they’ve read sticking points from both sides.
An (EIP-4824 powered) daoURI for the Arbitrum DAO
Vote: Against
Summary: We are supportive of the proposal, but it was not submitted via the proper governance standards. We will be supporting the proposal once it is submitted correctly.
Should the DAO Create COI & Self Voting Policies?
Vote: Disclosure Policy & Responsible Voting Policy
Summary: Both policies we supported go hand in hand and it’s really on the delegate to actively disclose and refrain from votes where there are severe COIs. Naturally we do agree with the strict voting policy however, it’s rather hard to enforce and the other 2 options provide a good first step.
ArbitrumDAO Off-site
Vote: Abstain
Summary: Same as prior proposals regarding budgets for events, off-sites etc. We don’t necessarily think that such costs should be paid by the DAO’s treasury and in most cases it’s extremely difficult to ensure that spending is done in a reasonable and correct manner. However, we vote to abstain as its also difficult to estimate the benefits that such events bring to the overall arbitrum ecosystem.
Proposal to Temporary Extend Delegate Incentive System.
Vote: For
Summary: We are supportive of the 2 month extension. The program has been seen to have a notable impact on retaining and inviting new delegates to the Arbitrum forum. We look forward to assessing the new delegate incentive program and the impact the current program has had.
Ethereum Protocol Attackathon Sponsorship
Vote: Panda Partners
Summary: There is a clear synergy and benefit from Arbitrum sponsoring the Attackathon as any bug found will either directly or indirectly affect the chain. We believe the Panda tier is much more justifiable from a cost perspective.
[Constitutional] Extend Delay on L2Time Lock
Vote: For
Summary: Extending the delay on the L2Time Lock makes perfect sense, users should be able to adjust (withdraw from the chain) if they are not in favour of changes passed via governance.
STIP-Bridge Operational Budget
Vote: For
Summary: Having first hand experience on LTIPP Council we can appreciate all the work that goes into the incentive programs. We support the operational budget.
[Replace Oversight Committee with MSS] Delegate to Voter Enfranchisement Pool — Event Horizon
Vote: For
Summary: This makes a lot of sense and once again reduces costs for the DAO.
ArbitrumDAO Procurement Committee Phase II
Vote: For
Summary: The ArbitrumDAO Procurement Committe have done a fantastic job thus far, delivering high quality and professional reports as well as being very transparent with the DAO. The updated scope and deliverables framework seems like a good next step, focusing on areas that bring value to the DAO. The cost is on the higher end, however, given the material will be used over the long run we think it is justifiable.
Enhancing Multichain Governance: Upgrading RARI Governance Token on Arbitrum
Vote: For
Summary: We support the upgrade of the RARI Governance Token pending the audit.
Fund the Stylus Sprint
Vote: For
Summary: We are in full support of bootstrapping development with the launch of Stylus. The outlined proposal provides a long and sustainable approach to developing the Stylus ecosystem and we look forward to watching what comes from it.
Constitutional AIP: Proposal to adopt Timeboost, a new transaction ordering policy
Vote: Collect bids in ETH treasury
Summary: We are in favour of adopting Timeboost and will be supporting the option to collect bids in ETH. Our preference for collecting bids in ETH is twofold:
- For prospective auction bidders, dealing solely with ETH for both transaction fees and auction bids offers a simpler & more predictable experience.
- Collecting ETH provides greater optionality for the DAO.
On point 2, we are strong advocates for efforts that continue to grow Arbitrum’s Treasury in non-native tokens. The DAO has high expenses which consistently lead to large outflows of ARB resulting in large selling pressure. By collecting ETH vs burning ARB the DAO grows its treasury, diversifies its treasury, and most importantly provides optionality for future expenditures, staking programs, yield generation, etc.
We can always buy back and burn ARB if we collect bids in ETH, but we can’t grow the treasury in a diversified manner if we collect bids in ARB.
Terms of Tenure for STEP program manager
Vote: #1 Additional funds for one year, #2 6 months from available funds, #3 New election at $86,581 per year, #4 Abstain, #5 Liquidations of RWAs and STEP
Summary: STEP is an important initiative for the DAO and should be protected within reason. We don’t think it makes sense to hold another election so soon and we definitely think that the DAO should provide the funds according to the proposal made by Steakhouse.
ArbitrumDAO Off-site
Vote: See below
Summary:
We have voted to Abstain which is in line with our other votes regarding event sponsorships, as we are not 100% sold on these types of costs being fronted by the DAO’s treasury.
All other votes are ranked accordingly:
Nonetheless, it certainly makes a lot of sense to host something like this alongside major conferences where you’d expect a lot more attendees. We also agree with others that sponsoring scholarships has inherent issues about who gets selected and whether or not that person would already be attending the major conference. If the DAO approves scholarships, a more fair approach would be to offer a flat rebate to all scholarships to make it cheaper for them to attend and not cover the full amount of their travels given obvious differences in costs based on a scholar’s location.
Lastly, we certainly don’t think that there should be an overlap between this event and the proposed GovHack event.
GovHack Devcon in Bangkok - Hack Humanity
Vote: Abstain
Summary: We have voted to Abstain which is in line with our other votes regarding event sponsorships, as we are not 100% sold on these types of costs being fronted by the DAO’s treasury.
[Non-Constitutional] Funds to Bolster Foundation’s Strategic Partnerships Budget
Vote: For
Summary: We fully support this proposal.
We believe the Arbitrum Foundation has done a great job thus far given an already tight budget. An extra 2.5% of the total supply puts their total allocation at 10%, a budget still significantly lower than competitors. Competition is certainly heating up and we need to be able to retain and attract large partnerships that generate value for the Arbitrum ecosystem.
[Non-Constitutional] Arbitrum DAO Delegate Incentive Program
Vote: FOR - DIP V1.5
Summary:
We are in favour of incentivising delegates and fully understand that it’s a rather difficult task that has yet to find a standard that is optimal for delegates and the DAO. In saying this, we believe that there is a current mismatch between the proposed budget (rewards for delegates), delegate requirements, and subsequent benefit to the DAO.
Specifically,
Quality Control - V1.1 has no quality control over voting rationale and feedback (which v1.5 attempts to solve) so someone who provides significant contributions to a proposal via feedback is valued the same as someone who simply agrees with the proposal or provides little feedback.
Lack of VP Recognition - The program currently fails to account for delegates with larger VP and therefore, the added security they bring to the DAO and ecosystem from their voting participation. By not incorporating some sort of scale based on VP, delegates are not incentivized to seek out delegations, something that is fundamental to the security of the DAO.
So with a $4.2M/yr budget, the DAO is paying for voting participation which does not take into account a delegate’s VP and thus, the economic security they bring; as well as feedback and rationale that is equal regardless of its impact.
For delegates to reach the top tier of $7k USD/month, this is certainly attainable and not too hard over a 1 year period. Which we think is a fine, however, given the proposed requirements for reaching the top tier, $6k - $7k USD / month is far too generous. $84k USD/yr is a significant amount of money and higher than most avg. salaries worldwide. By no means are we trying to discredit the effort and time delegates put into the ARB DAO, we just struggle to see justification in the cost vs. requirements as it stands.
Overall, we would love to see a combination of v1.1 and v1.5 where voting participation is still counted and feedback + rationale is graded. We would also like to see a metric that takes into account a delegate’s VP, and, lastly, we would like to see the monthly compensation revised down. With added quality control, participation metrics, and VP accounted for, a max monthly compensation of $5k USD ($60k/yr) seems more reasonable.
[Non-Constitutional] Whitelist Infura Nova Validator
Vote: For
Summary: Infura has a long-existing record of providing reliable network infrastructure. We support their whitelisting.
Research on context and retention
Vote: For
Summary: We support providing read only access to public info for research purposes!
An EIP-4824 powered daoURI for Arbitrum DAO
Vote: For - Use ENS txt records
Summary: We are supportive of this initiative and don’t see any downside to displaying key information in a verifiable manner.
LTIPP Retroactive Community Funding Selections
Vote: Do not fund
Summary: Unfortunately after assessing each applicant, we struggle to justify retroactive funding. While we appreciate the efforts of each applicant however, most applicants provided work that is either already possible through other means or failed to sufficiently improve LTIPP relevant to their requested amounts.
Establishing a DAO Events Budget for 2025
Vote: For
Summary: We typically vote to abstain on most event funding proposals as it’s extremely hard to evaluate benefits against the costs and have sufficient oversight + an impactful & correctly aligned scope with the rest of the Arbitrum ecosystem. However, the reason why don’t outright vote against such proposals as in a similar light, the social benefits for delegates and Arbitrums brand are tough to gauge (on a positive note!). This proposal creates some structure to establishing events within the DAO but most importantly involves AF and key organisers for ARB focused events while ensuring a competitive RFP process which is great. We feel more comfortable supporting such a proposal.
(V2) Arbitrum Research & Development Collective
Vote: Funded with 1.73M USDC + Council (50%), Funded with 2.09M USDC + Council (50%)
Summary: We found V1 of ARDC’s work to valuable, prescriptive, and informative; covering core topics that are important to the DAO. We are supportive of V2 and appreciate the work put in to evolve the initiative into something more efficient. We didn’t have a strong preference over the funding amounts we voted for - we want to be cost conscious but also need to attract top service providers.
[Non-Constitutional] Arbitrum Token Swap Pilot Program
Vote: Against
Summary: We can see the value in Treasury Swaps but only when there is a clear & tangible strategic benefit for both parties. A clear example of this was Aave <> Balancer as mentioned in your Ecosystem Enablers report. Unfortunately, outside of similar examples to the above, there is little evidence to suggest such programs are truly beneficial to either DAO. This is also highlighted quite clearly in your research report when analysing the status of each prior token swap
We are also concerned about providing ARB tokens to protocols that do not have a sufficiently decentralised governance structure. A lot of protocols lack any onchain governance infrastructure where treasuries and token activities are handled by the team, foundation, or multi-sigs, meaning there is very little input from tokenholders of these protocols. On the hand, how does the ArbitrumDAO expect to handle all tokens from the treasury swaps and who will be in charge of this? This once again, will likely require additional funding
Furthermore, ARB is significantly more liquid than most other tokens in the Arbitrum ecosystem. Therefore, it’s very likely that protocols will utilise ARB to fund expenses as it means they suffer from less slippage and they can forego putting selling pressure on their own token. Now if the Arbitrum DAO ever decides to sell tokens of other protocols, it would be rather controversial and sends a strong signal
GCP Council Re-Confirmation Vote for Tim Chang
Vote: For
Summary: Both John and Tim are great candidates with extremely relevant experience in gaming related roles, VC roles, and start-up experience. We expect both candidates to bring valuable connections and knowledge to the Arbitrum ecosystem and look forward to working with them.
GCP Council Re-Confirmation Vote for John Kennedy
Vote: For
Summary: Both John and Tim are great candidates with extremely relevant experience in gaming related roles, VC roles, and start-up experience. We expect both candidates to bring valuable connections and knowledge to the Arbitrum ecosystem and look forward to working with them.
Adopt a Delegate Code of Conduct & Formalize Operations
Vote: For
Summary: The proposed Code of Conduct creates a well-balanced structure for delegates to operate within the Arbitrum DAO, incorporating key values of the Arbitrum Constitution. We expect its adoption to create a positive environment for current and future delegates.