Wintermute Governance Delegate Communication Thread

Restitution For Extensively Delayed ArbitrumDAO Minigrant Winners
Vote: Against
Summary: While we sympathise with the frustrations mentioned in the forum post, we don’t see the justification in providing additional compensation for Minigrant winners as all grants were quoted in ARB amounts and not USD amounts. Therefore, it is not correct to the price of ARB at different periods to justify the ‘gap in payment’ to minigrant winners.

Hackathon Continuation Program
Vote: In favour, no onchain mechanism
Summary: We are supportive of the Hackathon Continuation Program. We appreciaite RnDAOs efforts in kickstarting the initial incubation process for Arbitrum based tooling and given the initial numbers we feel confident in moving forward with the DAO supporting its continuation of the selected winners. This is largely due to the fact that the DAO (on behalf of the AF) will hold investment contracts in the protocols/teams that will be funded through this program. We also like the fact that costs and investments will be shared with RnDAO, leading to better alignment. The overall process and costs seem reasonable and we look forward to seeing the results of the continuation and whether or not this program has room to expand in the future.

Lastly, we are not in favour of the onchain mechanism but might be open to it in the future if this project is successful. Largely because it introduces unnecessary dynamics between teams and we don’t see the reason to add additional costs to the program.

[Non-consitutional] User Research: Why build on Arbitrum?
Vote: Against
Summary: While we are supportive of the general scope of the intended research and believe it is valuable with a reasonable budget, we are voting against the proposal in its current form due to the available voting options.

More specifically, we are in favour of assessing other chains alongside Arbitrum but we don’t think the combination of SOL and OP is the correct choice and instead would like to see SOL and Base assessed. Ultimately, Arbitrum is competing against other chains and it would make more sense to understand the perspective of builders from chains that are highly competitive/have a larger market share than Arbitrum in certain metrics. If we take a surface-level look via DeFiLlama & L2Beat, Base is highly competitive with Arbitrum and even beats Arbitrum in certain metrics when you look at things like:

  • TVL Growth, User Operations Per Second, Number of Protocols, etc.

Thus, we should be learning from strong outliers in the competitive landscape.

Lastly, while this isn’t a deal breaker for us. We do agree that this type of research could certainly fall under ARDC and we’d expect whoever gets selected to deliver a great result.

If this proposal was resubmitted with the option to select SOL and Base as a part of the research group we’d be in favour!

Designing and operating the reporting and information function
Vote: Against
Summary: Unfortunately we are convinced that this proposal in its current form is a net value add for the DAO. We echo the same concerns as other delegates around - Total comp, back pay, bonus, enforcement, etc. We are also not entirely convinced that there is a need for this within the DAO at the moment, most initiatives have a reporting requirement and can be easily found within the forum for those looking to dig deeper.

[NON-CONSTITUTIONAL] Arbitrum Onboarding V2: A Governance Bootcamp
Vote: For
Summary: While we still share reservations about the efficacy and longevity of outcomes for this proposal, we believe the materials and application process is robust enough to have a solid chance at converting individuals into great governance analysts within Arbitrum. Furthermore, there already seems to be interest from outside protocols looking to leverage these services. Thus, we are supportive of further experimenting with this proposal.

Arbitrum D.A.O. Domain Allocator Offerings) Grant Program - Season 3
Vote: Renew with 5 domains (adding orbit)
Summary: We are happy with the progress thus far and support the additional domain. One area of feedback we gave was within the gaming realm as it has had very little impact and the approved grants were rather low quality. Some of these concerns have been addressed in the updated proposal.

Unifying Arbitrum’s Mission, Vision, Purpose (MVP)
Vote: For
Summary: This is an important initiative for the ArbitrumDAO and Ecosystem as a whole. We agree that a major area the DAO has struggled in is truly understanding and evaluating whether certain initiatives are ‘worth it’. This is extremely hard to do when there is no clear north star. We like the phased approach and specifically the SOS initiative, we have seen similar mechanisms work really well within Lido DAO. Lastly, we align with the proposed Mission, Vision, and Purpose.

OpCo – A DAO-adjacent Entity for Strategy Execution
Vote: For
Summary: We are supportive of the OpCo at the TEMP CHECK stage, however, we do share some concerns about various aspects of the proposal that we would like to see discussed and potentially changed prior to the onchain vote.

Firstly, having something like the OpCo is extremely valuable for most DAOs and similar setups are prevalent amongst some of the largest DAOs in the space. We’ve had first-hand experience with setting something similar up for dYdX (dYdX Ops subDAO), which enabled the DAO to hire contractors, set up bank accounts, work with service providers, and set up key vital infrastructure for the launch of dYdX V4. Without a legal entity, this would’ve been a nightmare and simply impossible. Concretely, the OpCo will unlock functionality for the DAO while making the DAO more accessible to less-crypto native individuals and companies.

However, we have some concerns with this structure, which is rather expensive and there isn’t a clearly defined scope and set of deliverables which could easily lead to unnecessary expenditure and bloat. We’d much prefer to have a leaner structure with a clear set of objectives that expands over time as the DAO seeks the legal structure to operate necessary initiatives.

We are also quite against the size of the OAT and share similar concerns to others about there being a large overlap in responsibilities between OAT members and OpCo employees. In our opinion, the OAT should serve as ‘observers’ or ‘enforcers’ (if we draw comparison to the dYdX Ops subDAO) to ensure that there is no miss appropriation of funds and that internal initiatives are done in line with the OpCo’s mandate. This can be achieved quite easily with 2 members. There are clear redundancies and overlaps in having 5 OAT members especially when the OpCo has a budget for yearly audits and is required to maintain high transparency. Lastly, we are unsure that OAT members should receive bonuses and struggle to understand the justification for it.

Partner with ETH Bucharest 2025
Vote: Abstain
Summary: In line with our prior votes around events and sponsorships, we typically abstain from voting as it’s hard to estimate the expected benefits from these initiatives and validate costs.

Non-Constitutional: Stable Treasury Endowment Program 2.0
Vote: For
Summary: We are very supportive of reasonable programs designed to diversify the DAOs treasury into productive and safe assets. So far, STEP 1.0 has proven to be a good success with a nice structure. STEP 2.0 presents a simple expansion on STEP 1.0’s success.

The Watchdog: Arbitrum DAO’s Grant Misuse Bounty Program
Vote: For
Summary: Amazing proposal and much needed. There have already been a few identified cases across STIP/LTIPP even against prominent names, so creating a widescale program to encourage the reporting of bad actors will foster a more honest and accountable ecosystem.

Gaming:
Vote: Erezedor
Summary: Both groups of applicants had great applications with very different views on how grants should be awarded. We have decided to select Erezedor given their application focused a lot more on the gaming infra and technical side of Arbitrum’s tech stack with which they have strong experience (coming from a hackathon perspective). While we still think Flook’s focus on KOLs and porting Web2 streamers are valuable, we are not sure if this strategy is needed right now and it is often hard to gauge the overall impact of these types of grants.

Dev Tooling on One and Stylus:
Vote: Juandi
Summary: Each application was strong, with candidates coming from professional backgrounds that are relevant to the Dev Tooling Domain. However, we found Juandi to present a very clear vision and gameplan on what he expects to support with the grants budget which we align with.

Education, Community Growth, and Events:
Vote: 60% SEEDGov, 40% ArbitrumHub
Summary: Both SEEDGov and ArbitrumHub had really thorough applications with a proven track record within their intended Domain. SEEDGov excelled in their highly detailed and conclusive plan taking grantees from start to finish with a clear vision of the end goal. We liked both Applicant’s open-source approach. While ArbitrumHub’s approach was more fluid & flexible it still hit all the important marks that we think are beneficial to the program.

New Protocols & Ideas:
Vote: 40% Castle Capital, 40% Gabriel, 20% Saurahb
Summary: Each selected applicant exhibits strong background with relevant experience and skills that will be beneficial to this Domain. Both Castle Capital and Gabriel had really clear visions of what they want to support within Arbitrum while ensuring there is a process that has strong accountability. Saurahb brings great experience and has deep knowledge of Arbitrum’s DeFi ecosystem.

Arbitrum Growth Circles Event Proposal
Vote: Against
Summary: Similar to our previous votes around events, we don’t think the DAO should be funding such initiatives as it’s extremely hard to have oversight. It’s also hard to clearly estimate the true benefits of such proposals.

[CONSTITUTIONAL] AIP: ArbOS Version 40 Callisto
Vote: For
Summary: Super excited for this one! Great to see that Arbitrum is supporting such changes from Ethereum and we look forward to seeing the material UX changes that come from it within the Arbitrum ecosystem.

Arbitrum Audit Program
Vote: For
Summary: We are supportive of this proposal.

We have full faith in OCL & the AF to execute a well-managed program on behalf of the DAO. Ultimately, this proposal continues to add to Arbitrum’s attractiveness for builders while promoting a safer ecosystem.

Some concerns we have:

  • Projects utilising this program to receive an audit from Arbitrum but shortly after using the audited code to launch across other L2s or EVM chains.
  • The budget does seem rather large and we’d hope there is no strong expectation from the committee that we need to exhaust these funds. Providing Audits for ~2 projects a week ~100/yr - how many of these protocols do we actually expect to drive value back to the ecosystem? Furthermore, we hope there is going to be a positive bias towards more experimental protocols vs. forks/copy cats with little difference.