This proposal requests 250 million ARB with the main objective to enable The Arbitrum Foundation to further foster key strategic partnerships. All expenditures will follow The Arbitrum Foundation’s well-established practices and evaluation criteria when pursuing partnership deals, as detailed in a high level manner here and here (these guidelines apply mainly for the Foundation Grant Program, however, it offers insight into what the Foundation looks at when giving strategic grants or establishing strategic partnerships). Should the proposal be approved by the ArbitrumDAO, the Foundation will update its upcoming annual transparency report due in Q1 2025 to include and detail this additional budget.
In line with its mission as laid out in its bylaws, The Arbitrum Foundation is committed to fostering ecosystem growth through strategic partnerships. All agreements are designed to support projects that can grow the Arbitrum ecosystem and provide value to the ArbitrumDAO. By seeking projects that advance or contribute to the adoption of Arbitrum technology, the Foundation aims to grow activity on the Arbitrum networks.
Agreements typically last for a few years with the intention to align a project’s interests with the long-term objectives of the Arbitrum ecosystem. This results in significant capital locked in commitments and reserved for projects based on the agreed performance milestones. This restricts the Foundation’s ability to pursue new partnerships and stay ahead of the competition. Given the aggregate size of Foundation’s current budget, it is difficult for us to pursue multiple large deals simultaneously.
The Arbitrum Foundation runs two funding programs:
Both programs invite applicants from the ecosystem while actively pursuing new opportunities by participating in competitive bids to prospective partners. In both cases, The Arbitrum Foundation signs milestone-based agreements with the recipient that are often multi-year contractual commitments. To date, agreements for our strategic partnerships program typically exceed 2M ARB with an average duration of 2.1 years.
Table: Capital Commitments to Grants, Strategic Partnerships and Infrastructure Service Providers (as of June 30, 2024)
| Jan 1 - Jun 30 2024 | Future Capital Commitments | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spend1 | Signed Agreements2 | Pre-agreement Offer | |||
| USD | ARB | USD | ARB | USD | |
| DeFi & Fintech | $4,211,916 | 3,277,700 | $8,785,000 | 1,842,500 | $89,000,000 |
| Gaming | $6,691,353 | 9,579,703 | $1,200,500 | 6,510,000 | $13,900,000 |
| Infra Service Providers | $28,181,124 | 42,941,326 | $8,372,988 | 0 | $5,585,000 |
| NFT | $1,265,825 | 377,900 | $1,300,000 | 10,017,000 | $0 |
| Other 3 | $3,576,582 | 1,235,343 | $2,054,525 | 240,000 | $0 |
| Total | $43,926,800 | 57,411,972 | $21,713,013 | 18,609,500 | $108,485,000 |
1 Actual spend in the first half of 2024 including payments made in ARB converted to USD using the ARB spot price at the time of payment 2 Numbers include both confidential and non-confidential grants. Details of non-confidential grantees are publicly available here. 3 "Other" category includes items that fall outside the scope of Fintech & DeFi, Gaming, Infra Service Providers, and NFTs
The above table provides an overview of The Arbitrum Foundation’s outstanding capital commitments since inception, as of June 30th 2024. Based on the stage of commitment, we can classify all existing deals into two categories:
Signed agreements. The Arbitrum Foundation and the grant recipient or service provider have entered into an agreement. Most grant recipients will be entitled to grant payouts as milestones and/or other criteria are reached. The amounts in the table reflect the value of future financial obligations related to signed agreements.
Pre-agreement offer. An agreement has not yet been reached but is in negotiation. The Foundation has reserved funds to ensure we can act upon the commitment when an agreement is reached. The amounts in the table reflect the full value of the agreement.
In both cases, The Arbitrum Foundation must have adequate reserves immediately available before it can make an offer to a potential partner. Given the competitive landscape, The Arbitrum Foundation must be able to make multiple offers to different partners at the same time. Also, the Foundation must be prepared for all offers to be accepted and reserve amounts accordingly even if negotiations fail at a later stage.
With the above in mind, The Arbitrum Foundation is at a distinct disadvantage from extending competitive offers to strategic partners due to the size of our overall allocation from the DAO. The three major financial challenges currently facing The Arbitrum Foundation from extending continued support to ecosystem expansion are:
Tight budget. Relative to competitors, the budget that the Foundation can allocate for strategic partnerships is small and puts the Arbitrum ecosystem at a significant disadvantage. For example, if we consider allocations relative to token supply, Starknet has allocated ~20% to its Foundation and grants, Optimism has 25% for ecosystem funding, ZkSync has 19.9% for ecosystem initiatives, while The Arbitrum Foundation has 7.5% allocated, but to date, The Arbitrum Foundation has only had access to approximately 1.8% because of the vesting contract. Making competitive offers requires a lot of capital that we have not been allocated relative to other Foundations.
Vesting. The Foundation can only make offers based on the ARB that has vested to date. This is because the ArbitrumDAO can clawback the funds at any time and we must have the ARB available to pay milestones. The Foundation is committed to being solvent at all times, so our assets should always exceed our contractual liabilities.
Capital lockup. All committed ARB in a milestone-based agreement must be allocated until the agreement terminates. For example, we could run into a situation where a grantee has not yet hit their milestones, but we need to assume they will and hold the potential payout in reserve. Additionally, some agreements require capital lockup (like RWAs), in projects where the funds belong to the Arbitrum Foundation, but they are utilized by the strategic partner’s protocol.
Together, The Arbitrum Foundation does not yet have access to its full budget which has caused issues over the past year, but even if the vesting was complete, our budget still remains the smallest amongst all rollups. This impacts all programs run by The Arbitrum Foundation including strategic partnerships, technical advancement, educational and community activities.
We believe the most straightforward approach to ensuring The Arbitrum Foundation can pursue competitive deals is by increasing our budget for strategic partnerships.
Funding Request: 250 million ARB
In light of the above mentioned challenges, we believe that there are several reasons why increasing our budget to specifically better support strategic partnerships is essential:
High costs of pursuing partnerships. Strategic partnerships are essential for the Arbitrum ecosystem’s growth, and these partnerships often come with significant capital investments from the Foundation. For example, onboarding RWAs is both challenging and capital-intensive, as experienced by the DAO as well.
Expanding Orbit Chains. Despite more than 50 chains publicly announcing their intent to build using Orbit since the launch of the Arbitrum Expansion Program in January 2024, the rollup as a tech stack ecosystem is still in its early stages. Additional funding is required to enable The Arbitrum Foundation to pursue major Orbit partnerships and allow the Arbitrum ecosystem to access new markets, use cases and communities. Additionally we should note that sometimes part Orbit chain grants could be rebates on the revenue that they contribute to the Arbitrum DAO, creating a mismatch between the Arbitrum Foundation allocating resources and the DAO collecting chain fees.
Gateway to DAO. The DAO has previously contributed to onboarding partners via programs like STEP, however, the experience has been that most institutions are not inclined toward engaging and participating in public forums, and even when they do it is after extensive conversations with The Arbitrum Foundation and its service providers, who are making them aware of the opportunities and encouraging them to get involved. As front line enablers, The Arbitrum Foundation actively builds relationships with partners and encourages all partners to engage with the DAO. Most recent examples include Securitize (via BlackRock BUIDL) and Franklin Templeton.
Proven track record. The Foundation has a proven track record of managing and allocating funds effectively for various initiatives, as evidenced by the 2024 Biannual Progress Report and successful collaborations with industry leading projects. Additionally, The Arbitrum Foundation has capitalized on emerging opportunities such as LRTs, RWAs and onchain gaming, ensuring the Arbitrum ecosystem remains competitive and innovative.
We also believe the current vesting schedule for our entire budget is still critical to remain as is for setting expectations for the Arbitrum Foundation and holding us accountable for how we execute our mission statements. This sets a good example that all programs approved by the DAO must remain accountable and should not assume they can receive all their funding immediately.
With the above in mind, we are requesting 250 million ARB from the Arbitrum DAO. The amount will solely focus on agreements fulfilling the following 3 criteria:
Some foreseeable capital-intensive areas include, but are not limited to, expanding the Orbit Chain ecosystem, securing new RWA opportunities, and onboarding well-known TradeFi institutions on Arbitrum. Tokens will only be allocated on an as needed-basis and will only be exchanged as contractual obligations need to be fulfilled.
The Foundation plans to expand on the special strategic partnership allocation in our future Transparency Reports. Our goal is to enhance visibility into how these collaborations are structured and how resources are allocated, giving the DAO a clearer understanding of the impact on the Arbitrum ecosystem. At the same time, we remain committed to respecting any confidentiality provisions stipulated in such agreements. By balancing transparency with confidentiality, the Foundation aims to balance both the sensitivity of onboarding traditional institutions to Arbitrum and also providing updates to the DAO on how the funds are being spent.
Our goal with this proposal is not to maintain the status quo, it’s to ensure that we can continue to foster ecosystem growth through strategic partnerships. The funds will not be used for Arbitrum Foundation operating expenses, including marketing, operations, service providers, or existing signed agreements.
This proposal requests 250 million ARB with the main objective to enable The Arbitrum Foundation to further foster key strategic partnerships. All expenditures will follow The Arbitrum Foundation’s well-established practices and evaluation criteria when pursuing partnership deals, as detailed in a high level manner here and here (these guidelines apply mainly for the Foundation Grant Program, however, it offers insight into what the Foundation looks at when giving strategic grants or establishing strategic partnerships). Should the proposal be approved by the ArbitrumDAO, the Foundation will update its upcoming annual transparency report due in Q1 2025 to include and detail this additional budget.
In line with its mission as laid out in its bylaws, The Arbitrum Foundation is committed to fostering ecosystem growth through strategic partnerships. All agreements are designed to support projects that can grow the Arbitrum ecosystem and provide value to the ArbitrumDAO. By seeking projects that advance or contribute to the adoption of Arbitrum technology, the Foundation aims to grow activity on the Arbitrum networks.
Agreements typically last for a few years with the intention to align a project’s interests with the long-term objectives of the Arbitrum ecosystem. This results in significant capital locked in commitments and reserved for projects based on the agreed performance milestones. This restricts the Foundation’s ability to pursue new partnerships and stay ahead of the competition. Given the aggregate size of Foundation’s current budget, it is difficult for us to pursue multiple large deals simultaneously.
The Arbitrum Foundation runs two funding programs:
Both programs invite applicants from the ecosystem while actively pursuing new opportunities by participating in competitive bids to prospective partners. In both cases, The Arbitrum Foundation signs milestone-based agreements with the recipient that are often multi-year contractual commitments. To date, agreements for our strategic partnerships program typically exceed 2M ARB with an average duration of 2.1 years.
Table: Capital Commitments to Grants, Strategic Partnerships and Infrastructure Service Providers (as of June 30, 2024)
| Jan 1 - Jun 30 2024 | Future Capital Commitments | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spend1 | Signed Agreements2 | Pre-agreement Offer | |||
| USD | ARB | USD | ARB | USD | |
| DeFi & Fintech | $4,211,916 | 3,277,700 | $8,785,000 | 1,842,500 | $89,000,000 |
| Gaming | $6,691,353 | 9,579,703 | $1,200,500 | 6,510,000 | $13,900,000 |
| Infra Service Providers | $28,181,124 | 42,941,326 | $8,372,988 | 0 | $5,585,000 |
| NFT | $1,265,825 | 377,900 | $1,300,000 | 10,017,000 | $0 |
| Other 3 | $3,576,582 | 1,235,343 | $2,054,525 | 240,000 | $0 |
| Total | $43,926,800 | 57,411,972 | $21,713,013 | 18,609,500 | $108,485,000 |
1 Actual spend in the first half of 2024 including payments made in ARB converted to USD using the ARB spot price at the time of payment 2 Numbers include both confidential and non-confidential grants. Details of non-confidential grantees are publicly available here. 3 "Other" category includes items that fall outside the scope of Fintech & DeFi, Gaming, Infra Service Providers, and NFTs
The above table provides an overview of The Arbitrum Foundation’s outstanding capital commitments since inception, as of June 30th 2024. Based on the stage of commitment, we can classify all existing deals into two categories:
Signed agreements. The Arbitrum Foundation and the grant recipient or service provider have entered into an agreement. Most grant recipients will be entitled to grant payouts as milestones and/or other criteria are reached. The amounts in the table reflect the value of future financial obligations related to signed agreements.
Pre-agreement offer. An agreement has not yet been reached but is in negotiation. The Foundation has reserved funds to ensure we can act upon the commitment when an agreement is reached. The amounts in the table reflect the full value of the agreement.
In both cases, The Arbitrum Foundation must have adequate reserves immediately available before it can make an offer to a potential partner. Given the competitive landscape, The Arbitrum Foundation must be able to make multiple offers to different partners at the same time. Also, the Foundation must be prepared for all offers to be accepted and reserve amounts accordingly even if negotiations fail at a later stage.
With the above in mind, The Arbitrum Foundation is at a distinct disadvantage from extending competitive offers to strategic partners due to the size of our overall allocation from the DAO. The three major financial challenges currently facing The Arbitrum Foundation from extending continued support to ecosystem expansion are:
Tight budget. Relative to competitors, the budget that the Foundation can allocate for strategic partnerships is small and puts the Arbitrum ecosystem at a significant disadvantage. For example, if we consider allocations relative to token supply, Starknet has allocated ~20% to its Foundation and grants, Optimism has 25% for ecosystem funding, ZkSync has 19.9% for ecosystem initiatives, while The Arbitrum Foundation has 7.5% allocated, but to date, The Arbitrum Foundation has only had access to approximately 1.8% because of the vesting contract. Making competitive offers requires a lot of capital that we have not been allocated relative to other Foundations.
Vesting. The Foundation can only make offers based on the ARB that has vested to date. This is because the ArbitrumDAO can clawback the funds at any time and we must have the ARB available to pay milestones. The Foundation is committed to being solvent at all times, so our assets should always exceed our contractual liabilities.
Capital lockup. All committed ARB in a milestone-based agreement must be allocated until the agreement terminates. For example, we could run into a situation where a grantee has not yet hit their milestones, but we need to assume they will and hold the potential payout in reserve. Additionally, some agreements require capital lockup (like RWAs), in projects where the funds belong to the Arbitrum Foundation, but they are utilized by the strategic partner’s protocol.
Together, The Arbitrum Foundation does not yet have access to its full budget which has caused issues over the past year, but even if the vesting was complete, our budget still remains the smallest amongst all rollups. This impacts all programs run by The Arbitrum Foundation including strategic partnerships, technical advancement, educational and community activities.
We believe the most straightforward approach to ensuring The Arbitrum Foundation can pursue competitive deals is by increasing our budget for strategic partnerships.
Funding Request: 250 million ARB
In light of the above mentioned challenges, we believe that there are several reasons why increasing our budget to specifically better support strategic partnerships is essential:
High costs of pursuing partnerships. Strategic partnerships are essential for the Arbitrum ecosystem’s growth, and these partnerships often come with significant capital investments from the Foundation. For example, onboarding RWAs is both challenging and capital-intensive, as experienced by the DAO as well.
Expanding Orbit Chains. Despite more than 50 chains publicly announcing their intent to build using Orbit since the launch of the Arbitrum Expansion Program in January 2024, the rollup as a tech stack ecosystem is still in its early stages. Additional funding is required to enable The Arbitrum Foundation to pursue major Orbit partnerships and allow the Arbitrum ecosystem to access new markets, use cases and communities. Additionally we should note that sometimes part Orbit chain grants could be rebates on the revenue that they contribute to the Arbitrum DAO, creating a mismatch between the Arbitrum Foundation allocating resources and the DAO collecting chain fees.
Gateway to DAO. The DAO has previously contributed to onboarding partners via programs like STEP, however, the experience has been that most institutions are not inclined toward engaging and participating in public forums, and even when they do it is after extensive conversations with The Arbitrum Foundation and its service providers, who are making them aware of the opportunities and encouraging them to get involved. As front line enablers, The Arbitrum Foundation actively builds relationships with partners and encourages all partners to engage with the DAO. Most recent examples include Securitize (via BlackRock BUIDL) and Franklin Templeton.
Proven track record. The Foundation has a proven track record of managing and allocating funds effectively for various initiatives, as evidenced by the 2024 Biannual Progress Report and successful collaborations with industry leading projects. Additionally, The Arbitrum Foundation has capitalized on emerging opportunities such as LRTs, RWAs and onchain gaming, ensuring the Arbitrum ecosystem remains competitive and innovative.
We also believe the current vesting schedule for our entire budget is still critical to remain as is for setting expectations for the Arbitrum Foundation and holding us accountable for how we execute our mission statements. This sets a good example that all programs approved by the DAO must remain accountable and should not assume they can receive all their funding immediately.
With the above in mind, we are requesting 250 million ARB from the Arbitrum DAO. The amount will solely focus on agreements fulfilling the following 3 criteria:
Some foreseeable capital-intensive areas include, but are not limited to, expanding the Orbit Chain ecosystem, securing new RWA opportunities, and onboarding well-known TradeFi institutions on Arbitrum. Tokens will only be allocated on an as needed-basis and will only be exchanged as contractual obligations need to be fulfilled.
The Foundation plans to expand on the special strategic partnership allocation in our future Transparency Reports. Our goal is to enhance visibility into how these collaborations are structured and how resources are allocated, giving the DAO a clearer understanding of the impact on the Arbitrum ecosystem. At the same time, we remain committed to respecting any confidentiality provisions stipulated in such agreements. By balancing transparency with confidentiality, the Foundation aims to balance both the sensitivity of onboarding traditional institutions to Arbitrum and also providing updates to the DAO on how the funds are being spent.
Our goal with this proposal is not to maintain the status quo, it’s to ensure that we can continue to foster ecosystem growth through strategic partnerships. The funds will not be used for Arbitrum Foundation operating expenses, including marketing, operations, service providers, or existing signed agreements.
Democratising lobbyism, on-chain. Check out lobbyfi.xyz
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/103?u=ocandocrypto
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/102?u=tane
Democratising lobbyism, on-chain. Check out lobbyfi.xyz
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/103?u=ocandocrypto
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/102?u=tane
The Event Horizon Community Voted to Support this Proposal ehARB-41: EventHorizon.vote/vote/arbitrum/ehARB-41
The Event Horizon Community Voted to Support this Proposal ehARB-41: EventHorizon.vote/vote/arbitrum/ehARB-41
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/101?u=mcfly
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/100?u=blueweb
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/56?u=castlecapital
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/seed-latam-delegate-communication-thread/13895/47?u=seedgov
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/bobbay-delegate-communication-thread/20997/32 - same as snapshot
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/96?u=0x_ultra
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/95?u=tekr0x.eth
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/93?u=0xdonpepe
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/90?u=winverse
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/88
The Foundation has shown it self to be a responsible and mission oriented in terms of spending and making bets for growing the ecosystem, unlocking their ability to take bigger swings at this time while the DAO is still finding its footing makes sense. Overtime the DAO should find ways to ensure that the Foundations activities including those that can't be fully publicly disclosed align with objectives the DAO articulates, but our delays in establishing those shouldn't prevent the work at hand from being done. Hopefully this is a #MAFA unlock Make Arbitrum Foundation Aggressive
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/87?u=ezr3al
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/griff-green-delegate-communication-thread/25040/38?u=griff
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/86?u=blockworksresearch
Without a clusters strategy (clear vertical focus) and an approach for better ROI, I believe this funding risks being cost-ineffective
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/46
See https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/alex-lumley-savvy-dao-delegate-communication-thread/26147/
I abstain since the dao confirmed the identity of the safe and I agree with the intention of budget but I don't share how it was done and this should have been described better
Firstly, this proposal sends 250m ARB to a multisig with 7 signers, all of which are fresh and anonymous. Secondly, the Arbitrum Foundation has not provided sufficient detail on why they need these funds or how precisely they will be used. There is also the fact that the Foundation has not yet exhausted its ARB holdings (~444m ARB) to date. On process and on substance, we can’t support this proposal. We would be open to reconsideration with substantially more information and smaller request size.
I already discussed about thí proposal in the forum but want to emphasize again, this is an interesting proposal, and it’s good to expand Arbitrum’s collaboration with other projects. It’s especially important to focus on RWAs, which have become quite significant lately. I’m not sure how much budget should be added, but I would like to know more about your plans for expenditure, expected results, and the budget for each project. Maybe a bit off topic but maybe can consider partnerships with DeFi creators to strengthen the DAO’s mindshare.
Reading comments from other delegates made me revise my thoughts on the current proposal. For such a large ask, I am not sure there is sufficient oversight, especially for some of the categories like gaming.
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/34?u=kuiclub
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/44?u=duokongcrypto
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/60
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/25?u=todayindefi
this is too big of an ask, with too little oversight and transparency on how this money will be spent. https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/76?u=paulofonseca
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/larva-delegate-communication-thread/24476/70?u=larva
This proposal has my green light cause it Increase Budget for Strategic Partnerships and expand the Orbit Chain Ecosystem.
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/64
we are supportive of this initiative
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/62?u=tane
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/61?u=ocandocrypto
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/60
finally a sensible decision by the arbitrum dao
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/seed-latam-delegate-communication-thread/13895/47?u=seedgov
Democratising lobbyism, on-chain. Check out lobbyfi.xyz
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/54?u=mcfly
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/53?u=maxlomu
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/griff-green-delegate-communication-thread/25040/38?u=griff
The foundation has a strong capability to make a difference. The DAO can innovate and protect from the foundation lock in over time.
BIG NO if the 250m ARB is not gonna be returned by the foundation in the future. My notes: https://shorturl.at/ocWt2
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/48?u=euphoria
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/46
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/44?u=duokongcrypto
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/41?u=blockworksrese
I'm directionally in favour of this proposal but without strategic clarity, the risk of mispending is too high IMO
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/40?u=0x_ultra
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/35?u=jojo
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/33?u=bruce
Glad to see such a detailed budget breakdown for something like this
The purpose the of funding request is well articulated and reasonable
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/23?u=tekr0x.eth
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/22?u=larva
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/21?u=0xtalvo.eth_mt
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/20?u=0xdonpepe
The Event Horizon Community Voted to Support this Proposal ehARB-41: EventHorizon.vote/vote/arbitrum/ehARB-41
The Event Horizon Community Voted to Support this Proposal ehARB-41: EventHorizon.vote/vote/arbitrum/ehARB-41
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/101?u=mcfly
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/100?u=blueweb
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/56?u=castlecapital
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/seed-latam-delegate-communication-thread/13895/47?u=seedgov
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/bobbay-delegate-communication-thread/20997/32 - same as snapshot
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/96?u=0x_ultra
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/95?u=tekr0x.eth
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/93?u=0xdonpepe
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/90?u=winverse
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/88
The Foundation has shown it self to be a responsible and mission oriented in terms of spending and making bets for growing the ecosystem, unlocking their ability to take bigger swings at this time while the DAO is still finding its footing makes sense. Overtime the DAO should find ways to ensure that the Foundations activities including those that can't be fully publicly disclosed align with objectives the DAO articulates, but our delays in establishing those shouldn't prevent the work at hand from being done. Hopefully this is a #MAFA unlock Make Arbitrum Foundation Aggressive
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/87?u=ezr3al
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/griff-green-delegate-communication-thread/25040/38?u=griff
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/86?u=blockworksresearch
Without a clusters strategy (clear vertical focus) and an approach for better ROI, I believe this funding risks being cost-ineffective
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/46
See https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/alex-lumley-savvy-dao-delegate-communication-thread/26147/
I abstain since the dao confirmed the identity of the safe and I agree with the intention of budget but I don't share how it was done and this should have been described better
Firstly, this proposal sends 250m ARB to a multisig with 7 signers, all of which are fresh and anonymous. Secondly, the Arbitrum Foundation has not provided sufficient detail on why they need these funds or how precisely they will be used. There is also the fact that the Foundation has not yet exhausted its ARB holdings (~444m ARB) to date. On process and on substance, we can’t support this proposal. We would be open to reconsideration with substantially more information and smaller request size.
I already discussed about thí proposal in the forum but want to emphasize again, this is an interesting proposal, and it’s good to expand Arbitrum’s collaboration with other projects. It’s especially important to focus on RWAs, which have become quite significant lately. I’m not sure how much budget should be added, but I would like to know more about your plans for expenditure, expected results, and the budget for each project. Maybe a bit off topic but maybe can consider partnerships with DeFi creators to strengthen the DAO’s mindshare.
Reading comments from other delegates made me revise my thoughts on the current proposal. For such a large ask, I am not sure there is sufficient oversight, especially for some of the categories like gaming.
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/34?u=kuiclub
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/44?u=duokongcrypto
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/60
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/25?u=todayindefi
this is too big of an ask, with too little oversight and transparency on how this money will be spent. https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/76?u=paulofonseca
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/larva-delegate-communication-thread/24476/70?u=larva
This proposal has my green light cause it Increase Budget for Strategic Partnerships and expand the Orbit Chain Ecosystem.
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/64
we are supportive of this initiative
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/62?u=tane
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/61?u=ocandocrypto
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/60
finally a sensible decision by the arbitrum dao
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/seed-latam-delegate-communication-thread/13895/47?u=seedgov
Democratising lobbyism, on-chain. Check out lobbyfi.xyz
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/54?u=mcfly
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/53?u=maxlomu
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/griff-green-delegate-communication-thread/25040/38?u=griff
The foundation has a strong capability to make a difference. The DAO can innovate and protect from the foundation lock in over time.
BIG NO if the 250m ARB is not gonna be returned by the foundation in the future. My notes: https://shorturl.at/ocWt2
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/48?u=euphoria
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/46
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/44?u=duokongcrypto
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/41?u=blockworksrese
I'm directionally in favour of this proposal but without strategic clarity, the risk of mispending is too high IMO
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/40?u=0x_ultra
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/35?u=jojo
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/33?u=bruce
Glad to see such a detailed budget breakdown for something like this
The purpose the of funding request is well articulated and reasonable
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/23?u=tekr0x.eth
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/22?u=larva
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/21?u=0xtalvo.eth_mt
https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/non-constitutional-funds-to-bolster-foundation-s-strategic-partnerships-budget/26775/20?u=0xdonpepe
gTrade is in support of this proposal to allocate additional funds in order to expand AF's strategic partnerships, especially for the Orbit expansion. Compared to competitors, AF's budget is significantly smaller and constrained by the vesting contract, limiting its ability to make competitive offers to potential partners. With Sony and Uniswap both opting for the OP stack, it’s more crucial than ever that the Foundation is provided with sufficient budget to remain competitive.
gTrade is in support of this proposal to allocate additional funds in order to expand AF's strategic partnerships, especially for the Orbit expansion. Compared to competitors, AF's budget is significantly smaller and constrained by the vesting contract, limiting its ability to make competitive offers to potential partners. With Sony and Uniswap both opting for the OP stack, it’s more crucial than ever that the Foundation is provided with sufficient budget to remain competitive.
The Arbitrum Foundation plays a core role in the growth and expansion of the Arbitrum ecosystem. The Foundation's work so far has been excellent and adhered to its mission of fostering ecosystem growth through strategic partnerships. Many elements of Arbitrum would not be what they are today without the strong results of the Arbitrum Foundation.
However, due to the sum involved we do not feel that it is our place to vote directionally on this proposal, due to the recently ratified proposal for Treasure to concentrate its next steps alongside another ecosystem outside of Arbitrum. Therefore, while in support, we have abstained from this vote.
The Arbitrum Foundation plays a core role in the growth and expansion of the Arbitrum ecosystem. The Foundation's work so far has been excellent and adhered to its mission of fostering ecosystem growth through strategic partnerships. Many elements of Arbitrum would not be what they are today without the strong results of the Arbitrum Foundation.
However, due to the sum involved we do not feel that it is our place to vote directionally on this proposal, due to the recently ratified proposal for Treasure to concentrate its next steps alongside another ecosystem outside of Arbitrum. Therefore, while in support, we have abstained from this vote.
We also want to highlight that, following the Treasure Community’s approval of TIP-44: Launching Treasure L2 on ZKsync, our involvement in Arbitrum Governance will conclude. As such, this proposal represents one of our final contributions in a delegate capacity within Arbitrum.
The Arbitrum Foundation plays a core role in the growth and expansion of the Arbitrum ecosystem. The Foundation's work so far has been excellent and adhered to its mission of fostering ecosystem growth through strategic partnerships. Many elements of Arbitrum would not be what they are today without the strong results of the Arbitrum Foundation.
However, due to the sum involved we do not feel that it is our place to vote directionally on this proposal, due to the recently ratified proposal for Treasure to concentrate its next steps alongside another ecosystem outside of Arbitrum. Therefore, while in support, we have abstained from this vote.
The Arbitrum Foundation plays a core role in the growth and expansion of the Arbitrum ecosystem. The Foundation's work so far has been excellent and adhered to its mission of fostering ecosystem growth through strategic partnerships. Many elements of Arbitrum would not be what they are today without the strong results of the Arbitrum Foundation.
However, due to the sum involved we do not feel that it is our place to vote directionally on this proposal, due to the recently ratified proposal for Treasure to concentrate its next steps alongside another ecosystem outside of Arbitrum. Therefore, while in support, we have abstained from this vote.
We also want to highlight that, following the Treasure Community’s approval of TIP-44: Launching Treasure L2 on ZKsync, our involvement in Arbitrum Governance will conclude. As such, this proposal represents one of our final contributions in a delegate capacity within Arbitrum.
As a large delegate who prefers to stay out of the political fray (especially because I am active in other DAOs), I’m compelled to address this issue under an anonymous account.
The proposal to allocate non-constitutional funds to bolster the Foundation's strategic partnerships budget raises serious concerns, primarily due to the ongoing lack of transparency around how the Foundation manages and allocates these funds.
As a large delegate who prefers to stay out of the political fray (especially because I am active in other DAOs), I’m compelled to address this issue under an anonymous account.
The proposal to allocate non-constitutional funds to bolster the Foundation's strategic partnerships budget raises serious concerns, primarily due to the ongoing lack of transparency around how the Foundation manages and allocates these funds.
Up until now, there has been virtually no detailed disclosure regarding how these funds are being spent or what mechanisms exist to ensure they are allocated responsibly. We are being asked to trust the Foundation blindly with significant amounts of capital, but where is the accountability?
For all we know, and while this may seem extreme, this money could be funneled into private wallets with zero oversight, and we would have no way of verifying that this isn't the case. The mere fact that this is even a hypothetical possibility highlights a severe breakdown in transparency.
As stakeholders, we have the right to demand clearer reports, stringent oversight, and a full breakdown of expenditures before any further funds are approved. Until these standards are met, it would be irresponsible to allocate additional funds.
I urge fellow delegates to hold off on supporting further allocations to the Foundation’s budget until we see concrete steps toward full transparency and accountability mechanisms in place.
We cannot afford to let significant resources be managed behind a curtain of secrecy.
Plutus is in favour of this proposal but we also want to call out for alternative methods as there are two separatable categories of funding that have unique requirements.
For example:
As a large delegate who prefers to stay out of the political fray (especially because I am active in other DAOs), I’m compelled to address this issue under an anonymous account.
The proposal to allocate non-constitutional funds to bolster the Foundation's strategic partnerships budget raises serious concerns, primarily due to the ongoing lack of transparency around how the Foundation manages and allocates these funds.
As a large delegate who prefers to stay out of the political fray (especially because I am active in other DAOs), I’m compelled to address this issue under an anonymous account.
The proposal to allocate non-constitutional funds to bolster the Foundation's strategic partnerships budget raises serious concerns, primarily due to the ongoing lack of transparency around how the Foundation manages and allocates these funds.
Up until now, there has been virtually no detailed disclosure regarding how these funds are being spent or what mechanisms exist to ensure they are allocated responsibly. We are being asked to trust the Foundation blindly with significant amounts of capital, but where is the accountability?
For all we know, and while this may seem extreme, this money could be funneled into private wallets with zero oversight, and we would have no way of verifying that this isn't the case. The mere fact that this is even a hypothetical possibility highlights a severe breakdown in transparency.
As stakeholders, we have the right to demand clearer reports, stringent oversight, and a full breakdown of expenditures before any further funds are approved. Until these standards are met, it would be irresponsible to allocate additional funds.
I urge fellow delegates to hold off on supporting further allocations to the Foundation’s budget until we see concrete steps toward full transparency and accountability mechanisms in place.
We cannot afford to let significant resources be managed behind a curtain of secrecy.
Plutus is in favour of this proposal but we also want to call out for alternative methods as there are two separatable categories of funding that have unique requirements.
For example:
Plutus is in favour of this proposal but we also want to call out for alternative methods as there are two separatable categories of funding that have unique requirements.
For example:
If we're talking about single large partnership deals similar to the example above, they could be opportunities large enough to warrant their own earmarked allocations through their own channel. A larger usable allocation like the 250M as a batch or through separate proposals both have their benefits.
But if we look at the smaller 2-10M allocations they probably are not as time critical and work well with a vesting budget like the existing 750M.
Therefore, we propose that the Foundation would consider having separate budgets for running smaller partnerships over time with vesting tokens and larger clips to be allocated either case-by-case or from a larger batch specifically for the projects that require a larger lock-up for pre-agreement offers and signed agreements.
The former, i.e. smaller clips, probably can run smoothly with the current vesting and the latter can either be earmarked from a batch like the 250M proposed. To further refine this hypothetical mechanism, we could have a fill-in request by the AF after a pre-agreement moves to a signed one. E.g., Project A is creating a RWA focused Orbit chain and looks to conquer markets. They require a 100M allocation to which the tokens are reserved from the 250M available in a pre-agreement offer by the AF.
Once signed, there could be an additional request from the foundation to unlock tokens for the signed agreement for 50-100M freeing up that amount to be used for the next partnership offer.
This would in essence act like a cash buffer for the foundation while providing the DAO with the opportunity to unlock more funds for the Foundation to keep exploring offers.
Having large amounts of tokens waiting for potentially closing agreements will slow down the foundation's exploration but also unlocking large batches for the foundation is understandably risky from the DAO's perspective. This type of buffering mechanism could help alleviate both sides.
Plutus is in favour of this proposal but we also want to call out for alternative methods as there are two separatable categories of funding that have unique requirements.
For example:
If we're talking about single large partnership deals similar to the example above, they could be opportunities large enough to warrant their own earmarked allocations through their own channel. A larger usable allocation like the 250M as a batch or through separate proposals both have their benefits.
But if we look at the smaller 2-10M allocations they probably are not as time critical and work well with a vesting budget like the existing 750M.
Therefore, we propose that the Foundation would consider having separate budgets for running smaller partnerships over time with vesting tokens and larger clips to be allocated either case-by-case or from a larger batch specifically for the projects that require a larger lock-up for pre-agreement offers and signed agreements.
The former, i.e. smaller clips, probably can run smoothly with the current vesting and the latter can either be earmarked from a batch like the 250M proposed. To further refine this hypothetical mechanism, we could have a fill-in request by the AF after a pre-agreement moves to a signed one. E.g., Project A is creating a RWA focused Orbit chain and looks to conquer markets. They require a 100M allocation to which the tokens are reserved from the 250M available in a pre-agreement offer by the AF.
Once signed, there could be an additional request from the foundation to unlock tokens for the signed agreement for 50-100M freeing up that amount to be used for the next partnership offer.
This would in essence act like a cash buffer for the foundation while providing the DAO with the opportunity to unlock more funds for the Foundation to keep exploring offers.
Having large amounts of tokens waiting for potentially closing agreements will slow down the foundation's exploration but also unlocking large batches for the foundation is understandably risky from the DAO's perspective. This type of buffering mechanism could help alleviate both sides.
Gm, gm :sparkles:
The results are in for the [Non-Constitutional] Funds to Bolster Foundation’s Strategic Partnerships Budget on-chain proposal.
See how the community voted and more Arbitrum stats: https://dhive.io/proposal/1393
Gm, gm :sparkles:
The results are in for the [Non-Constitutional] Funds to Bolster Foundation’s Strategic Partnerships Budget on-chain proposal.
See how the community voted and more Arbitrum stats: https://dhive.io/proposal/1393
We have put together and shared a best practice guide with the folks on the MSS. I think the problem statement you are alluding too is really:
We have put together and shared a best practice guide with the folks on the MSS. I think the problem statement you are alluding too is really:
i.e., If the largest group is Alice, Bob, Caroline, Dave, then can I be convinced that only this group of people are in the multisig? i.e., 2-3 multisig, without revealing who exactly that is.
There is cryptography to do stuff like this, such as group signatures / ring signatures / zk protocols. I don't think anyone has really built the functionality yet to work with something like gnosis safe. I think it'd be pretty cool overall though. I think the trickiest technical feature is to make sure if each signer produces a membership proof, then there isn't a collision between the proofs. i.e., Alice can't create three proofs and pretend to be Alice/Bob/Caroline.
Hi all,
I can confirm that https://app.safe.global/home?safe=arb1:0x140e4D8d4229D5437EfD6FC1BEeB86Cb2bCF9D98 is a multisig under the control of the Arbitrum Foundation.
Hi all,
I can confirm that https://app.safe.global/home?safe=arb1:0x140e4D8d4229D5437EfD6FC1BEeB86Cb2bCF9D98 is a multisig under the control of the Arbitrum Foundation.
We plan to keep the identities hidden for operational security purposes (given the quantity of funds), but we can acknowledge there is a special and lengthy communication protocol with several steps before any transfers can be initiated and approved. The same protocol has been used for the GCP multisig which we are protecting on behalf of the program.
Actually you do not provide any additional details other than the table you already posted in the original message, it's literally a copypaste of the original message in this discussion.
Hi @olimpio and @cp0x,
Thank you for your questions.
Hi @olimpio and @cp0x,
Thank you for your questions.
The partnership agreements that the Foundation is concluding are in line with its mission as stated in the bylaws, i.e. to Fostering ecosystem growth through strategic grants. We invite you to read Foundation’s latest transparency report for a detailed spending up to June 30, 2024. Additionally in our snapshot proposal we outline all of our current obligations, for an even more up to date overview.
These strategic partnerships benefit the ecosystem via things such as: revenue and technical mindshare on the Orbit stack obtained by the DAO via the Arbitrum Expansion Program, new active users that each new project building on Arbitrum brings, same with liquidity inflows and increase in total value locked on Arbitrum chains. These are important metrics that Arbitrum is leading and has been leading for some time. Maintaining and enhancing Arbitrum’s position as the leading Ethereum scaling solution with dominant market share including hundreds of apps on the platform and over 40% of all rollup liquidity does not come at zero cost.
We believe that nobody should take all these metrics and developments for granted, and we are focused on building Arbitrum and maintaining its position as the leading scaling solution.
The funds will be spent towards future growth of the chain, in line with the Foundation’s mission. As mentioned previously, the crypto space moves fast and some of the innovations that exist today in the blockchain space did not exist 5 years ago. It is impossible to predict all new narratives, technology and application innovations over the next 3-5 years. Having restrictions on specific verticals may limit our ability to keep up with a fast-paced industry. As of today, we are actively working on Defi, RWA, infrastructure, DePin and gaming (before GCP is fully setup) to name a few. We always recommend reading our transparency reports which are released every 6 months. It allows us to update the ArbitrumDAO on how our strategy for partnerships and grants has changed over time based on the latest learnings and trends in the industry. Again, we will have a special section dedicated to the partnership funds.
The Arbitrum ecosystem, like all ecosystems, relies on transparent and confidential programs. It is important that there are public transparent funding initiatives run by the DAO and at the same time highly strategic initiatives run by the Foundation which often involve traditional institutions having years of TradFi and Web2 experience. The Foundation’s program helps bolster the confidential funding programs that may ultimately help aid the transparent programs as we act as a gateway to onboard new institutions to participate in the ArbitrumDAO.
Strategic partners and major institutions often require strict confidentiality. A major partner will always request an NDA which will legally bind the Foundation to keep sensitive information confidential. Additionally, having public data on partnership terms is a significant disadvantage in the growth of the Arbitrum ecosystem because our competitors do not have open data on expenses, and if our data is public, they can use that information to outbid us on future partnership opportunities. Please note that these are usually large RFPs where all of Arbitrum’s competitors are usually present. Simultaneously, projects that are negotiating a grant will also be able to use this data to come with unrealistic expectations.
We have put together and shared a best practice guide with the folks on the MSS. I think the problem statement you are alluding too is really:
We have put together and shared a best practice guide with the folks on the MSS. I think the problem statement you are alluding too is really:
i.e., If the largest group is Alice, Bob, Caroline, Dave, then can I be convinced that only this group of people are in the multisig? i.e., 2-3 multisig, without revealing who exactly that is.
There is cryptography to do stuff like this, such as group signatures / ring signatures / zk protocols. I don't think anyone has really built the functionality yet to work with something like gnosis safe. I think it'd be pretty cool overall though. I think the trickiest technical feature is to make sure if each signer produces a membership proof, then there isn't a collision between the proofs. i.e., Alice can't create three proofs and pretend to be Alice/Bob/Caroline.
Hi all,
I can confirm that https://app.safe.global/home?safe=arb1:0x140e4D8d4229D5437EfD6FC1BEeB86Cb2bCF9D98 is a multisig under the control of the Arbitrum Foundation.
Hi all,
I can confirm that https://app.safe.global/home?safe=arb1:0x140e4D8d4229D5437EfD6FC1BEeB86Cb2bCF9D98 is a multisig under the control of the Arbitrum Foundation.
We plan to keep the identities hidden for operational security purposes (given the quantity of funds), but we can acknowledge there is a special and lengthy communication protocol with several steps before any transfers can be initiated and approved. The same protocol has been used for the GCP multisig which we are protecting on behalf of the program.
Actually you do not provide any additional details other than the table you already posted in the original message, it's literally a copypaste of the original message in this discussion.
Hi @olimpio and @cp0x,
Thank you for your questions.
Hi @olimpio and @cp0x,
Thank you for your questions.
The partnership agreements that the Foundation is concluding are in line with its mission as stated in the bylaws, i.e. to Fostering ecosystem growth through strategic grants. We invite you to read Foundation’s latest transparency report for a detailed spending up to June 30, 2024. Additionally in our snapshot proposal we outline all of our current obligations, for an even more up to date overview.
These strategic partnerships benefit the ecosystem via things such as: revenue and technical mindshare on the Orbit stack obtained by the DAO via the Arbitrum Expansion Program, new active users that each new project building on Arbitrum brings, same with liquidity inflows and increase in total value locked on Arbitrum chains. These are important metrics that Arbitrum is leading and has been leading for some time. Maintaining and enhancing Arbitrum’s position as the leading Ethereum scaling solution with dominant market share including hundreds of apps on the platform and over 40% of all rollup liquidity does not come at zero cost.
We believe that nobody should take all these metrics and developments for granted, and we are focused on building Arbitrum and maintaining its position as the leading scaling solution.
The funds will be spent towards future growth of the chain, in line with the Foundation’s mission. As mentioned previously, the crypto space moves fast and some of the innovations that exist today in the blockchain space did not exist 5 years ago. It is impossible to predict all new narratives, technology and application innovations over the next 3-5 years. Having restrictions on specific verticals may limit our ability to keep up with a fast-paced industry. As of today, we are actively working on Defi, RWA, infrastructure, DePin and gaming (before GCP is fully setup) to name a few. We always recommend reading our transparency reports which are released every 6 months. It allows us to update the ArbitrumDAO on how our strategy for partnerships and grants has changed over time based on the latest learnings and trends in the industry. Again, we will have a special section dedicated to the partnership funds.
The Arbitrum ecosystem, like all ecosystems, relies on transparent and confidential programs. It is important that there are public transparent funding initiatives run by the DAO and at the same time highly strategic initiatives run by the Foundation which often involve traditional institutions having years of TradFi and Web2 experience. The Foundation’s program helps bolster the confidential funding programs that may ultimately help aid the transparent programs as we act as a gateway to onboard new institutions to participate in the ArbitrumDAO.
Strategic partners and major institutions often require strict confidentiality. A major partner will always request an NDA which will legally bind the Foundation to keep sensitive information confidential. Additionally, having public data on partnership terms is a significant disadvantage in the growth of the Arbitrum ecosystem because our competitors do not have open data on expenses, and if our data is public, they can use that information to outbid us on future partnership opportunities. Please note that these are usually large RFPs where all of Arbitrum’s competitors are usually present. Simultaneously, projects that are negotiating a grant will also be able to use this data to come with unrealistic expectations.
The results are in for the [Non-Constitutional] Funds to Bolster Foundation’s Strategic Partnerships Budget off-chain proposal.
See how the community voted and more Arbitrum stats: https://dhive.io/proposal/1382
The results are in for the [Non-Constitutional] Funds to Bolster Foundation’s Strategic Partnerships Budget off-chain proposal.
See how the community voted and more Arbitrum stats: https://dhive.io/proposal/1382
The Foundation is already subject to ArbitrumDAO oversight, as outlined in AIP 1.1 and we do not believe that extreme monitoring will enhance the synergy, but rather it will make the Foundation subject to additional heavy oversight that our competitors do not have. Additional oversight over the Foundation which already has a strong track record (see previous transparency reports) would only impact the Foundation’s ability to pursue major strategic partners that are already unfamiliar with DAOs and that need incredibly fast turnaround in a competitive environment. Please note that highly strategic deals are only shared with select members of the Foundation and Foundation’s Board of Directors only. Additionally, the Board of Directors of the Arbitrum Foundation is already closely overseeing and approving all deals, in line with their fiduciary responsibilities. The Foundation will highlight the use of the additional 250M ARB through a separate section of each annual transparency report and bi-annual progress report.
Our agreements are multi year in nature, and as mentioned in our proposal we will hold the ARB and only allocate as needed.
Our agreements are multi year in nature, and as mentioned in our proposal we will hold the ARB and only allocate as needed.
Multiyear is a very flexible concept, right now i see that you're reporting that the average duration is 2.1 years which is right above the bare minimum for it to be called "multiyear". Moreover, we all know that once the spending has been authorized, it will be extremely hard to be controlled, hence the need for a much more rational and detailed spending.
I am not convinced that there is any need in the current conditions for such a big budget addition to be authorized.
The reasons cited are essentially 3:
i don't see how we would get coinbase or sony, given that both of them have their own L2.
i expect a sunset clause for confidentiality to be baked into ALL agreements, so that if and when you need to return for another tranche of funding, all the data is available to us for review.
this or some variation of this sounds like a good idea
Our agreements are multi year in nature, and as mentioned in our proposal we will hold the ARB and only allocate as needed. Under this thread (https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/arbitrum-foundation-transparency-report-2023/21135/4) you may find the Grant Transparency Report that shares more details on how grant decisions are made. In the upcoming transparency report, Arbitrum Foundation will be having a dedicated section to report how the fundings are spent. Please note many grant deals are with institutions that have strong confidentiality requirements, therefore Arbitrum Foundation would only be able to share high level details of strategic grants.
The 250 million ARB will be focusing on all verticals. Once the separately funded GCP is set up, Arbitrum Foundation will pivot the grant strategy to avoid duplicating gaming efforts. Should the DAO have other vertical-specific initiatives in the next 3-5 years, Arbitrum Foundation will again pivot our grant strategy to avoid duplicate efforts. Meanwhile, the Arbitrum Foundation needs to play the role of incentivizing growth across verticals in our ecosystem.
The crypto space moves fast. It is impossible to predict all new technology and application innovations over the next 3-5 years. Having restrictions on the specific verticals may limit ourselves to keep up with a fast-paced industry. As of today, we are actively working on Defi, RWA, infrastructure, DePin and gaming (before GCP is fully setup) to name a few.
The 250 million ARB will be focusing on all verticals. Once the separately funded GCP is set up, Arbitrum Foundation will pivot the grant strategy to avoid duplicating gaming efforts. Should the DAO have other vertical-specific initiatives in the next 3-5 years, Arbitrum Foundation will again pivot our grant strategy to avoid duplicate efforts. Meanwhile, the Arbitrum Foundation needs to play the role of incentivizing growth across verticals in our ecosystem.
The crypto space moves fast. It is impossible to predict all new technology and application innovations over the next 3-5 years. Having restrictions on the specific verticals may limit ourselves to keep up with a fast-paced industry. As of today, we are actively working on Defi, RWA, infrastructure, DePin and gaming (before GCP is fully setup) to name a few.
The proposal lists the major verticals in terms of allocation and the categories with minor expenditure have been aggregated in the “Others” section. This represents below 10% of the total spend, e.g. amounts in ARB is just 2%. The categories within others are the ones falling outside the scope of Fintech & Defi, Gaming, Infra Service Providers and NFTs.
The Foundation is already subject to ArbitrumDAO oversight, as outlined in AIP 1.1 and we do not believe that extreme monitoring will enhance the synergy, but rather it will make the Foundation subject to additional heavy oversight that our competitors do not have. Additional oversight over the Foundation which already has a strong track record (see previous transparency reports) would only impact the Foundation’s ability to pursue major strategic partners that are already unfamiliar with DAOs and that need incredibly fast turnaround in a competitive environment. Please note that highly strategic deals are only shared with select members of the Foundation and Foundation’s Board of Directors only. Additionally, the Board of Directors of the Arbitrum Foundation is already closely overseeing and approving all deals, in line with their fiduciary responsibilities. The Foundation will highlight the use of the additional 250M ARB through a separate section of each annual transparency report and bi-annual progress report.
Our agreements are multi year in nature, and as mentioned in our proposal we will hold the ARB and only allocate as needed.
Our agreements are multi year in nature, and as mentioned in our proposal we will hold the ARB and only allocate as needed.
Multiyear is a very flexible concept, right now i see that you're reporting that the average duration is 2.1 years which is right above the bare minimum for it to be called "multiyear". Moreover, we all know that once the spending has been authorized, it will be extremely hard to be controlled, hence the need for a much more rational and detailed spending.
I am not convinced that there is any need in the current conditions for such a big budget addition to be authorized.
The reasons cited are essentially 3:
i don't see how we would get coinbase or sony, given that both of them have their own L2.
i expect a sunset clause for confidentiality to be baked into ALL agreements, so that if and when you need to return for another tranche of funding, all the data is available to us for review.
this or some variation of this sounds like a good idea
Our agreements are multi year in nature, and as mentioned in our proposal we will hold the ARB and only allocate as needed. Under this thread (https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/arbitrum-foundation-transparency-report-2023/21135/4) you may find the Grant Transparency Report that shares more details on how grant decisions are made. In the upcoming transparency report, Arbitrum Foundation will be having a dedicated section to report how the fundings are spent. Please note many grant deals are with institutions that have strong confidentiality requirements, therefore Arbitrum Foundation would only be able to share high level details of strategic grants.
The 250 million ARB will be focusing on all verticals. Once the separately funded GCP is set up, Arbitrum Foundation will pivot the grant strategy to avoid duplicating gaming efforts. Should the DAO have other vertical-specific initiatives in the next 3-5 years, Arbitrum Foundation will again pivot our grant strategy to avoid duplicate efforts. Meanwhile, the Arbitrum Foundation needs to play the role of incentivizing growth across verticals in our ecosystem.
The crypto space moves fast. It is impossible to predict all new technology and application innovations over the next 3-5 years. Having restrictions on the specific verticals may limit ourselves to keep up with a fast-paced industry. As of today, we are actively working on Defi, RWA, infrastructure, DePin and gaming (before GCP is fully setup) to name a few.
The 250 million ARB will be focusing on all verticals. Once the separately funded GCP is set up, Arbitrum Foundation will pivot the grant strategy to avoid duplicating gaming efforts. Should the DAO have other vertical-specific initiatives in the next 3-5 years, Arbitrum Foundation will again pivot our grant strategy to avoid duplicate efforts. Meanwhile, the Arbitrum Foundation needs to play the role of incentivizing growth across verticals in our ecosystem.
The crypto space moves fast. It is impossible to predict all new technology and application innovations over the next 3-5 years. Having restrictions on the specific verticals may limit ourselves to keep up with a fast-paced industry. As of today, we are actively working on Defi, RWA, infrastructure, DePin and gaming (before GCP is fully setup) to name a few.
The proposal lists the major verticals in terms of allocation and the categories with minor expenditure have been aggregated in the “Others” section. This represents below 10% of the total spend, e.g. amounts in ARB is just 2%. The categories within others are the ones falling outside the scope of Fintech & Defi, Gaming, Infra Service Providers and NFTs.
The 250 million ARB will be focusing on all verticals. Once GCP is set up, Arbitrum Foundation will consult with GCP in order to make sure that grant amounts are not duplicated.
Under this thread (https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/arbitrum-foundation-transparency-report-2023/21135/4) you may find the Grant Transparency Report that shares more details on how grant decisions are made. In the upcoming transparency report, Arbitrum Foundation will be having a dedicated section to report how the fundings are spent. Please note many grant deals are with institutions that have strong confidentiality requirements, therefore Arbitrum Foundation would only be able to share high level details of strategic grants.
The 250 million ARB will be focusing on all verticals. Once GCP is set up, Arbitrum Foundation will consult with GCP in order to make sure that grant amounts are not duplicated.
Under this thread (https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/arbitrum-foundation-transparency-report-2023/21135/4) you may find the Grant Transparency Report that shares more details on how grant decisions are made. In the upcoming transparency report, Arbitrum Foundation will be having a dedicated section to report how the fundings are spent. Please note many grant deals are with institutions that have strong confidentiality requirements, therefore Arbitrum Foundation would only be able to share high level details of strategic grants.
Having public data on expenses is a significant disadvantage in the growth of the Arbitrum ecosystem because our competitors do not have open data on expenses, and if our data is public, they can simply look at the data and then use it to outbid us on future partnership deals. Simultaneously, projects that are negotiating a grant will also be able to use this data to come with unrealistic expectations.
Thanks for your questions:
Please see the Foundation’s Bi-Annual Progress Update here where we have expanded on Foundation’s ecosystem spendings: https://docs.arbitrum.foundation/assets/files/ArbitrumFoundationBiannualReport2024H1-c8e9ab997fe68ad09c0105181f9826d8.pdf. In addition, the proposal outlines all the current signed agreements, as well as the pre-agreement offers that the Foundation extended. Please note that as it is often normal in the blockchain space, long-term plans of 3-5 years might not always be feasible. The Foundation has an annual budget that it is using based on the opportunities that are currently available on the market.
As per our understanding, AF is the only Foundation with a vesting from its DAO. While we cannot speak for others, the main purpose of this budget is to have the funds available to pursue significant partnership deals, not to spend the entire amount of funds at once. For example, the Optimism <> Coinbase deal was 118m OP tokens (~2.3% of all OP tokens) over 6 years: https://www.theblock.co/post/247532/base-optimism-revenue. That single deal alone is larger than AF’s unlocked budget and we have never been in a situation to consider a partnership of that size. The situation you describe about the Governance Fund is the inverse situation. We are asking for a budget from our DAO, whereas the OP Foundation is proposing a budget to their DAO. That is very different in nature. Please see here Foundation’s Bi-Annual Progress Update where we have expanded on Foundation’s ecosystem spendings: https://docs.arbitrum.foundation/assets/files/ArbitrumFoundationBiannualReport2024H1-c8e9ab997fe68ad09c0105181f9826d8.pdf.
Under this thread (https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/arbitrum-foundation-transparency-report-2023/21135/4) you will find the Grant Transparency Report that shares more details on how grant decisions are made. In the upcoming transparency report to be published in Q1 2025, Arbitrum Foundation will be having a dedicated section to report how the funds in this proposal are allocated. Please note many grants are with institutions that have strong confidentiality requirements, therefore Arbitrum Foundation would only be able to share high level details of strategic grants. There are significant trade-offs in making the information on expenses and agreement sizes public. In this case, if the Arbitrum Foundation does make it public, it can put us at a disadvantage relative to our competitors, and we could also inadvertently disclose contract terms if it's obvious who received the grant. Nearly all our competitors have no obligation to make their data publicly available. If our data is public, they can simply look at the data and then use it to over bid us on future partnership deals. Simultaneously, projects that are negotiating a grant will also be able to use this data to come with unrealistic expectations. That asymmetric disadvantage will impact our ability to grow the Arbitrum ecosystem.
Thanks for your questions.
| Chain | Funds |
|---|---|
| Arbitrum | 427,500,000 |
| ZkSync | 501,480,000 |
| Starknet | 800,000,000 |
| Optimism | 1,073,741,824 |
| Chain | Funds |
|---|---|
| Arbitrum | 427,500,000 |
| ZkSync | 501,480,000 |
| Starknet | 800,000,000 |
| Optimism | 1,073,741,824 |
Also, if we talk about the fact that only 1.8% is allocated at the moment, then other chains have the same story - no one lets you spend all the money at once - each chain has its own budget. For example, in Optimism, only 50 million OP is allocated per year to the Governance Fund until 2027. I think this should be discussed honestly.
This is the real picture. Furthermore, when liquidity is factored in, Arbitrum has probably already the biggest budget of these chains. If Starknet was to try to use a meaningful portion of that 20% right now, their token would fall by a lot, destroying their actual budget.
We need Arbitrum to be able to compete with other chains, and as noted by Wintermute competition is heating up, but the competition must not be a race to run our tokens to the ground.
Arbitrum is already one of the most generous chains, we need to keep competing whilst rationalizing our spending.
I am in favor of expanding the budget, but we need more transparency on the spending and also a reorganizing effort of the chaotic spending we are now undertaking.
This proposal is now on Snapshot for a temp check: https://snapshot.org/#/arbitrumfoundation.eth/proposal/0x852b7e7bc83db6c3628695816647bdeb9825d10e445a71dcc94e651b2f8a71b9
There will be a governance call to discuss this proposal on Tuesday, 24th September at 12:00 UTC:
This proposal is now on Snapshot for a temp check: https://snapshot.org/#/arbitrumfoundation.eth/proposal/0x852b7e7bc83db6c3628695816647bdeb9825d10e445a71dcc94e651b2f8a71b9
There will be a governance call to discuss this proposal on Tuesday, 24th September at 12:00 UTC:
Funds to Bolster Foundation’s Strategic Partnerships Budget - governance call Tuesday, September 24 · 12:00 – 12:30pm Time zone: UTC Google Meet joining info Video call link: https://meet.google.com/fch-ubfr-uio
Thanks for your question. As mentioned in the proposal, the Foundation plans to expand its transparency report due in Q1 2025 to include details around this additional budget. The objective here is to provide visibility on how these funds are allocated, while also respecting confidentiality requested by any of the potential partners. We cannot report any confidential information, as doing so would breach agreements with these partners, and it could negatively impact the ecosystem if we disclose information protected by NDAs or other strict confidentiality arrangements in public forums. We’ll be happy to share details such as total amounts committed, amounts committed by vertical, etc, but if we share more specific details it risks breaching confidentiality which would make it more difficult to land partnerships with larger enterprises.
And to your question about the GCP, the Arbitrum Foundation will have a dedicated team member to coordinate potential collaborations with the GCP Foundation.
The notion page mentions only grantees that received grants from the Foundation Grants program and it does not include often larger strategic partnerships that require strict confidentiality from our counterparties. The Notion page is already up to date. Regarding specific amounts that each Foundation grantee received, unfortunately we cannot disclose this since this would put the Foundation at a clear disadvantage when negotiating grant amounts with recipients and may also create friction between grant recipients themselves by knowing how much each received.
Thank you for your questions.
We are not sure if you are suggesting a different financial arrangement from the DAO to AF or from AF to strategic partners, thus we are going to answer both scenarios:
Thank you for your questions.
We are not sure if you are suggesting a different financial arrangement from the DAO to AF or from AF to strategic partners, thus we are going to answer both scenarios:
The introduction of loans, in either case, would pose additional operational overhead and limit the capability for the AF to execute towards ecosystem growth initiatives.
The partnerships targeted by this program are not suitable to be directed by DAO-led programs since institutions or big partners are less inclined toward engaging and participating in public forums, and even when they do it is after extensive conversations with The Arbitrum Foundation and its service providers, who are making them aware of the opportunities and encouraging them to get involved. As front line enablers, The Arbitrum Foundation actively builds relationships with partners and encourages all partners to engage with the DAO.
Thanks for your questions.
Funds will be used to fund opportunities with the following criteria:
Thanks for your questions.
Funds will be used to fund opportunities with the following criteria:
The public notion page lists grantees that received grants from the Arbitrum Foundation Grants program that have a grant size less than 2M ARB and it does not include strategic partnerships. Due to confidentiality, Arbitrum Foundation will not be able to disclose the current deal pipeline of strategic partnerships applicable to the funding. Arbitrum Foundation may be able to disclose some of these deals retroactively upon execution of agreement if the partner and Arbitrum Foundation both agree to publicly disclose.
Arbitrum Foundation does not commit funding projects with grants unless there is sufficient capital in its own Treasury. The Future Capital Commitments listed in the proposal are fully backed by the current Treasury. The Foundation and its Board of Directors operate ethically to ensure all commitments are met. However, not all committed grants will necessarily be paid out for two reasons: 1) not all grantees will meet their milestones, and 2) not all pre-signing commitments will be finalized. To ensure all commitments can be fulfilled if required, the Foundation has blocked significant funding from the current Treasury. This proposal aims to unlock additional funding so the Arbitrum Foundation can continue making grant and partnership offers. Without further funding, the Foundation may have to pass on upcoming opportunities.”
Thanks for your question. The main budget constraints and considerations are outlined in the proposal and these are items such as: the tight budget compared to other Foundations, the capital locked in ongoing commitments and the current vesting schedule.
Additionally, please see below a high-level overview of how the AF ensures proper planning and budgeting:
Thanks for your question. The main budget constraints and considerations are outlined in the proposal and these are items such as: the tight budget compared to other Foundations, the capital locked in ongoing commitments and the current vesting schedule.
Additionally, please see below a high-level overview of how the AF ensures proper planning and budgeting:
Appreciate the question.
Opportunities that could be covered with the additional funding include but are not limited to:
Appreciate the question.
Opportunities that could be covered with the additional funding include but are not limited to:
Specifically, the adoption of the Orbit stack may be hindered if Arbitrum Foundation does not actively engage with the above types of projects/institutions to use Orbit as the blockchain technology for their products and increase awareness of and promote Arbitrum’s technology and ecosystem. The impact is not only limited to Orbit chains, but also impacts the other chains like Arbitrum One as there is a synergistic relationship between Arbitrum chains.
The 250 million ARB will be focusing on all verticals. Once GCP is set up, Arbitrum Foundation will consult with GCP in order to make sure that grant amounts are not duplicated.
Under this thread (https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/arbitrum-foundation-transparency-report-2023/21135/4) you may find the Grant Transparency Report that shares more details on how grant decisions are made. In the upcoming transparency report, Arbitrum Foundation will be having a dedicated section to report how the fundings are spent. Please note many grant deals are with institutions that have strong confidentiality requirements, therefore Arbitrum Foundation would only be able to share high level details of strategic grants.
The 250 million ARB will be focusing on all verticals. Once GCP is set up, Arbitrum Foundation will consult with GCP in order to make sure that grant amounts are not duplicated.
Under this thread (https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/arbitrum-foundation-transparency-report-2023/21135/4) you may find the Grant Transparency Report that shares more details on how grant decisions are made. In the upcoming transparency report, Arbitrum Foundation will be having a dedicated section to report how the fundings are spent. Please note many grant deals are with institutions that have strong confidentiality requirements, therefore Arbitrum Foundation would only be able to share high level details of strategic grants.
Having public data on expenses is a significant disadvantage in the growth of the Arbitrum ecosystem because our competitors do not have open data on expenses, and if our data is public, they can simply look at the data and then use it to outbid us on future partnership deals. Simultaneously, projects that are negotiating a grant will also be able to use this data to come with unrealistic expectations.
Thanks for your questions:
Please see the Foundation’s Bi-Annual Progress Update here where we have expanded on Foundation’s ecosystem spendings: https://docs.arbitrum.foundation/assets/files/ArbitrumFoundationBiannualReport2024H1-c8e9ab997fe68ad09c0105181f9826d8.pdf. In addition, the proposal outlines all the current signed agreements, as well as the pre-agreement offers that the Foundation extended. Please note that as it is often normal in the blockchain space, long-term plans of 3-5 years might not always be feasible. The Foundation has an annual budget that it is using based on the opportunities that are currently available on the market.
As per our understanding, AF is the only Foundation with a vesting from its DAO. While we cannot speak for others, the main purpose of this budget is to have the funds available to pursue significant partnership deals, not to spend the entire amount of funds at once. For example, the Optimism <> Coinbase deal was 118m OP tokens (~2.3% of all OP tokens) over 6 years: https://www.theblock.co/post/247532/base-optimism-revenue. That single deal alone is larger than AF’s unlocked budget and we have never been in a situation to consider a partnership of that size. The situation you describe about the Governance Fund is the inverse situation. We are asking for a budget from our DAO, whereas the OP Foundation is proposing a budget to their DAO. That is very different in nature. Please see here Foundation’s Bi-Annual Progress Update where we have expanded on Foundation’s ecosystem spendings: https://docs.arbitrum.foundation/assets/files/ArbitrumFoundationBiannualReport2024H1-c8e9ab997fe68ad09c0105181f9826d8.pdf.
Under this thread (https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/arbitrum-foundation-transparency-report-2023/21135/4) you will find the Grant Transparency Report that shares more details on how grant decisions are made. In the upcoming transparency report to be published in Q1 2025, Arbitrum Foundation will be having a dedicated section to report how the funds in this proposal are allocated. Please note many grants are with institutions that have strong confidentiality requirements, therefore Arbitrum Foundation would only be able to share high level details of strategic grants. There are significant trade-offs in making the information on expenses and agreement sizes public. In this case, if the Arbitrum Foundation does make it public, it can put us at a disadvantage relative to our competitors, and we could also inadvertently disclose contract terms if it's obvious who received the grant. Nearly all our competitors have no obligation to make their data publicly available. If our data is public, they can simply look at the data and then use it to over bid us on future partnership deals. Simultaneously, projects that are negotiating a grant will also be able to use this data to come with unrealistic expectations. That asymmetric disadvantage will impact our ability to grow the Arbitrum ecosystem.
Thanks for your questions.
| Chain | Funds |
|---|---|
| Arbitrum | 427,500,000 |
| ZkSync | 501,480,000 |
| Starknet | 800,000,000 |
| Optimism | 1,073,741,824 |
| Chain | Funds |
|---|---|
| Arbitrum | 427,500,000 |
| ZkSync | 501,480,000 |
| Starknet | 800,000,000 |
| Optimism | 1,073,741,824 |
Also, if we talk about the fact that only 1.8% is allocated at the moment, then other chains have the same story - no one lets you spend all the money at once - each chain has its own budget. For example, in Optimism, only 50 million OP is allocated per year to the Governance Fund until 2027. I think this should be discussed honestly.
This is the real picture. Furthermore, when liquidity is factored in, Arbitrum has probably already the biggest budget of these chains. If Starknet was to try to use a meaningful portion of that 20% right now, their token would fall by a lot, destroying their actual budget.
We need Arbitrum to be able to compete with other chains, and as noted by Wintermute competition is heating up, but the competition must not be a race to run our tokens to the ground.
Arbitrum is already one of the most generous chains, we need to keep competing whilst rationalizing our spending.
I am in favor of expanding the budget, but we need more transparency on the spending and also a reorganizing effort of the chaotic spending we are now undertaking.
This proposal is now on Snapshot for a temp check: https://snapshot.org/#/arbitrumfoundation.eth/proposal/0x852b7e7bc83db6c3628695816647bdeb9825d10e445a71dcc94e651b2f8a71b9
There will be a governance call to discuss this proposal on Tuesday, 24th September at 12:00 UTC:
This proposal is now on Snapshot for a temp check: https://snapshot.org/#/arbitrumfoundation.eth/proposal/0x852b7e7bc83db6c3628695816647bdeb9825d10e445a71dcc94e651b2f8a71b9
There will be a governance call to discuss this proposal on Tuesday, 24th September at 12:00 UTC:
Funds to Bolster Foundation’s Strategic Partnerships Budget - governance call Tuesday, September 24 · 12:00 – 12:30pm Time zone: UTC Google Meet joining info Video call link: https://meet.google.com/fch-ubfr-uio
Thanks for your question. As mentioned in the proposal, the Foundation plans to expand its transparency report due in Q1 2025 to include details around this additional budget. The objective here is to provide visibility on how these funds are allocated, while also respecting confidentiality requested by any of the potential partners. We cannot report any confidential information, as doing so would breach agreements with these partners, and it could negatively impact the ecosystem if we disclose information protected by NDAs or other strict confidentiality arrangements in public forums. We’ll be happy to share details such as total amounts committed, amounts committed by vertical, etc, but if we share more specific details it risks breaching confidentiality which would make it more difficult to land partnerships with larger enterprises.
And to your question about the GCP, the Arbitrum Foundation will have a dedicated team member to coordinate potential collaborations with the GCP Foundation.
The notion page mentions only grantees that received grants from the Foundation Grants program and it does not include often larger strategic partnerships that require strict confidentiality from our counterparties. The Notion page is already up to date. Regarding specific amounts that each Foundation grantee received, unfortunately we cannot disclose this since this would put the Foundation at a clear disadvantage when negotiating grant amounts with recipients and may also create friction between grant recipients themselves by knowing how much each received.
Thank you for your questions.
We are not sure if you are suggesting a different financial arrangement from the DAO to AF or from AF to strategic partners, thus we are going to answer both scenarios:
Thank you for your questions.
We are not sure if you are suggesting a different financial arrangement from the DAO to AF or from AF to strategic partners, thus we are going to answer both scenarios:
The introduction of loans, in either case, would pose additional operational overhead and limit the capability for the AF to execute towards ecosystem growth initiatives.
The partnerships targeted by this program are not suitable to be directed by DAO-led programs since institutions or big partners are less inclined toward engaging and participating in public forums, and even when they do it is after extensive conversations with The Arbitrum Foundation and its service providers, who are making them aware of the opportunities and encouraging them to get involved. As front line enablers, The Arbitrum Foundation actively builds relationships with partners and encourages all partners to engage with the DAO.
Thanks for your questions.
Funds will be used to fund opportunities with the following criteria:
Thanks for your questions.
Funds will be used to fund opportunities with the following criteria:
The public notion page lists grantees that received grants from the Arbitrum Foundation Grants program that have a grant size less than 2M ARB and it does not include strategic partnerships. Due to confidentiality, Arbitrum Foundation will not be able to disclose the current deal pipeline of strategic partnerships applicable to the funding. Arbitrum Foundation may be able to disclose some of these deals retroactively upon execution of agreement if the partner and Arbitrum Foundation both agree to publicly disclose.
Arbitrum Foundation does not commit funding projects with grants unless there is sufficient capital in its own Treasury. The Future Capital Commitments listed in the proposal are fully backed by the current Treasury. The Foundation and its Board of Directors operate ethically to ensure all commitments are met. However, not all committed grants will necessarily be paid out for two reasons: 1) not all grantees will meet their milestones, and 2) not all pre-signing commitments will be finalized. To ensure all commitments can be fulfilled if required, the Foundation has blocked significant funding from the current Treasury. This proposal aims to unlock additional funding so the Arbitrum Foundation can continue making grant and partnership offers. Without further funding, the Foundation may have to pass on upcoming opportunities.”
Thanks for your question. The main budget constraints and considerations are outlined in the proposal and these are items such as: the tight budget compared to other Foundations, the capital locked in ongoing commitments and the current vesting schedule.
Additionally, please see below a high-level overview of how the AF ensures proper planning and budgeting:
Thanks for your question. The main budget constraints and considerations are outlined in the proposal and these are items such as: the tight budget compared to other Foundations, the capital locked in ongoing commitments and the current vesting schedule.
Additionally, please see below a high-level overview of how the AF ensures proper planning and budgeting:
Appreciate the question.
Opportunities that could be covered with the additional funding include but are not limited to:
Appreciate the question.
Opportunities that could be covered with the additional funding include but are not limited to:
Specifically, the adoption of the Orbit stack may be hindered if Arbitrum Foundation does not actively engage with the above types of projects/institutions to use Orbit as the blockchain technology for their products and increase awareness of and promote Arbitrum’s technology and ecosystem. The impact is not only limited to Orbit chains, but also impacts the other chains like Arbitrum One as there is a synergistic relationship between Arbitrum chains.
Maintaining our vote on Tally
This allocation addresses our competitive gap in pursuing strategic partnerships. It enables the Foundation to act swiftly on high-impact opportunities, particularly for Orbit expansion.
Maintaining our vote on Tally
This allocation addresses our competitive gap in pursuing strategic partnerships. It enables the Foundation to act swiftly on high-impact opportunities, particularly for Orbit expansion.
The Foundation’s track record is solid, and their commitment to enhanced reporting is reassuring. An oversight council could further balance confidentiality with accountability.
This approach empowers strategic growth while maintaining appropriate DAO involvement - a pragmatic solution for Arbitrum’s evolving ecosystem.
We vote FOR the proposal on Tally.
We maintain the support made in the Snapshot phase and acknowledge that lack of transparency is largely due to the nature of partnership discussions and the protection for the competitive edge. We will review the special section dedicated to this partnership funds in the future transparency reports.
Voted for in Tally, ratifying my Snapshot vote. Thanks for feedback and comments addressing questions.
Thank you for your questions.
Voted for in Tally, ratifying my Snapshot vote. Thanks for feedback and comments addressing questions.
Thank you for your questions.
The partnership agreements that the Foundation is concluding are in line with its mission as stated in the bylaws, i.e. to Fostering ecosystem growth through strategic grants. We invite you to read Foundation’s latest transparency report for a detailed spending up to June 30, 2024. Additionally in our snapshot proposal we outline all of our current obligations, for an even more up to date overview.
These strategic partnerships benefit the ecosystem via things such as: revenue and technical mindshare on the Orbit stack obtained by the DAO via the Arbitrum Expansion Program, new active users that each new project building on Arbitrum brings, same with liquidity inflows and increase in total value locked on Arbitrum chains. These are important metrics that Arbitrum is leading and has been leading for some time. Maintaining and enhancing Arbitrum’s position as the leading Ethereum scaling solution with dominant market share including hundreds of apps on the platform and over 40% of all rollup liquidity does not come at zero cost.
We believe that nobody should take all these metrics and developments for granted, and we are focused on building Arbitrum and maintaining its position as the leading scaling solution.
The funds will be spent towards future growth of the chain, in line with the Foundation’s mission. As mentioned previously, the crypto space moves fast and some of the innovations that exist today in the blockchain space did not exist 5 years ago. It is impossible to predict all new narratives, technology and application innovations over the next 3-5 years. Having restrictions on specific verticals may limit our ability to keep up with a fast-paced industry. As of today, we are actively working on Defi, RWA, infrastructure, DePin and gaming (before GCP is fully setup) to name a few. We always recommend reading our transparency reports which are released every 6 months. It allows us to update the ArbitrumDAO on how our strategy for partnerships and grants has changed over time based on the latest learnings and trends in the industry. Again, we will have a special section dedicated to the partnership funds.
The Arbitrum ecosystem, like all ecosystems, relies on transparent and confidential programs. It is important that there are public transparent funding initiatives run by the DAO and at the same time highly strategic initiatives run by the Foundation which often involve traditional institutions having years of TradFi and Web2 experience. The Foundation’s program helps bolster the confidential funding programs that may ultimately help aid the transparent programs as we act as a gateway to onboard new institutions to participate in the ArbitrumDAO.
Strategic partners and major institutions often require strict confidentiality. A major partner will always request an NDA which will legally bind the Foundation to keep sensitive information confidential. Additionally, having public data on partnership terms is a significant disadvantage in the growth of the Arbitrum ecosystem because our competitors do not have open data on expenses, and if our data is public, they can use that information to outbid us on future partnership opportunities. Please note that these are usually large RFPs where all of Arbitrum’s competitors are usually present. Simultaneously, projects that are negotiating a grant will also be able to use this data to come with unrealistic expectations.
I'm voting in favor, as I did in the temperature check phase. Even if my concerns about transparency are still present, I also see the importance of allocating this fund for strategic reasons. Nonetheless, I'd be happy to see regular and in-depth reports as the amount is pretty big.
I’m voting FOR on Tally. My rationale remains the same as in my temp-check comments:
With Orbit expansion, Stylus, focus in gaming and the entire Arbitrum infrastructure, a significant communications challenge is necessary to abstract the complexity. So it is partnerships and having the right incentives to spread the word and bring the awareness.
I’m voting FOR on Tally. My rationale remains the same as in my temp-check comments:
With Orbit expansion, Stylus, focus in gaming and the entire Arbitrum infrastructure, a significant communications challenge is necessary to abstract the complexity. So it is partnerships and having the right incentives to spread the word and bring the awareness.
As well as pushing the boundaries for more detailed reports. As we're investing 250M ARB.
We need to continue pushing about this. It's our responsibility not just approve and give funds but also request for results and transparency.
gm, voting FOR.
I trust the Foundation to be the best gateway of the DAO, and I believe we need to synergetically support each other to guarantuee that we can move fast and effectively.
The Foundation is the best operational arm we have and we have aligned interests.
Thanks
The following reflects the views of the Lampros Labs DAO governance team, composed of @Blueweb, @Euphoria, and Hirangi Pandya (@Nyx), based on our combined research, analysis, and ideation.
We are voting FOR this proposal in Tally.
With the transparency the Foundation has shown over the past year, we believe these funds will help the Arbitrum ecosystem grow in the Layer 2 landscape.
The following reflects the views of the Lampros Labs DAO governance team, composed of @Blueweb, @Euphoria, and Hirangi Pandya (@Nyx), based on our combined research, analysis, and ideation.
We are voting FOR this proposal in Tally.
With the transparency the Foundation has shown over the past year, we believe these funds will help the Arbitrum ecosystem grow in the Layer 2 landscape.
Rest our overall thoughts remain the same as expressed in our rationale during the Snapshot voting.
With the transparency the Foundation has provided to the DAO over the past year, we are confident the funds will help the Arbitrum ecosystem grow in the Layer 2 landscape. L2 on Ethereum shall look to grow the entire pie, but who gets what portion of the pie will be decided by the teams working behind each rollup. These funds will definitely provide the required boost in capturing a larger share of the pie.
We would like to recommend Transparency Reports for strategic partnerships over $2 million to give the community better clarity.
Additionally, we support the suggestion from @thedevanshmehta and @JoJo about creating an oversight council to act as an ombudsman for further accountability.
Voted For: Same as my comment for the Snapshot vote. I still lack transparency regarding how these funds are used. Who gets, how much? I understand some of these deals should be private. But it is hard for us to asses if this kind of fund justifies the outcome if we don’t know how the funds are used. On the other side, I trust Arbitrum Foundation that in this time of highly competitive conditions we will use the funds positively that will benefit Arbitrum and Ethereum ecosystem.
NO to more spending.
ChamaDAO is categorically against additional spending for the DAO without clear goals and success criteria, which this proposal does not have.
Just cast my 'FOR' vote on Tally. As I highlighted during the temp-check, expanding strategic partnerships is crucial for Arbitrum’s growth. But I want to stress again the importance of transparency; especially when we're dealing with 250M ARB, which is no small figure.
DAOplomats is voting in favor of this proposal on Tally.
We voted in favor of this proposal during the temp check and we are maintaining that stance.
I'm voting FOR this proposal on Tally, for the reasons outlined during the temp-check vote:
After consideration, the @SEEDgov delegation has decided to “ABSTAIN” on this proposal at the Tally vote.
Maintaining our vote on Tally
This allocation addresses our competitive gap in pursuing strategic partnerships. It enables the Foundation to act swiftly on high-impact opportunities, particularly for Orbit expansion.
Maintaining our vote on Tally
This allocation addresses our competitive gap in pursuing strategic partnerships. It enables the Foundation to act swiftly on high-impact opportunities, particularly for Orbit expansion.
The Foundation’s track record is solid, and their commitment to enhanced reporting is reassuring. An oversight council could further balance confidentiality with accountability.
This approach empowers strategic growth while maintaining appropriate DAO involvement - a pragmatic solution for Arbitrum’s evolving ecosystem.
We vote FOR the proposal on Tally.
We maintain the support made in the Snapshot phase and acknowledge that lack of transparency is largely due to the nature of partnership discussions and the protection for the competitive edge. We will review the special section dedicated to this partnership funds in the future transparency reports.
Voted for in Tally, ratifying my Snapshot vote. Thanks for feedback and comments addressing questions.
Thank you for your questions.
Voted for in Tally, ratifying my Snapshot vote. Thanks for feedback and comments addressing questions.
Thank you for your questions.
The partnership agreements that the Foundation is concluding are in line with its mission as stated in the bylaws, i.e. to Fostering ecosystem growth through strategic grants. We invite you to read Foundation’s latest transparency report for a detailed spending up to June 30, 2024. Additionally in our snapshot proposal we outline all of our current obligations, for an even more up to date overview.
These strategic partnerships benefit the ecosystem via things such as: revenue and technical mindshare on the Orbit stack obtained by the DAO via the Arbitrum Expansion Program, new active users that each new project building on Arbitrum brings, same with liquidity inflows and increase in total value locked on Arbitrum chains. These are important metrics that Arbitrum is leading and has been leading for some time. Maintaining and enhancing Arbitrum’s position as the leading Ethereum scaling solution with dominant market share including hundreds of apps on the platform and over 40% of all rollup liquidity does not come at zero cost.
We believe that nobody should take all these metrics and developments for granted, and we are focused on building Arbitrum and maintaining its position as the leading scaling solution.
The funds will be spent towards future growth of the chain, in line with the Foundation’s mission. As mentioned previously, the crypto space moves fast and some of the innovations that exist today in the blockchain space did not exist 5 years ago. It is impossible to predict all new narratives, technology and application innovations over the next 3-5 years. Having restrictions on specific verticals may limit our ability to keep up with a fast-paced industry. As of today, we are actively working on Defi, RWA, infrastructure, DePin and gaming (before GCP is fully setup) to name a few. We always recommend reading our transparency reports which are released every 6 months. It allows us to update the ArbitrumDAO on how our strategy for partnerships and grants has changed over time based on the latest learnings and trends in the industry. Again, we will have a special section dedicated to the partnership funds.
The Arbitrum ecosystem, like all ecosystems, relies on transparent and confidential programs. It is important that there are public transparent funding initiatives run by the DAO and at the same time highly strategic initiatives run by the Foundation which often involve traditional institutions having years of TradFi and Web2 experience. The Foundation’s program helps bolster the confidential funding programs that may ultimately help aid the transparent programs as we act as a gateway to onboard new institutions to participate in the ArbitrumDAO.
Strategic partners and major institutions often require strict confidentiality. A major partner will always request an NDA which will legally bind the Foundation to keep sensitive information confidential. Additionally, having public data on partnership terms is a significant disadvantage in the growth of the Arbitrum ecosystem because our competitors do not have open data on expenses, and if our data is public, they can use that information to outbid us on future partnership opportunities. Please note that these are usually large RFPs where all of Arbitrum’s competitors are usually present. Simultaneously, projects that are negotiating a grant will also be able to use this data to come with unrealistic expectations.
I'm voting in favor, as I did in the temperature check phase. Even if my concerns about transparency are still present, I also see the importance of allocating this fund for strategic reasons. Nonetheless, I'd be happy to see regular and in-depth reports as the amount is pretty big.
I’m voting FOR on Tally. My rationale remains the same as in my temp-check comments:
With Orbit expansion, Stylus, focus in gaming and the entire Arbitrum infrastructure, a significant communications challenge is necessary to abstract the complexity. So it is partnerships and having the right incentives to spread the word and bring the awareness.
I’m voting FOR on Tally. My rationale remains the same as in my temp-check comments:
With Orbit expansion, Stylus, focus in gaming and the entire Arbitrum infrastructure, a significant communications challenge is necessary to abstract the complexity. So it is partnerships and having the right incentives to spread the word and bring the awareness.
As well as pushing the boundaries for more detailed reports. As we're investing 250M ARB.
We need to continue pushing about this. It's our responsibility not just approve and give funds but also request for results and transparency.
gm, voting FOR.
I trust the Foundation to be the best gateway of the DAO, and I believe we need to synergetically support each other to guarantuee that we can move fast and effectively.
The Foundation is the best operational arm we have and we have aligned interests.
Thanks
The following reflects the views of the Lampros Labs DAO governance team, composed of @Blueweb, @Euphoria, and Hirangi Pandya (@Nyx), based on our combined research, analysis, and ideation.
We are voting FOR this proposal in Tally.
With the transparency the Foundation has shown over the past year, we believe these funds will help the Arbitrum ecosystem grow in the Layer 2 landscape.
The following reflects the views of the Lampros Labs DAO governance team, composed of @Blueweb, @Euphoria, and Hirangi Pandya (@Nyx), based on our combined research, analysis, and ideation.
We are voting FOR this proposal in Tally.
With the transparency the Foundation has shown over the past year, we believe these funds will help the Arbitrum ecosystem grow in the Layer 2 landscape.
Rest our overall thoughts remain the same as expressed in our rationale during the Snapshot voting.
With the transparency the Foundation has provided to the DAO over the past year, we are confident the funds will help the Arbitrum ecosystem grow in the Layer 2 landscape. L2 on Ethereum shall look to grow the entire pie, but who gets what portion of the pie will be decided by the teams working behind each rollup. These funds will definitely provide the required boost in capturing a larger share of the pie.
We would like to recommend Transparency Reports for strategic partnerships over $2 million to give the community better clarity.
Additionally, we support the suggestion from @thedevanshmehta and @JoJo about creating an oversight council to act as an ombudsman for further accountability.
Voted For: Same as my comment for the Snapshot vote. I still lack transparency regarding how these funds are used. Who gets, how much? I understand some of these deals should be private. But it is hard for us to asses if this kind of fund justifies the outcome if we don’t know how the funds are used. On the other side, I trust Arbitrum Foundation that in this time of highly competitive conditions we will use the funds positively that will benefit Arbitrum and Ethereum ecosystem.
NO to more spending.
ChamaDAO is categorically against additional spending for the DAO without clear goals and success criteria, which this proposal does not have.
Just cast my 'FOR' vote on Tally. As I highlighted during the temp-check, expanding strategic partnerships is crucial for Arbitrum’s growth. But I want to stress again the importance of transparency; especially when we're dealing with 250M ARB, which is no small figure.
DAOplomats is voting in favor of this proposal on Tally.
We voted in favor of this proposal during the temp check and we are maintaining that stance.
I'm voting FOR this proposal on Tally, for the reasons outlined during the temp-check vote:
After consideration, the @SEEDgov delegation has decided to “ABSTAIN” on this proposal at the Tally vote.
I'm voting FOR this proposal on Tally, for the reasons outlined during the temp-check vote:
My only comment is that, since the funds are coming from the DAO this time, I expect a more in-depth and detailed report on how the funds are being used for these strategic partnerships, not just high-level takes like in section 1 of the biannual report.
Finally, I’d like to continue advocating for more support for the DAO in terms of marketing and communication regarding its initiatives. We will likely see new incentive programs in 2025, as well as the recently approved Stylus initiative. These initiatives require strong marketing campaigns, and while the DAO can fund campaigns with advertising agencies, the main communication channels for Arbitrum (namely Twitter and Discord) are controlled by the Foundation. It would be great to achieve greater synergy in this regard.
After consideration, the @SEEDgov delegation has decided to “ABSTAIN” on this proposal at the Tally vote.
SEEDGov understands the rationale behind this proposal. It’s true that the allocation received by the Foundation is relatively low compared to others, and the vesting structure significantly limits its ability to execute large-scale agreements. This situation puts the Arbitrum Foundation at a disadvantage in competing with other L2s.
However, during the Snapshot vote, we provided feedback that has neither been addressed nor acknowledged. As a result, while we generally support the proposal’s objectives, we are not comfortable voting in favor of it in its current form.
The FranklinDAO / Penn Blockchain Team voted FOR this proposal on Tally.
While 250m ARB increase from the 750m total allocated to AF is quite large, we believe the potential partnerships that AF can bring to the chain and ecosystem have a high chance of being very high impact. While the DAO does not have oversight or input on how these funds will be used in partnerships, we can likely trust the AF will use it responsibly. We expect transparency reports when available, and like other delegates mentioned, would like it if there was a delegate that was chosen as a liaison/oversight member under NDA.
I voted yes. Its crucial for the Arbitrum ecosystem to grow. Competitors are growing strong and I simply do believe there is some BD work that needs to be done by the AF. I understand that some people think the transparency is lacking in terms of wallet address and how the funds will be used. I would suggest that the AF will be doing a monthly report on how the funds have been used, how much has been used and whats next happening to keep transparency as high as possible.
Blockworks Research will be voting FOR this proposal on Tally.
We feel as though the foundation has been sufficiently transparent with the DAO for partnerships an grants. Any further lack of transparency is purely for competitive edge, which is required for the network to compete with others.
I voted FOR this proposal on Tally for the reasons outlined below.
I voted FOR this proposal on Tally for the reasons outlined below.
I think it’s important that this program be actively deduplicated and aligned with GCP.
I’d like more detail into how the Foundation plans to approach transparency. The bar should be even higher in terms of reporting than it has been in the past, given the increased size of the program.
I voted FOR on the Tally vote. As it is a substantial amount of money, the DAO should renew the efforts to have a better sense on how they are used.
You can simply sign a text message with some data that only you have and so that we can somehow verify it.
If there is no way to verify the authenticity of a multisig, then why not send money to a trusted multisig, and then they can send it to another one (which they can verify without disclosing the information to everyone), but at least there will be someone to ask.
The following reflects the views of L2BEAT’s governance team, composed of @krst and @Sinkas, and it’s based on the combined research, fact-checking, and ideation of the two.
We’re voting FOR the proposal, just as we did during the temp-check vote.
The following reflects the views of L2BEAT’s governance team, composed of @krst and @Sinkas, and it’s based on the combined research, fact-checking, and ideation of the two.
We’re voting FOR the proposal, just as we did during the temp-check vote.
The Foundation is one of the DAO’s biggest assets and even though we would like to see them constantly improve on transparency of the use of funds, we’re in favor of supporting them with additional funds. We believe not funding them would be a greater opportunity cost than what we’d ‘save’ by not funding them and we’d miss out on a lot of things that the DAO is not yet at a position to undertake (e.g. strategic partnerships).
Good catch @TempeTechie. That is the correct transfer address that will receive the 250m ARB according to the Tally interface.
It's a Gnosis Safe multisig wallet & has 7 signers.
Each of the 7 signers are brand new wallets with no history which is alarming.
You can see that detail here: https://platform.arkhamintelligence.com/explorer/address/0x140e4D8d4229D5437EfD6FC1BEeB86Cb2bCF9D98
Good catch @TempeTechie. That is the correct transfer address that will receive the 250m ARB according to the Tally interface.
It's a Gnosis Safe multisig wallet & has 7 signers.
Each of the 7 signers are brand new wallets with no history which is alarming.
You can see that detail here: https://platform.arkhamintelligence.com/explorer/address/0x140e4D8d4229D5437EfD6FC1BEeB86Cb2bCF9D98
Can the Foundation weigh in on this @cliffton.eth, @stonecoldpat, by what policy are you managing the multisig and selecting who are the signers. Can you detail this?
The proposal sends 250M ARB (Tally shows it as ETH, but that's probably a frontend mistake) to this address: 0x140e4D8d4229D5437EfD6FC1BEeB86Cb2bCF9D98
Where can we verify that this address is a legit Arbitrum Foundation address? I searched via Google and social media, and couldn't find anything about the address. The blockchain explorer shows an empty Safe account for that address (no prior txs)...
The proposal sends 250M ARB (Tally shows it as ETH, but that's probably a frontend mistake) to this address: 0x140e4D8d4229D5437EfD6FC1BEeB86Cb2bCF9D98
Where can we verify that this address is a legit Arbitrum Foundation address? I searched via Google and social media, and couldn't find anything about the address. The blockchain explorer shows an empty Safe account for that address (no prior txs)...
It would be great if there was a way to verify receiving addresses in any proposal, especially the ones which send large amounts of money.
A few ideas: Arbitrum Foundation could have this address listed somehwere on the website (e.g. in the docs). Safe signers could post that address on their social media to confirm that it's legit, etc.
voting Against on the current onchain proposal because this is too big of an ask, with too little oversight and transparency on how this money will be spent.
Gauntlet voted in favor of this proposal and provided feedback to the Arbitrum Foundation before the vote. A historical pain point has been the competitive grant deployment of other L2 ecosystems, allowing them to secure large brand-name partnerships. While the long-term effectiveness of this strategy is up for debate, it does make sense to establish a budget for Arbitrum to compete with other L2s on securing key partnerships.
One area that Gauntlet would request improvement is transparency. We suggest exploring making aspects of partnership details public after a set period, similar to government disclosure practices. While we understand the sensitivities around these deals, there may be a middle ground that allows the DAO and community to learn from the Foundation's future mistakes and successes in pursuing these partnerships.
voting Against the current offchain proposal because I believe this Arbitrum Foundation proposal, for this amount of money, should require much more transparency and discussion than what happened up until now. There was a 30 minute, non-recorded, re-scheduled call where some Arbitrum Foundation members were not able to justify this particular amount, requested at this particular moment. The Arbitrum DAO should have a much higher bar to release this amount of funds.
No vote, missed this vote unfortunately also.
Voted For - I hear the concerns about more 'centralization' but the reality of this competitive network vertical is that other teams have a massive advantage when creating impactful strategic relationships.
The Foundation has an oversight mechanism from the DAO and the DAO is not capable of managing strategic partnerships. Unless there is a strong alternative, I don't see why this is not an acceptable solution.
Vote: FOR
Type and Proposal Link: Snapshot –> Funds to Bolster Foundation’s Strategic Partnerships Budget
Voting Rationale Link: https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/alex-lumley-savvy-dao-delegate-communication-thread/26147/25
=== COMMENTS ON PROPOSAL: ===
Thanks, @stonecoldpat. That explanation makes sense in protecting the security of the individual signers. If this is a common policy we have to protect individuals also with the GCP, should we also have that to protect all the individuals in the MSS? How should OpSec be handled there?
I do wonder though is there some ZK technology that exists or could be created to protect the identity of signers but verify to the public the signers have a track record as good guardians of these funds? Sounds like a worthy pursuit in service of making the highest integrity system for the long term. I am not making this comment for this case alone, this comment is in service of us as an industry developing great systems for 21st century institutions and beyond, and Arbitrum playing it's part as a pioneer leading by example in the development of best practices for this emergent field.
We vote FOR the proposal on Snapshot.
If you think about the Foundation as a service provider, they have done tremendous work so far including bringing strategic partnerships, to the Arbitrum ecosystem. Expanding more partnerships to compete other networks with more budget from the party with great track record makes total sense.
We vote FOR the proposal on Snapshot.
If you think about the Foundation as a service provider, they have done tremendous work so far including bringing strategic partnerships, to the Arbitrum ecosystem. Expanding more partnerships to compete other networks with more budget from the party with great track record makes total sense.
However, as already pointed out, the transparency of the program and its reporting should be treated as the important deliverables to be promised by the Foundation. We also suggest the proposal to provide more break-downs of the budget with detailed objectives and plans before its onchain voting.
I voted FOR in this proposal.
I don’t have strong opinions on the amount requested. To be honest, at this point, focusing on growth and a robust ecosystem is important compared to other alternatives.
It also seems reasonable to focus on one ecosystem for now rather than others, particularly gaming in this case.
I voted FOR in this proposal.
I don’t have strong opinions on the amount requested. To be honest, at this point, focusing on growth and a robust ecosystem is important compared to other alternatives.
It also seems reasonable to focus on one ecosystem for now rather than others, particularly gaming in this case.
I do agree with some colleagues above that it should be aligned with GCP to avoid overlap and create a greater impact on the ecosystem.
With Orbit expansion, Stylus, and the entire Arbitrum infrastructure, a significant communications challenge is necessary to abstract the complexity.
Since the funds are coming from the DAO, I would appreciate a more low-level transparency report. So far, it has been high-level, which is fine, but for an exercise like this, based on precedents, it would be nice to see how this process unfolds in the future.
That’s it. I’m intrigued to see the future of the ecosystem. I genuinely believe in the potential of this to become infrastructure for L3 projects and huge on chain activity. The push for large Web2 companies jumping into this seems key to me. For example, Sony jumping into Superchain, Starknet, and gaming-focused platforms are things that we’ve been competing with so far.
I believe these resources should serve and provide relief to achieve these goals, which seems aligned to me.
Voting "Against" as this currently stands.
I know this is going to be perceived as a very "cut off your nose to spite your face" type of response but taking a step back this is a large ask that 1) as other delegates have mentioned doesn't seem to have much detail as I would expect for the size of the request 2) doesn't feel justified given there are already ARB funds earmarked for the foundation and 3) doesn't have any revenue generation to soften the blow of funding.
I'm voting FOR this proposal on Tally, for the reasons outlined during the temp-check vote:
My only comment is that, since the funds are coming from the DAO this time, I expect a more in-depth and detailed report on how the funds are being used for these strategic partnerships, not just high-level takes like in section 1 of the biannual report.
Finally, I’d like to continue advocating for more support for the DAO in terms of marketing and communication regarding its initiatives. We will likely see new incentive programs in 2025, as well as the recently approved Stylus initiative. These initiatives require strong marketing campaigns, and while the DAO can fund campaigns with advertising agencies, the main communication channels for Arbitrum (namely Twitter and Discord) are controlled by the Foundation. It would be great to achieve greater synergy in this regard.
After consideration, the @SEEDgov delegation has decided to “ABSTAIN” on this proposal at the Tally vote.
SEEDGov understands the rationale behind this proposal. It’s true that the allocation received by the Foundation is relatively low compared to others, and the vesting structure significantly limits its ability to execute large-scale agreements. This situation puts the Arbitrum Foundation at a disadvantage in competing with other L2s.
However, during the Snapshot vote, we provided feedback that has neither been addressed nor acknowledged. As a result, while we generally support the proposal’s objectives, we are not comfortable voting in favor of it in its current form.
The FranklinDAO / Penn Blockchain Team voted FOR this proposal on Tally.
While 250m ARB increase from the 750m total allocated to AF is quite large, we believe the potential partnerships that AF can bring to the chain and ecosystem have a high chance of being very high impact. While the DAO does not have oversight or input on how these funds will be used in partnerships, we can likely trust the AF will use it responsibly. We expect transparency reports when available, and like other delegates mentioned, would like it if there was a delegate that was chosen as a liaison/oversight member under NDA.
I voted yes. Its crucial for the Arbitrum ecosystem to grow. Competitors are growing strong and I simply do believe there is some BD work that needs to be done by the AF. I understand that some people think the transparency is lacking in terms of wallet address and how the funds will be used. I would suggest that the AF will be doing a monthly report on how the funds have been used, how much has been used and whats next happening to keep transparency as high as possible.
Blockworks Research will be voting FOR this proposal on Tally.
We feel as though the foundation has been sufficiently transparent with the DAO for partnerships an grants. Any further lack of transparency is purely for competitive edge, which is required for the network to compete with others.
I voted FOR this proposal on Tally for the reasons outlined below.
I voted FOR this proposal on Tally for the reasons outlined below.
I think it’s important that this program be actively deduplicated and aligned with GCP.
I’d like more detail into how the Foundation plans to approach transparency. The bar should be even higher in terms of reporting than it has been in the past, given the increased size of the program.
I voted FOR on the Tally vote. As it is a substantial amount of money, the DAO should renew the efforts to have a better sense on how they are used.
You can simply sign a text message with some data that only you have and so that we can somehow verify it.
If there is no way to verify the authenticity of a multisig, then why not send money to a trusted multisig, and then they can send it to another one (which they can verify without disclosing the information to everyone), but at least there will be someone to ask.
The following reflects the views of L2BEAT’s governance team, composed of @krst and @Sinkas, and it’s based on the combined research, fact-checking, and ideation of the two.
We’re voting FOR the proposal, just as we did during the temp-check vote.
The following reflects the views of L2BEAT’s governance team, composed of @krst and @Sinkas, and it’s based on the combined research, fact-checking, and ideation of the two.
We’re voting FOR the proposal, just as we did during the temp-check vote.
The Foundation is one of the DAO’s biggest assets and even though we would like to see them constantly improve on transparency of the use of funds, we’re in favor of supporting them with additional funds. We believe not funding them would be a greater opportunity cost than what we’d ‘save’ by not funding them and we’d miss out on a lot of things that the DAO is not yet at a position to undertake (e.g. strategic partnerships).
Good catch @TempeTechie. That is the correct transfer address that will receive the 250m ARB according to the Tally interface.
It's a Gnosis Safe multisig wallet & has 7 signers.
Each of the 7 signers are brand new wallets with no history which is alarming.
You can see that detail here: https://platform.arkhamintelligence.com/explorer/address/0x140e4D8d4229D5437EfD6FC1BEeB86Cb2bCF9D98
Good catch @TempeTechie. That is the correct transfer address that will receive the 250m ARB according to the Tally interface.
It's a Gnosis Safe multisig wallet & has 7 signers.
Each of the 7 signers are brand new wallets with no history which is alarming.
You can see that detail here: https://platform.arkhamintelligence.com/explorer/address/0x140e4D8d4229D5437EfD6FC1BEeB86Cb2bCF9D98
Can the Foundation weigh in on this @cliffton.eth, @stonecoldpat, by what policy are you managing the multisig and selecting who are the signers. Can you detail this?
The proposal sends 250M ARB (Tally shows it as ETH, but that's probably a frontend mistake) to this address: 0x140e4D8d4229D5437EfD6FC1BEeB86Cb2bCF9D98
Where can we verify that this address is a legit Arbitrum Foundation address? I searched via Google and social media, and couldn't find anything about the address. The blockchain explorer shows an empty Safe account for that address (no prior txs)...
The proposal sends 250M ARB (Tally shows it as ETH, but that's probably a frontend mistake) to this address: 0x140e4D8d4229D5437EfD6FC1BEeB86Cb2bCF9D98
Where can we verify that this address is a legit Arbitrum Foundation address? I searched via Google and social media, and couldn't find anything about the address. The blockchain explorer shows an empty Safe account for that address (no prior txs)...
It would be great if there was a way to verify receiving addresses in any proposal, especially the ones which send large amounts of money.
A few ideas: Arbitrum Foundation could have this address listed somehwere on the website (e.g. in the docs). Safe signers could post that address on their social media to confirm that it's legit, etc.
voting Against on the current onchain proposal because this is too big of an ask, with too little oversight and transparency on how this money will be spent.
Gauntlet voted in favor of this proposal and provided feedback to the Arbitrum Foundation before the vote. A historical pain point has been the competitive grant deployment of other L2 ecosystems, allowing them to secure large brand-name partnerships. While the long-term effectiveness of this strategy is up for debate, it does make sense to establish a budget for Arbitrum to compete with other L2s on securing key partnerships.
One area that Gauntlet would request improvement is transparency. We suggest exploring making aspects of partnership details public after a set period, similar to government disclosure practices. While we understand the sensitivities around these deals, there may be a middle ground that allows the DAO and community to learn from the Foundation's future mistakes and successes in pursuing these partnerships.
voting Against the current offchain proposal because I believe this Arbitrum Foundation proposal, for this amount of money, should require much more transparency and discussion than what happened up until now. There was a 30 minute, non-recorded, re-scheduled call where some Arbitrum Foundation members were not able to justify this particular amount, requested at this particular moment. The Arbitrum DAO should have a much higher bar to release this amount of funds.
No vote, missed this vote unfortunately also.
Voted For - I hear the concerns about more 'centralization' but the reality of this competitive network vertical is that other teams have a massive advantage when creating impactful strategic relationships.
The Foundation has an oversight mechanism from the DAO and the DAO is not capable of managing strategic partnerships. Unless there is a strong alternative, I don't see why this is not an acceptable solution.
Vote: FOR
Type and Proposal Link: Snapshot –> Funds to Bolster Foundation’s Strategic Partnerships Budget
Voting Rationale Link: https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/alex-lumley-savvy-dao-delegate-communication-thread/26147/25
=== COMMENTS ON PROPOSAL: ===
Thanks, @stonecoldpat. That explanation makes sense in protecting the security of the individual signers. If this is a common policy we have to protect individuals also with the GCP, should we also have that to protect all the individuals in the MSS? How should OpSec be handled there?
I do wonder though is there some ZK technology that exists or could be created to protect the identity of signers but verify to the public the signers have a track record as good guardians of these funds? Sounds like a worthy pursuit in service of making the highest integrity system for the long term. I am not making this comment for this case alone, this comment is in service of us as an industry developing great systems for 21st century institutions and beyond, and Arbitrum playing it's part as a pioneer leading by example in the development of best practices for this emergent field.
We vote FOR the proposal on Snapshot.
If you think about the Foundation as a service provider, they have done tremendous work so far including bringing strategic partnerships, to the Arbitrum ecosystem. Expanding more partnerships to compete other networks with more budget from the party with great track record makes total sense.
We vote FOR the proposal on Snapshot.
If you think about the Foundation as a service provider, they have done tremendous work so far including bringing strategic partnerships, to the Arbitrum ecosystem. Expanding more partnerships to compete other networks with more budget from the party with great track record makes total sense.
However, as already pointed out, the transparency of the program and its reporting should be treated as the important deliverables to be promised by the Foundation. We also suggest the proposal to provide more break-downs of the budget with detailed objectives and plans before its onchain voting.
I voted FOR in this proposal.
I don’t have strong opinions on the amount requested. To be honest, at this point, focusing on growth and a robust ecosystem is important compared to other alternatives.
It also seems reasonable to focus on one ecosystem for now rather than others, particularly gaming in this case.
I voted FOR in this proposal.
I don’t have strong opinions on the amount requested. To be honest, at this point, focusing on growth and a robust ecosystem is important compared to other alternatives.
It also seems reasonable to focus on one ecosystem for now rather than others, particularly gaming in this case.
I do agree with some colleagues above that it should be aligned with GCP to avoid overlap and create a greater impact on the ecosystem.
With Orbit expansion, Stylus, and the entire Arbitrum infrastructure, a significant communications challenge is necessary to abstract the complexity.
Since the funds are coming from the DAO, I would appreciate a more low-level transparency report. So far, it has been high-level, which is fine, but for an exercise like this, based on precedents, it would be nice to see how this process unfolds in the future.
That’s it. I’m intrigued to see the future of the ecosystem. I genuinely believe in the potential of this to become infrastructure for L3 projects and huge on chain activity. The push for large Web2 companies jumping into this seems key to me. For example, Sony jumping into Superchain, Starknet, and gaming-focused platforms are things that we’ve been competing with so far.
I believe these resources should serve and provide relief to achieve these goals, which seems aligned to me.
Voting "Against" as this currently stands.
I know this is going to be perceived as a very "cut off your nose to spite your face" type of response but taking a step back this is a large ask that 1) as other delegates have mentioned doesn't seem to have much detail as I would expect for the size of the request 2) doesn't feel justified given there are already ARB funds earmarked for the foundation and 3) doesn't have any revenue generation to soften the blow of funding.
Vote: FOR
Type and Proposal Link: Snapshot –> Funds to Bolster Foundation’s Strategic Partnerships Budget
Voting Rationale Link: https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/alex-lumley-savvy-dao-delegate-communication-thread/26147/25
=== COMMENTS ON PROPOSAL: ===
I voted FOR this proposal because I believe that the Foundation plays an essential role in securing partnerships that are critical to the growth and sustainability of the Arbitrum ecosystem. While I do share some concerns about transparency, especially regarding how funds will be spent and the longer-term plan for resource allocation, I think the opportunity cost of not acting is too high.
The Foundation has consistently shown its ability to execute on key initiatives, and providing them with the flexibility to move quickly on strategic partnerships is necessary in the competitive landscape of L2 solutions. However, I do hope to see improved reporting and some form of oversight, such as a DAO council, as mentioned by other delegates. This would help balance the need for confidentiality with accountability.
=== UPDATED COMMENTING RATIONALE FOR TALLY === I stand by my commenting rationale posted above.
I would like to see more reporting from the foundation on their business objectives and grants reported. This interaction between AJ and Ryan Wyatt shows how we can improve: https://x.com/ajwarner90/status/1851288572172570821
Voting "Against" as this currently stands.
I know this is going to be perceived as a very "cut off your nose to spite your face" type of response but taking a step back this is a large ask that 1) as other delegates have mentioned doesn't seem to have much detail as I would expect for the size of the request 2) doesn't feel justified given there are already ARB funds earmarked for the foundation and 3) doesn't have any revenue generation to soften the blow of funding.
I should add, it sounds like the majority of these funds would go towards grant funding. Which when you start factoring in the various grant programs already ran by the DAO we have seen a massive percentage of the DAO budget going to these types of projects.
I'll caveat at the end here... this isn't an opinion of outright rejection of the idea and I see a version of this where I vote to pass... I basically just think that at this time given the size of the request and what I noted above this needs more time in the oven.
Edit: Posting here to save space on the forum. For Tally, I will maintain my "Against" vote as concerns I (and others) noted have not been adequately address IMO.
I voted FOR this proposal at the temp check stage for the reasons outlined below. I appreciate the planned additional resources for reporting/transparency and coordination with the GCP outlined by the Foundation in response to my original comment.
I voted FOR this proposal at the temp check stage for the reasons outlined below. I appreciate the planned additional resources for reporting/transparency and coordination with the GCP outlined by the Foundation in response to my original comment.
I think it’s important that this program be actively deduplicated and aligned with GCP.
I’d like more detail into how the Foundation plans to approach transparency. The bar should be even higher in terms of reporting than it has been in the past, given the increased size of the program.
I voted for, but would like to see the points raised by the delegators addressed as enhancements into the current proposal for the Tally vote.
We support allocating further funds to boost the foundation's Strategic Partnerships budget, as we acknowledge the necessity of remaining competitive within the landscape.
However, we are wary of over-leveraging grants as a means to direct capital without any expectations or accountability. Rather than how much money projects have in their vault, the real difference is how these are spent. For this reason, we would like to see these partnerships established against clearly defined KPIs, which could then measure their success and be refined for the future (e.g., identified by the expected return on investment, boosted on-chain metrics, etc.).
We support allocating further funds to boost the foundation's Strategic Partnerships budget, as we acknowledge the necessity of remaining competitive within the landscape.
However, we are wary of over-leveraging grants as a means to direct capital without any expectations or accountability. Rather than how much money projects have in their vault, the real difference is how these are spent. For this reason, we would like to see these partnerships established against clearly defined KPIs, which could then measure their success and be refined for the future (e.g., identified by the expected return on investment, boosted on-chain metrics, etc.).
Lastly, as @pedrob highlighted, we believe ensuring these strategic initiatives are followed up with the appropriate marketing support to maximize their impact and user awareness is important.
In alternative, we support exploring alternative solutions, such as what @Entropy proposed regarding the foundation vesting, to avoid further dilution.
At the temp-check, I’m voting in favor of increasing the Foundation’s strategic partnerships budget. Expanding Arbitrum’s reach and fostering meaningful collaborations are key for long-term growth.
Questions asked by @cp0x seem reasonable, it would be positive to see additional feedback before going to an on-chain vote.
The following reflects the views of L2BEAT’s governance team, composed of @krst and @Sinkas, and it’s based on the combined research, fact-checking, and ideation of the two.
We’re voting FOR the proposal.
Having discussed the proposal directly with the Foundation, we decided that we have no apparent reason not to trust that they need the additional funds for the reasons outlined in the proposal.
The following reflects the views of L2BEAT’s governance team, composed of @krst and @Sinkas, and it’s based on the combined research, fact-checking, and ideation of the two.
We’re voting FOR the proposal.
Having discussed the proposal directly with the Foundation, we decided that we have no apparent reason not to trust that they need the additional funds for the reasons outlined in the proposal.
The Foundation has proven to be a valuable asset for both Arbitrum and the DAO, and it makes sense to strengthen the collaboration between the two while enabling the former to execute its mission with some degree of flexibility. Strategic partnerships play a pivotal role in growing Arbitrum’s ecosystem and the Foundation is in a position to leverage them better than the DAO at this point. The opportunity cost of not providing them with the funds to do so could be more than the cost of the requested funds.
Having said that, we want to highlight that the Foundation could better communicate its plans with the DAO and coordinate with the DAO to ensure the funds are used as efficiently as possible on both ends.
DAOplomats voted in favor of this proposal on Snapshot.
The Foundation has been doing good work and is transparent with its responsibilities. The ask in comparison with the previous is way more but we agree with many delegates on giving the FDN freedom and flexibility. We also support the Foundation's remarks on confidentiality in securing these strategic partnerships.
DAOplomats voted in favor of this proposal on Snapshot.
The Foundation has been doing good work and is transparent with its responsibilities. The ask in comparison with the previous is way more but we agree with many delegates on giving the FDN freedom and flexibility. We also support the Foundation's remarks on confidentiality in securing these strategic partnerships.
They have been a net positive to Arbitrum and its community and we would love to see them continue making these moves to secure key partnerships for the community and the broader Arbitrum ecosystem.
Below are the opinions of the UADP:
With a degree of reluctance, we voted For this proposal. It’s often difficult to say No to such a large stakeholder since the work that they conduct is often critical. The AF plays an instrumental role in facilitating the effective continuation and development of the DAO and protocol. They have numerous existing relationships that cannot be easily outsourced and programs that require sustained funding. In that vein, we do think that the AF should have taken into account the large portion of ARB that is vested. Such budgeting would mean that a liquidity crunch for grants and partnerships would have led to better management and allocation of funds. However, due to NDAs and other variables that lead to a lack of full transparency, it’s hard to tell exactly why such budgeting decisions were made. A future plan should be implemented by the AF to reimburse the DAO at some point using the tokens that eventually vest, as opposed to continuing to grow their expenditure on grants. In other words, we are not seeing this as a growth program—but a temporary solution to liquidity issues.
Interesting proposal, and it's good to expand Arbitrum's collaboration with other projects. It’s especially important to focus on RWAs, which have become quite significant lately.
Like @JoJo, I’m not sure how much budget should be added, but I would like to know more about your plans for expenditure, expected results, and the budget for each project. Maybe a bit off topic but maybe can consider partnerships with DeFi creators to strengthen the DAO's mindshare :)
We're voting FOR this proposal.
This allocation addresses our competitive gap in pursuing strategic partnerships. It enables the Foundation to act swiftly on high-impact opportunities, particularly for Orbit expansion.
The Foundation's track record is solid, and their commitment to enhanced reporting is reassuring. An oversight council could further balance confidentiality with accountability.
We're voting FOR this proposal.
This allocation addresses our competitive gap in pursuing strategic partnerships. It enables the Foundation to act swiftly on high-impact opportunities, particularly for Orbit expansion.
The Foundation's track record is solid, and their commitment to enhanced reporting is reassuring. An oversight council could further balance confidentiality with accountability.
This approach empowers strategic growth while maintaining appropriate DAO involvement - a pragmatic solution for Arbitrum's evolving ecosystem.
gm, in support of the Foundation having more funds to grow the ecosystem, and understand the current limitations against competitive offers.
I would like to see:
I was on a call today, but 30 minutes was not enough to get all the answers, so I'm asking here:
I looked at the report for 2023, in which the Foundation spent only 2 million ARB on grants with total commitments of 6.7 million ARB. These amounts do not in any way indicate a need for 250 million ARB at the moment. From the table of the proposal itself, I see that the signed agreements amount to about $ 21 million, which is significantly less than the required amount of 250 million ARB. Future expenses, where $ 108 million are indicated, are still under consideration and it is not a fact that they will be concluded. And besides this, I understand that some kind of partnership agreements are apparently needed, but what exactly do they give to the Arbitrum? What benefit do spending hundreds of millions of dollars bring, given the lack of profit from these agreements?
I would like the Foundation to have a long-term plan. As far as I heard at the call, there is no understanding of where we are going in the next 5 years, there is only an understanding that the Foundation will spend 250 million on grants and partnerships. At the same time, the Foundation does not have the task of turning these funds into profit, everything will be spent irrevocably. Based on this information, the question arises: what will the Foundation do in 5-6 years, when all 750 million ARBs run out? What are the plans, is there an understanding? I do not even want to think about the fact that Arbitrum will exist only for such a short period, I hope that Arbitrum will live for decades and longer.
Why is information about the amounts of grants hidden from us, although at the same time we have the LTIPP and STIP programs, where everything is open and transparent. Why not give the distribution of grants to DAO, why do we need two different programs?
I will vote for it but still have concerns about how funds will be allocated and how incentives are being aligned to deploy more funds faster rather than more effectively. Additionally, how is this being researched and measured to see if it's truly creating a net benefit for the chain?
I think the most important question here is:
Does the foundation intend to pay back this 250m ARB after their own budget is vested?
I couldn't understand anything that indicates willingness no pay back, So if the answer is no, you have my BIG NO for this proposal.
After consideration, the @SEEDgov delegation has decided to “ABSTAIN” on this proposal at the Snapshot vote.
We would like to begin by expressing our appreciation for the Foundation's work on the grants program. However, upon reviewing this proposal, there are a few aspects that raise concerns for the future:
The following reflects the views of the Lampros Labs DAO governance team, composed of @Blueweb, @Euphoria, and Hirangi Pandya (@Nyx), based on our combined research, analysis, and ideation.
We are voting FOR this proposal.
We agree that the best gateway to the DAO is through the Foundation, as highlighted in the following statement from the proposal:
The following reflects the views of the Lampros Labs DAO governance team, composed of @Blueweb, @Euphoria, and Hirangi Pandya (@Nyx), based on our combined research, analysis, and ideation.
We are voting FOR this proposal.
We agree that the best gateway to the DAO is through the Foundation, as highlighted in the following statement from the proposal:
With the transparency the Foundation has provided to the DAO over the past year, we are confident the funds will help the Arbitrum ecosystem grow in the Layer 2 landscape. L2 on Ethereum shall look to grow the entire pie, but who gets what portion of the pie will be decided by the teams working behind each rollup. These funds will definitely provide the required boost in capturing a larger share of the pie.
We would like to recommend Transparency Reports for strategic partnerships over $2 million to give the community better clarity.
Additionally, we support the suggestion from @thedevanshmehta and @JoJo about creating an oversight council to act as an ombudsman for further accountability.
I vote FOR this proposal in temp-check.
Arbitrum DAO lacks a BD team, so it makes sense for the Foundation and its great team to be well-funded to continue fulfilling that role.
I vote FOR this proposal in temp-check.
Arbitrum DAO lacks a BD team, so it makes sense for the Foundation and its great team to be well-funded to continue fulfilling that role.
My only comment is that, since the funds are coming from the DAO this time, I expect a more in-depth and detailed report on how the funds are being used for these strategic partnerships, not just high-level takes like in section 1 of the biannual report.
Finally, I’d like to continue advocating for more support for the DAO in terms of marketing and communication regarding its initiatives. We will likely see new incentive programs in 2025, as well as the recently approved Stylus initiative. These initiatives require strong marketing campaigns, and while the DAO can fund campaigns with advertising agencies, the main communication channels for Arbitrum (namely Twitter and Discord) are controlled by the Foundation. It would be great to achieve greater synergy in this regard.
The proposal was agreed: Overall, this proposal seeks to accelerate the growth and competitiveness of the Arbitrum ecosystem by increasing the funding available to the Foundation for strategic partnerships. In this way, the Foundation hopes to better support innovation, attract more high-value partners, and ensure that Arbitrum remains at the forefront of the rapid evolution of blockchain technology and applications. But there are also some concerns that bother me personally as a regular retail investor:
Vote: FOR
Type and Proposal Link: Snapshot –> Funds to Bolster Foundation’s Strategic Partnerships Budget
Voting Rationale Link: https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/alex-lumley-savvy-dao-delegate-communication-thread/26147/25
=== COMMENTS ON PROPOSAL: ===
I voted FOR this proposal because I believe that the Foundation plays an essential role in securing partnerships that are critical to the growth and sustainability of the Arbitrum ecosystem. While I do share some concerns about transparency, especially regarding how funds will be spent and the longer-term plan for resource allocation, I think the opportunity cost of not acting is too high.
The Foundation has consistently shown its ability to execute on key initiatives, and providing them with the flexibility to move quickly on strategic partnerships is necessary in the competitive landscape of L2 solutions. However, I do hope to see improved reporting and some form of oversight, such as a DAO council, as mentioned by other delegates. This would help balance the need for confidentiality with accountability.
=== UPDATED COMMENTING RATIONALE FOR TALLY === I stand by my commenting rationale posted above.
I would like to see more reporting from the foundation on their business objectives and grants reported. This interaction between AJ and Ryan Wyatt shows how we can improve: https://x.com/ajwarner90/status/1851288572172570821
Voting "Against" as this currently stands.
I know this is going to be perceived as a very "cut off your nose to spite your face" type of response but taking a step back this is a large ask that 1) as other delegates have mentioned doesn't seem to have much detail as I would expect for the size of the request 2) doesn't feel justified given there are already ARB funds earmarked for the foundation and 3) doesn't have any revenue generation to soften the blow of funding.
I should add, it sounds like the majority of these funds would go towards grant funding. Which when you start factoring in the various grant programs already ran by the DAO we have seen a massive percentage of the DAO budget going to these types of projects.
I'll caveat at the end here... this isn't an opinion of outright rejection of the idea and I see a version of this where I vote to pass... I basically just think that at this time given the size of the request and what I noted above this needs more time in the oven.
Edit: Posting here to save space on the forum. For Tally, I will maintain my "Against" vote as concerns I (and others) noted have not been adequately address IMO.
I voted FOR this proposal at the temp check stage for the reasons outlined below. I appreciate the planned additional resources for reporting/transparency and coordination with the GCP outlined by the Foundation in response to my original comment.
I voted FOR this proposal at the temp check stage for the reasons outlined below. I appreciate the planned additional resources for reporting/transparency and coordination with the GCP outlined by the Foundation in response to my original comment.
I think it’s important that this program be actively deduplicated and aligned with GCP.
I’d like more detail into how the Foundation plans to approach transparency. The bar should be even higher in terms of reporting than it has been in the past, given the increased size of the program.
I voted for, but would like to see the points raised by the delegators addressed as enhancements into the current proposal for the Tally vote.
We support allocating further funds to boost the foundation's Strategic Partnerships budget, as we acknowledge the necessity of remaining competitive within the landscape.
However, we are wary of over-leveraging grants as a means to direct capital without any expectations or accountability. Rather than how much money projects have in their vault, the real difference is how these are spent. For this reason, we would like to see these partnerships established against clearly defined KPIs, which could then measure their success and be refined for the future (e.g., identified by the expected return on investment, boosted on-chain metrics, etc.).
We support allocating further funds to boost the foundation's Strategic Partnerships budget, as we acknowledge the necessity of remaining competitive within the landscape.
However, we are wary of over-leveraging grants as a means to direct capital without any expectations or accountability. Rather than how much money projects have in their vault, the real difference is how these are spent. For this reason, we would like to see these partnerships established against clearly defined KPIs, which could then measure their success and be refined for the future (e.g., identified by the expected return on investment, boosted on-chain metrics, etc.).
Lastly, as @pedrob highlighted, we believe ensuring these strategic initiatives are followed up with the appropriate marketing support to maximize their impact and user awareness is important.
In alternative, we support exploring alternative solutions, such as what @Entropy proposed regarding the foundation vesting, to avoid further dilution.
At the temp-check, I’m voting in favor of increasing the Foundation’s strategic partnerships budget. Expanding Arbitrum’s reach and fostering meaningful collaborations are key for long-term growth.
Questions asked by @cp0x seem reasonable, it would be positive to see additional feedback before going to an on-chain vote.
The following reflects the views of L2BEAT’s governance team, composed of @krst and @Sinkas, and it’s based on the combined research, fact-checking, and ideation of the two.
We’re voting FOR the proposal.
Having discussed the proposal directly with the Foundation, we decided that we have no apparent reason not to trust that they need the additional funds for the reasons outlined in the proposal.
The following reflects the views of L2BEAT’s governance team, composed of @krst and @Sinkas, and it’s based on the combined research, fact-checking, and ideation of the two.
We’re voting FOR the proposal.
Having discussed the proposal directly with the Foundation, we decided that we have no apparent reason not to trust that they need the additional funds for the reasons outlined in the proposal.
The Foundation has proven to be a valuable asset for both Arbitrum and the DAO, and it makes sense to strengthen the collaboration between the two while enabling the former to execute its mission with some degree of flexibility. Strategic partnerships play a pivotal role in growing Arbitrum’s ecosystem and the Foundation is in a position to leverage them better than the DAO at this point. The opportunity cost of not providing them with the funds to do so could be more than the cost of the requested funds.
Having said that, we want to highlight that the Foundation could better communicate its plans with the DAO and coordinate with the DAO to ensure the funds are used as efficiently as possible on both ends.
DAOplomats voted in favor of this proposal on Snapshot.
The Foundation has been doing good work and is transparent with its responsibilities. The ask in comparison with the previous is way more but we agree with many delegates on giving the FDN freedom and flexibility. We also support the Foundation's remarks on confidentiality in securing these strategic partnerships.
DAOplomats voted in favor of this proposal on Snapshot.
The Foundation has been doing good work and is transparent with its responsibilities. The ask in comparison with the previous is way more but we agree with many delegates on giving the FDN freedom and flexibility. We also support the Foundation's remarks on confidentiality in securing these strategic partnerships.
They have been a net positive to Arbitrum and its community and we would love to see them continue making these moves to secure key partnerships for the community and the broader Arbitrum ecosystem.
Below are the opinions of the UADP:
With a degree of reluctance, we voted For this proposal. It’s often difficult to say No to such a large stakeholder since the work that they conduct is often critical. The AF plays an instrumental role in facilitating the effective continuation and development of the DAO and protocol. They have numerous existing relationships that cannot be easily outsourced and programs that require sustained funding. In that vein, we do think that the AF should have taken into account the large portion of ARB that is vested. Such budgeting would mean that a liquidity crunch for grants and partnerships would have led to better management and allocation of funds. However, due to NDAs and other variables that lead to a lack of full transparency, it’s hard to tell exactly why such budgeting decisions were made. A future plan should be implemented by the AF to reimburse the DAO at some point using the tokens that eventually vest, as opposed to continuing to grow their expenditure on grants. In other words, we are not seeing this as a growth program—but a temporary solution to liquidity issues.
Interesting proposal, and it's good to expand Arbitrum's collaboration with other projects. It’s especially important to focus on RWAs, which have become quite significant lately.
Like @JoJo, I’m not sure how much budget should be added, but I would like to know more about your plans for expenditure, expected results, and the budget for each project. Maybe a bit off topic but maybe can consider partnerships with DeFi creators to strengthen the DAO's mindshare :)
We're voting FOR this proposal.
This allocation addresses our competitive gap in pursuing strategic partnerships. It enables the Foundation to act swiftly on high-impact opportunities, particularly for Orbit expansion.
The Foundation's track record is solid, and their commitment to enhanced reporting is reassuring. An oversight council could further balance confidentiality with accountability.
We're voting FOR this proposal.
This allocation addresses our competitive gap in pursuing strategic partnerships. It enables the Foundation to act swiftly on high-impact opportunities, particularly for Orbit expansion.
The Foundation's track record is solid, and their commitment to enhanced reporting is reassuring. An oversight council could further balance confidentiality with accountability.
This approach empowers strategic growth while maintaining appropriate DAO involvement - a pragmatic solution for Arbitrum's evolving ecosystem.
gm, in support of the Foundation having more funds to grow the ecosystem, and understand the current limitations against competitive offers.
I would like to see:
I was on a call today, but 30 minutes was not enough to get all the answers, so I'm asking here:
I looked at the report for 2023, in which the Foundation spent only 2 million ARB on grants with total commitments of 6.7 million ARB. These amounts do not in any way indicate a need for 250 million ARB at the moment. From the table of the proposal itself, I see that the signed agreements amount to about $ 21 million, which is significantly less than the required amount of 250 million ARB. Future expenses, where $ 108 million are indicated, are still under consideration and it is not a fact that they will be concluded. And besides this, I understand that some kind of partnership agreements are apparently needed, but what exactly do they give to the Arbitrum? What benefit do spending hundreds of millions of dollars bring, given the lack of profit from these agreements?
I would like the Foundation to have a long-term plan. As far as I heard at the call, there is no understanding of where we are going in the next 5 years, there is only an understanding that the Foundation will spend 250 million on grants and partnerships. At the same time, the Foundation does not have the task of turning these funds into profit, everything will be spent irrevocably. Based on this information, the question arises: what will the Foundation do in 5-6 years, when all 750 million ARBs run out? What are the plans, is there an understanding? I do not even want to think about the fact that Arbitrum will exist only for such a short period, I hope that Arbitrum will live for decades and longer.
Why is information about the amounts of grants hidden from us, although at the same time we have the LTIPP and STIP programs, where everything is open and transparent. Why not give the distribution of grants to DAO, why do we need two different programs?
I will vote for it but still have concerns about how funds will be allocated and how incentives are being aligned to deploy more funds faster rather than more effectively. Additionally, how is this being researched and measured to see if it's truly creating a net benefit for the chain?
I think the most important question here is:
Does the foundation intend to pay back this 250m ARB after their own budget is vested?
I couldn't understand anything that indicates willingness no pay back, So if the answer is no, you have my BIG NO for this proposal.
After consideration, the @SEEDgov delegation has decided to “ABSTAIN” on this proposal at the Snapshot vote.
We would like to begin by expressing our appreciation for the Foundation's work on the grants program. However, upon reviewing this proposal, there are a few aspects that raise concerns for the future:
The following reflects the views of the Lampros Labs DAO governance team, composed of @Blueweb, @Euphoria, and Hirangi Pandya (@Nyx), based on our combined research, analysis, and ideation.
We are voting FOR this proposal.
We agree that the best gateway to the DAO is through the Foundation, as highlighted in the following statement from the proposal:
The following reflects the views of the Lampros Labs DAO governance team, composed of @Blueweb, @Euphoria, and Hirangi Pandya (@Nyx), based on our combined research, analysis, and ideation.
We are voting FOR this proposal.
We agree that the best gateway to the DAO is through the Foundation, as highlighted in the following statement from the proposal:
With the transparency the Foundation has provided to the DAO over the past year, we are confident the funds will help the Arbitrum ecosystem grow in the Layer 2 landscape. L2 on Ethereum shall look to grow the entire pie, but who gets what portion of the pie will be decided by the teams working behind each rollup. These funds will definitely provide the required boost in capturing a larger share of the pie.
We would like to recommend Transparency Reports for strategic partnerships over $2 million to give the community better clarity.
Additionally, we support the suggestion from @thedevanshmehta and @JoJo about creating an oversight council to act as an ombudsman for further accountability.
I vote FOR this proposal in temp-check.
Arbitrum DAO lacks a BD team, so it makes sense for the Foundation and its great team to be well-funded to continue fulfilling that role.
I vote FOR this proposal in temp-check.
Arbitrum DAO lacks a BD team, so it makes sense for the Foundation and its great team to be well-funded to continue fulfilling that role.
My only comment is that, since the funds are coming from the DAO this time, I expect a more in-depth and detailed report on how the funds are being used for these strategic partnerships, not just high-level takes like in section 1 of the biannual report.
Finally, I’d like to continue advocating for more support for the DAO in terms of marketing and communication regarding its initiatives. We will likely see new incentive programs in 2025, as well as the recently approved Stylus initiative. These initiatives require strong marketing campaigns, and while the DAO can fund campaigns with advertising agencies, the main communication channels for Arbitrum (namely Twitter and Discord) are controlled by the Foundation. It would be great to achieve greater synergy in this regard.
The proposal was agreed: Overall, this proposal seeks to accelerate the growth and competitiveness of the Arbitrum ecosystem by increasing the funding available to the Foundation for strategic partnerships. In this way, the Foundation hopes to better support innovation, attract more high-value partners, and ensure that Arbitrum remains at the forefront of the rapid evolution of blockchain technology and applications. But there are also some concerns that bother me personally as a regular retail investor:
gm, in support of the Foundation having more funds to grow the ecosystem, and understand the current limitations against competitive offers.
I would like to see:
a council, under NDA, that can have full knowledge on the operation behind, and can alert the DAO in case something is wrong, and potentially claw back funds
I was on a call today, but 30 minutes was not enough to get all the answers, so I'm asking here:
I looked at the report for 2023, in which the Foundation spent only 2 million ARB on grants with total commitments of 6.7 million ARB. These amounts do not in any way indicate a need for 250 million ARB at the moment. From the table of the proposal itself, I see that the signed agreements amount to about $ 21 million, which is significantly less than the required amount of 250 million ARB. Future expenses, where $ 108 million are indicated, are still under consideration and it is not a fact that they will be concluded. And besides this, I understand that some kind of partnership agreements are apparently needed, but what exactly do they give to the Arbitrum? What benefit do spending hundreds of millions of dollars bring, given the lack of profit from these agreements?
I would like the Foundation to have a long-term plan. As far as I heard at the call, there is no understanding of where we are going in the next 5 years, there is only an understanding that the Foundation will spend 250 million on grants and partnerships. At the same time, the Foundation does not have the task of turning these funds into profit, everything will be spent irrevocably. Based on this information, the question arises: what will the Foundation do in 5-6 years, when all 750 million ARBs run out? What are the plans, is there an understanding? I do not even want to think about the fact that Arbitrum will exist only for such a short period, I hope that Arbitrum will live for decades and longer.
Why is information about the amounts of grants hidden from us, although at the same time we have the LTIPP and STIP programs, where everything is open and transparent. Why not give the distribution of grants to DAO, why do we need two different programs?
I would like to see answers to these questions.
I think the most important question here is:
Does the foundation intend to pay back this 250m ARB after their own budget is vested?
I couldn't understand anything that indicates willingness no pay back, So if the answer is no, you have my BIG NO for this proposal.
If it's intended to be paid back with commitment, it can be a good approach to stay competitive. We should also take into consideration the amount of historical expenditure on grants and community initiative among the mentioned projects. I don't think we have spent little as a DAO. Our emissions are relatively high.
Anyways, I might support or not support depending on if the money will be paid back to the DAO in the future (from the Arbitrum Foundation's allocation)
After consideration, the @SEEDgov delegation has decided to “ABSTAIN” on this proposal at the Snapshot vote.
We would like to begin by expressing our appreciation for the Foundation's work on the grants program. However, upon reviewing this proposal, there are a few aspects that raise concerns for the future:
We hope to see some of this feedback reflected in the final proposal on Tally, in which case we will consider voting in favor. We regret that this feedback has come at a later stage, but we believe the pre-snapshot discussion period has been quite short (just one week for a proposal requesting approximately 8% of the treasury). As such, we recommend extending the discussion to allow for more thorough deliberation.
gm, in support of the Foundation having more funds to grow the ecosystem, and understand the current limitations against competitive offers.
I would like to see:
a council, under NDA, that can have full knowledge on the operation behind, and can alert the DAO in case something is wrong, and potentially claw back funds
I was on a call today, but 30 minutes was not enough to get all the answers, so I'm asking here:
I looked at the report for 2023, in which the Foundation spent only 2 million ARB on grants with total commitments of 6.7 million ARB. These amounts do not in any way indicate a need for 250 million ARB at the moment. From the table of the proposal itself, I see that the signed agreements amount to about $ 21 million, which is significantly less than the required amount of 250 million ARB. Future expenses, where $ 108 million are indicated, are still under consideration and it is not a fact that they will be concluded. And besides this, I understand that some kind of partnership agreements are apparently needed, but what exactly do they give to the Arbitrum? What benefit do spending hundreds of millions of dollars bring, given the lack of profit from these agreements?
I would like the Foundation to have a long-term plan. As far as I heard at the call, there is no understanding of where we are going in the next 5 years, there is only an understanding that the Foundation will spend 250 million on grants and partnerships. At the same time, the Foundation does not have the task of turning these funds into profit, everything will be spent irrevocably. Based on this information, the question arises: what will the Foundation do in 5-6 years, when all 750 million ARBs run out? What are the plans, is there an understanding? I do not even want to think about the fact that Arbitrum will exist only for such a short period, I hope that Arbitrum will live for decades and longer.
Why is information about the amounts of grants hidden from us, although at the same time we have the LTIPP and STIP programs, where everything is open and transparent. Why not give the distribution of grants to DAO, why do we need two different programs?
I would like to see answers to these questions.
I think the most important question here is:
Does the foundation intend to pay back this 250m ARB after their own budget is vested?
I couldn't understand anything that indicates willingness no pay back, So if the answer is no, you have my BIG NO for this proposal.
If it's intended to be paid back with commitment, it can be a good approach to stay competitive. We should also take into consideration the amount of historical expenditure on grants and community initiative among the mentioned projects. I don't think we have spent little as a DAO. Our emissions are relatively high.
Anyways, I might support or not support depending on if the money will be paid back to the DAO in the future (from the Arbitrum Foundation's allocation)
After consideration, the @SEEDgov delegation has decided to “ABSTAIN” on this proposal at the Snapshot vote.
We would like to begin by expressing our appreciation for the Foundation's work on the grants program. However, upon reviewing this proposal, there are a few aspects that raise concerns for the future:
We hope to see some of this feedback reflected in the final proposal on Tally, in which case we will consider voting in favor. We regret that this feedback has come at a later stage, but we believe the pre-snapshot discussion period has been quite short (just one week for a proposal requesting approximately 8% of the treasury). As such, we recommend extending the discussion to allow for more thorough deliberation.
We are in support of this proposal moving forward and will vote as such, the Foundation is a very credible entity and is best for facilitating partnerships for the Arbitrum community rather than sorting it out through the DAO/delegate constituency. The foundation has worked hard for its partnerships over the past year with Paxos, Robinhood, and Azuki, just to name a few. We agree that funding the Foundation should not come in the form of a loan, as the Foundation is a service provider for the DAO, and thus the DAO is effectively paying for its service (partnerships, grant opportunities, marketing, etc).
It is important to understand that there is a tradeoff between transparency and competitive privacy here. While we understand other delegate concerns around transparency with such a large amount of funds, the Foundation would be destroying its competitive advantage by telegraphing its partnerships and deals. If possible, we would like a retroactive list of partnerships (so long as it is agreed to by both parties) moving forward.
I'm voting in favor. I believe that in this period where Arbitrum is facing intense competition, it's essential to keep up and push for an expansion of strategic partnership, which is the case with this proposal. While I recognize this need, I also believe that transparency should be at the core. As @Arbitrum mentioned above, disclosing details is sometimes either impossible due to confidentiality agreements or can lead to disadvantages in competitiveness, but I still think that some type of solution can be find to assure transparency and to see where this +250M ARB go. For example, what @JoJo mentioned is an interesting way of monitoring funds that I think it would be worth considering. That said, I believe that in these situations there's also a component of trust, and I support what Arbitrum Foundation is doing. I'm voting in favor, but I'd like to discuss some ways to provide oversight and transparency before going on tally.
Voted FOR.
I think the solution created for the GCP can be explored but should be outside of this proposal.
Overall, the Foundation and DAO should be strongly aligned, but there should be care in evaluating all the DAO requirements, operational needs of the Foundation, and other considerations before moving forward on proposing new structures for the Foundation org.
i just throw the idea but is a half ass idea, because as long as everything is fine everything is good. But if something happens in which the council doesn't agree, what is the right course of action? Don't think neither clawback nor going public is the right thing to do in this case.
So, my idea was just from what we did in the past in a similar situation (NDA) but with a different potential outcome.
i just throw the idea but is a half ass idea, because as long as everything is fine everything is good. But if something happens in which the council doesn't agree, what is the right course of action? Don't think neither clawback nor going public is the right thing to do in this case.
So, my idea was just from what we did in the past in a similar situation (NDA) but with a different potential outcome.
Again, might just be an extremely wrong idea tbh, and I would not personally push for it unless someone else would provide a way to complete it, or make it better, because otherwise would just be a bad mechanism not able to provide any solution.
After reviewing this proposal and considering feedback from other delegates, we have decided to support it. We recognize that without approving this allocation, the Arbitrum ecosystem could miss out on significant strategic opportunities essential for its growth and competitiveness. However, we acknowledge that 250 million ARB is a substantial amount, so we want to ensure that these funds will be used in the most efficient and effective way possible. We would appreciate seeing detailed plans and regular reports to monitor the utilization of these funds. With this in mind, we believe this proposal will enable the Foundation to secure high-impact partnerships and initiatives that might otherwise be unattainable, ultimately benefiting the entire Arbitrum community.
Love the idea of an elected oversight council from the DAO privy to the details under NDA & monitoring the 250 million arb fund usage
If nothing else, it gives us an ombudsman who we can trust to be more unbiased in giving a general assessment of what's going well & badly.
Love the idea of an elected oversight council from the DAO privy to the details under NDA & monitoring the 250 million arb fund usage
If nothing else, it gives us an ombudsman who we can trust to be more unbiased in giving a general assessment of what's going well & badly.
Before moving to tally, i would like a response from the foundation on a DAO oversight council privy to deals under NDA & a sunset clause for NDAs so all agreements can eventually be disclosed
Overall, we are leaning to be in favor of this as it helps the foundation remain competitive in securing strategic partnerships. The ecosystem has grown significantly, and its current budget it seems, put it at a disadvantage. Increasing the budget by 250 million ARB would allow the Foundation to engage in larger, long-term commitments with partners, which is essential for the continued expansion through initiatives like Orbit chain. These partnerships should increase activity and have new markets and use cases.
Some questions we had were:
I am voting "for" on this proposal.
As stated above, I think the idea of the foundation having a fund to foster growth for specific deals, is what is needed, especially for orbit expantion.
I am voting "for" on this proposal.
As stated above, I think the idea of the foundation having a fund to foster growth for specific deals, is what is needed, especially for orbit expantion.
I partially second the voices of folks calling for more transparency; I also understand that not all details should be disclosed and, in some cases, some details can't be disclosed due to either specific agreements or just business logic. We have several gaps here due to the status of Foundation, as the most important stakeholder in our ecosystem. And I don't think anybody wants to challenge this status, nor thinks it doesn't hold true. But potentially, this is not for example a way to disclose some information to the dao (re: foundation grant program, while we can see the end protocol getting the grant, I don't think there is a public list of the amount or scope for each grant request, just to give an example).
So, while the above could be a bit off topic here, would be a solution similar to the one adopted for the GCP be useful? In there we have a council, under NDA, that can have full knowledge on the operation behind, and can alert the DAO in case something is wrong, and potentially claw back funds (paging @Djinn for confirmation here). I don't think we should gun necessarily for this specific type of dynamic, nor I do think the DAO should claw back funds from the foundation. But a certain degree of oversight/collaboration, even if under NDA, could be useful, and in general could be a good tool to leverage the operation of DAO and foundation. This council can indeed steer the convo of dao's initiative toward specific ones that would benefit on going deal of the foundation, and the council could be part of the transparency semestral report (or, add an indepedent section all together).
I am spitballing ideas here, and I am open to a feedback that is: all of this is just nonsense, is non applicable, doesn't solve problems, does only introduce friction.
But since the foundation is coming to the dao, and since we should enhance the synergy between the dao and the foundation in general because we all have the same goal, this initiative could be a start.
Support this proposal, which is very complete and clearly states that it informs the Arbitrum ecosystem to establish key strategic partnerships for its continued growth and development. The increased budget of 250 million arb increases more opportunities for collaboration and commits to detailing the use of the funds and safeguarding the management and accountability of the DAO's funds. Also make a comment. If this proposal passes, does it follow up with a separate column on the official website subpage for follow-up, publicity, etc.
Overall, I support the proposal as it will enhance the competitiveness of the Arbitrum ecosystem and foster strategic partnerships. Still, I believe there are two aspects that could be improved in the implement process:
Love to see this proposal up ! I voted FOR, with the following rationale;
Love to see this proposal up ! I voted FOR, with the following rationale;
An extra 2.5% of the total supply puts their total allocation at 10%, a budget still significantly lower than competitors.
For marketing, a community run DAO does way better. For targeted BD, we need a central entity
So in my mind, is 250 million ARB for BD a good spend?
The answer is undoubtedly yes, getting coinbase or sony on arbitrum is strategic, important and we have no way of currently doing that as a DAO putting us at a disadvantage to our main competitor optimism
That being said, I have one question and one concern.
it is difficult for me to estimate the need for exactly 250 million ARB
I second this sentiment, since I do not know the timeframe over which these funds will be deployed over.
Will it be 3-5 years? I don't want a situation where the foundation is asking us to replenish their BD budget a year from now.
Due to confidentiality, Arbitrum Foundation will not be able to disclose the current deal pipeline of strategic partnerships applicable to the funding. Arbitrum Foundation may be able to disclose some of these deals retroactively upon execution of agreement if the partner and Arbitrum Foundation both agree to publicly disclose.
I understand some of these deals can be sensitive and require high levels of confidentiality. That being said, i expect a sunset clause for confidentiality to be baked into ALL agreements, so that if and when you need to return for another tranche of funding, all the data is available to us for review.
Voted For this Proposal
Rationale
Questions
Voted For: I still lack more transparency on how these funds are used. Who gets, how much? I understand some of these deals should be private. But it is hard for us to asses if this kind of fund justifies the outcome if we don't know how the funds are used. On the other side, I trust Arbitrum Foundation that in this time of highly competitive conditions we will use the funds in a positive way that will benefit Arbitrum and Ethereum ecosystem. Also now that Stylus is out we need to get even more aggressive in getting new L3 chains built on top of Arbitrum. I decided to support the proposal either way.
I support this proposal. Arbitrum is currently facing fierce competition, with many competitors rushing to offer incentives to attract ecosystem projects. For example, Zksync is trying to poach TreasureDAO, the largest and most renowned game and NOT native project on Arbitrum. The challenge is serious, and to remain competitive, it is essential for the Arbitrum Foundation to retain sufficient funds.
I'll abstain my vote. I'm particularly concerned about the significant budget allocation to gaming, which seems disproportionate compared to DeFi & Fintech. Additionally, the description of the "Others" section leaves room for doubt, needing more clarity.
I'm voting in favor of this proposal, as expanding strategic partnerships is vital for the growth of the Arbitrum ecosystem. However, I want to emphasize the need for a lot of transparency on how these 250 million ARB will be allocated. It’s crucial that we understand exactly where these funds are going and how they're contributing to ecosystem growth. Also, it might just be me, but I feel we're spending too much on gaming.
We are in support of this proposal moving forward and will vote as such, the Foundation is a very credible entity and is best for facilitating partnerships for the Arbitrum community rather than sorting it out through the DAO/delegate constituency. The foundation has worked hard for its partnerships over the past year with Paxos, Robinhood, and Azuki, just to name a few. We agree that funding the Foundation should not come in the form of a loan, as the Foundation is a service provider for the DAO, and thus the DAO is effectively paying for its service (partnerships, grant opportunities, marketing, etc).
It is important to understand that there is a tradeoff between transparency and competitive privacy here. While we understand other delegate concerns around transparency with such a large amount of funds, the Foundation would be destroying its competitive advantage by telegraphing its partnerships and deals. If possible, we would like a retroactive list of partnerships (so long as it is agreed to by both parties) moving forward.
I'm voting in favor. I believe that in this period where Arbitrum is facing intense competition, it's essential to keep up and push for an expansion of strategic partnership, which is the case with this proposal. While I recognize this need, I also believe that transparency should be at the core. As @Arbitrum mentioned above, disclosing details is sometimes either impossible due to confidentiality agreements or can lead to disadvantages in competitiveness, but I still think that some type of solution can be find to assure transparency and to see where this +250M ARB go. For example, what @JoJo mentioned is an interesting way of monitoring funds that I think it would be worth considering. That said, I believe that in these situations there's also a component of trust, and I support what Arbitrum Foundation is doing. I'm voting in favor, but I'd like to discuss some ways to provide oversight and transparency before going on tally.
Voted FOR.
I think the solution created for the GCP can be explored but should be outside of this proposal.
Overall, the Foundation and DAO should be strongly aligned, but there should be care in evaluating all the DAO requirements, operational needs of the Foundation, and other considerations before moving forward on proposing new structures for the Foundation org.
i just throw the idea but is a half ass idea, because as long as everything is fine everything is good. But if something happens in which the council doesn't agree, what is the right course of action? Don't think neither clawback nor going public is the right thing to do in this case.
So, my idea was just from what we did in the past in a similar situation (NDA) but with a different potential outcome.
i just throw the idea but is a half ass idea, because as long as everything is fine everything is good. But if something happens in which the council doesn't agree, what is the right course of action? Don't think neither clawback nor going public is the right thing to do in this case.
So, my idea was just from what we did in the past in a similar situation (NDA) but with a different potential outcome.
Again, might just be an extremely wrong idea tbh, and I would not personally push for it unless someone else would provide a way to complete it, or make it better, because otherwise would just be a bad mechanism not able to provide any solution.
After reviewing this proposal and considering feedback from other delegates, we have decided to support it. We recognize that without approving this allocation, the Arbitrum ecosystem could miss out on significant strategic opportunities essential for its growth and competitiveness. However, we acknowledge that 250 million ARB is a substantial amount, so we want to ensure that these funds will be used in the most efficient and effective way possible. We would appreciate seeing detailed plans and regular reports to monitor the utilization of these funds. With this in mind, we believe this proposal will enable the Foundation to secure high-impact partnerships and initiatives that might otherwise be unattainable, ultimately benefiting the entire Arbitrum community.
Love the idea of an elected oversight council from the DAO privy to the details under NDA & monitoring the 250 million arb fund usage
If nothing else, it gives us an ombudsman who we can trust to be more unbiased in giving a general assessment of what's going well & badly.
Love the idea of an elected oversight council from the DAO privy to the details under NDA & monitoring the 250 million arb fund usage
If nothing else, it gives us an ombudsman who we can trust to be more unbiased in giving a general assessment of what's going well & badly.
Before moving to tally, i would like a response from the foundation on a DAO oversight council privy to deals under NDA & a sunset clause for NDAs so all agreements can eventually be disclosed
Overall, we are leaning to be in favor of this as it helps the foundation remain competitive in securing strategic partnerships. The ecosystem has grown significantly, and its current budget it seems, put it at a disadvantage. Increasing the budget by 250 million ARB would allow the Foundation to engage in larger, long-term commitments with partners, which is essential for the continued expansion through initiatives like Orbit chain. These partnerships should increase activity and have new markets and use cases.
Some questions we had were:
I am voting "for" on this proposal.
As stated above, I think the idea of the foundation having a fund to foster growth for specific deals, is what is needed, especially for orbit expantion.
I am voting "for" on this proposal.
As stated above, I think the idea of the foundation having a fund to foster growth for specific deals, is what is needed, especially for orbit expantion.
I partially second the voices of folks calling for more transparency; I also understand that not all details should be disclosed and, in some cases, some details can't be disclosed due to either specific agreements or just business logic. We have several gaps here due to the status of Foundation, as the most important stakeholder in our ecosystem. And I don't think anybody wants to challenge this status, nor thinks it doesn't hold true. But potentially, this is not for example a way to disclose some information to the dao (re: foundation grant program, while we can see the end protocol getting the grant, I don't think there is a public list of the amount or scope for each grant request, just to give an example).
So, while the above could be a bit off topic here, would be a solution similar to the one adopted for the GCP be useful? In there we have a council, under NDA, that can have full knowledge on the operation behind, and can alert the DAO in case something is wrong, and potentially claw back funds (paging @Djinn for confirmation here). I don't think we should gun necessarily for this specific type of dynamic, nor I do think the DAO should claw back funds from the foundation. But a certain degree of oversight/collaboration, even if under NDA, could be useful, and in general could be a good tool to leverage the operation of DAO and foundation. This council can indeed steer the convo of dao's initiative toward specific ones that would benefit on going deal of the foundation, and the council could be part of the transparency semestral report (or, add an indepedent section all together).
I am spitballing ideas here, and I am open to a feedback that is: all of this is just nonsense, is non applicable, doesn't solve problems, does only introduce friction.
But since the foundation is coming to the dao, and since we should enhance the synergy between the dao and the foundation in general because we all have the same goal, this initiative could be a start.
Support this proposal, which is very complete and clearly states that it informs the Arbitrum ecosystem to establish key strategic partnerships for its continued growth and development. The increased budget of 250 million arb increases more opportunities for collaboration and commits to detailing the use of the funds and safeguarding the management and accountability of the DAO's funds. Also make a comment. If this proposal passes, does it follow up with a separate column on the official website subpage for follow-up, publicity, etc.
Overall, I support the proposal as it will enhance the competitiveness of the Arbitrum ecosystem and foster strategic partnerships. Still, I believe there are two aspects that could be improved in the implement process:
Love to see this proposal up ! I voted FOR, with the following rationale;
Love to see this proposal up ! I voted FOR, with the following rationale;
An extra 2.5% of the total supply puts their total allocation at 10%, a budget still significantly lower than competitors.
For marketing, a community run DAO does way better. For targeted BD, we need a central entity
So in my mind, is 250 million ARB for BD a good spend?
The answer is undoubtedly yes, getting coinbase or sony on arbitrum is strategic, important and we have no way of currently doing that as a DAO putting us at a disadvantage to our main competitor optimism
That being said, I have one question and one concern.
it is difficult for me to estimate the need for exactly 250 million ARB
I second this sentiment, since I do not know the timeframe over which these funds will be deployed over.
Will it be 3-5 years? I don't want a situation where the foundation is asking us to replenish their BD budget a year from now.
Due to confidentiality, Arbitrum Foundation will not be able to disclose the current deal pipeline of strategic partnerships applicable to the funding. Arbitrum Foundation may be able to disclose some of these deals retroactively upon execution of agreement if the partner and Arbitrum Foundation both agree to publicly disclose.
I understand some of these deals can be sensitive and require high levels of confidentiality. That being said, i expect a sunset clause for confidentiality to be baked into ALL agreements, so that if and when you need to return for another tranche of funding, all the data is available to us for review.
Voted For this Proposal
Rationale
Questions
Voted For: I still lack more transparency on how these funds are used. Who gets, how much? I understand some of these deals should be private. But it is hard for us to asses if this kind of fund justifies the outcome if we don't know how the funds are used. On the other side, I trust Arbitrum Foundation that in this time of highly competitive conditions we will use the funds in a positive way that will benefit Arbitrum and Ethereum ecosystem. Also now that Stylus is out we need to get even more aggressive in getting new L3 chains built on top of Arbitrum. I decided to support the proposal either way.
I support this proposal. Arbitrum is currently facing fierce competition, with many competitors rushing to offer incentives to attract ecosystem projects. For example, Zksync is trying to poach TreasureDAO, the largest and most renowned game and NOT native project on Arbitrum. The challenge is serious, and to remain competitive, it is essential for the Arbitrum Foundation to retain sufficient funds.
I'll abstain my vote. I'm particularly concerned about the significant budget allocation to gaming, which seems disproportionate compared to DeFi & Fintech. Additionally, the description of the "Others" section leaves room for doubt, needing more clarity.
I'm voting in favor of this proposal, as expanding strategic partnerships is vital for the growth of the Arbitrum ecosystem. However, I want to emphasize the need for a lot of transparency on how these 250 million ARB will be allocated. It’s crucial that we understand exactly where these funds are going and how they're contributing to ecosystem growth. Also, it might just be me, but I feel we're spending too much on gaming.
Overall, we are leaning to be in favor of this as it helps the foundation remain competitive in securing strategic partnerships. The ecosystem has grown significantly, and its current budget it seems, put it at a disadvantage. Increasing the budget by 250 million ARB would allow the Foundation to engage in larger, long-term commitments with partners, which is essential for the continued expansion through initiatives like Orbit chain. These partnerships should increase activity and have new markets and use cases.
Some questions we had were:
Voted For this Proposal
Rationale
Questions
First, I will say that I am grateful to the fund for its work and support them.
But as for the specific amount for the fund, I have several questions:
First, I will say that I am grateful to the fund for its work and support them.
But as for the specific amount for the fund, I have several questions:
1. Planning. It would be good if you presented a table of how much has been allocated, how much has been spent, what are the plans for payments (there are some), how much we have left in the budget and what are the long-term plans (for 3-5 years). Otherwise, it is difficult for me to estimate the need for exactly 250 million ARB, given that the entire budget was 750 million.
2. Comparison of statistics As for the statistics, it is worth indicating how much in $ has actually been allocated to other projects.
| Chain | Funds |
|---|---|
| Arbitrum | 427,500,000 |
| ZkSync | 501,480,000 |
| Starknet | 800,000,000 |
| Optimism | 1,073,741,824 |
Also, if we talk about the fact that only 1.8% is allocated at the moment, then other chains have the same story - no one lets you spend all the money at once - each chain has its own budget. For example, in Optimism, only 50 million OP is allocated per year to the Governance Fund until 2027. I think this should be discussed honestly.
3. Transparency. I am also interested in the question of how decisions are made on projects. I see this list, but the data on expenses is not open and this is a significant disadvantage. It turns out that the community must allocate 250 million to the fund without knowing what exactly these funds will be used for, except for the general concept. I would like more openness and transparency in these transactions.
Summary: Taking into account these points, I believe that the proposal is not sufficiently defined, there is a lack of significant data on planning and transparency of current activities on agreements and project financing.
The Arbitrum Foundations brings up many good points. We'd like to further the discussion.
most institutions are not inclined toward engaging and participating in public forums, and even when they do it is after extensive conversations with The Arbitrum Foundation and its service providers, who are making them aware of the opportunities and encouraging them to get involved. As front line enablers, The Arbitrum Foundation actively builds relationships with partners and encourages all partners to engage with the DAO. Most recent examples include Securitize (via BlackRock BUIDL) and Franklin Templeton.
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.
Some early thoughts I'm supportive of this proposal. The uniquely decentralized structure (which I generally like) of Arbitrum makes it difficult for the Foundation to compete directly with more centralized orgs. This proposal has the potential to strike a happy medium.
I think it's important that this program be actively deduplicated and aligned with GCP.
Some early thoughts I'm supportive of this proposal. The uniquely decentralized structure (which I generally like) of Arbitrum makes it difficult for the Foundation to compete directly with more centralized orgs. This proposal has the potential to strike a happy medium.
I think it's important that this program be actively deduplicated and aligned with GCP.
I'd like more detail into how the Foundation plans to approach transparency. The bar should be even higher in terms of reporting than it has been in the past, given the increased size of the program.
I would love to have this list https://arbitrumfoundation.notion.site/d8de51f4a1b84b18ab33b2c9d14c69ae?v=074f18f3a9514858b951998c320db9b0 be fully exhaustive and updated before the DAO is asked to make a decision about this. And ideally with the amounts that were awarded to all these grantees. I’m not sure why that isn’t the case since the beginning but would also love to get an explanation on why that’s the case.
Thanks for the proposal.
I have a few questions:
Thanks for the proposal.
I have a few questions:
Overall, I agree with the idea but wanted to check different options and have more data.
Two questions:
Funds will be used to further fund grants and support projects on this list. Is this correct? https://arbitrumfoundation.notion.site/d8de51f4a1b84b18ab33b2c9d14c69ae?v=4b8df83cbb7e4da9ad1e9b0e9354389a
You mentioned Future Capital Commitments. How can you commit to funding a grant if the capital is not secured yet? Is this because of ARB price swings?
Thanks!
Thanks for sharing ! I also support the proposal and agree that the Foundation has been doing a lot for the DAO. I also think we should have a bit more information on some of the details such as budget considerations, planning, etc.. it could help everyone feel even more confident about this. Looking forward to seeing how this progresses!
Won't comment for now on the specific amount of capital requested, but on the idea.
The foundation and OCL, as of now, have been the intermediary between projects wanting to launch their Orbit and our ecosystem.
Won't comment for now on the specific amount of capital requested, but on the idea.
The foundation and OCL, as of now, have been the intermediary between projects wanting to launch their Orbit and our ecosystem.
While this is permissionless from a tech standpoint, it requires a big BD effort for big projects. If you are bullish on orbit as value proposition on Arbitrum, you likely envision a future in which every app will most likely have his own chain more than not; and we need to think what that means for the most established dApp in crypto, currently multichain, that might want to launch their own chain, or new players with established non crypto presence wanting to get a foothold in here. These cases likely requires a monetary leverage that the Foundation needs to have at their hand, without having to go to the dao for a request for a public discussion that would kill any meanigful deal.
I'm in favour on the idea. No strong opinion on the amount requested, which could be tho the right amount at first glance.
We support this proposal unequivocally.
It's difficult to understand as a DAO participant exactly how much the Arbitrum Foundation does for the betterment of the DAO. Are they perfect? No. But are they more transparent (and under resourced...) when compared to other foundations in the industry? Yes.
We support this proposal unequivocally.
It's difficult to understand as a DAO participant exactly how much the Arbitrum Foundation does for the betterment of the DAO. Are they perfect? No. But are they more transparent (and under resourced...) when compared to other foundations in the industry? Yes.
The foundation's ability to remain competitive in the battle for partnerships is, in our opinion, of utmost importance for Arbitrum's continued success. It is worth noting that members of our team have historically been critical of the Arbitrum Foundation, as made evident by actions taken over AIP-1. We do not take the decision to top up the Foundation's budget lightly, but with all things considered, we believe this proposal does more in pushing the Arbitrum DAO forward than any drawbacks associated with its passing.
If a majority of the community is for some reason against this proposal, an alternative approach could be to accelerate the Foundation’s vest in order to free up budget for deals in the short-to-medium term. Considering the lack of overall token supply held by the Arbitrum Foundation when compared to other foundations in the industry, we prefer the proposal as written. However, we wanted to point this out as an option just in case.
It is interesting what you propose, and we agree that making a competitive offer requires a large amount of capital. To expand on the information in the proposal and focus more on what would be lost if this request is not approved, could you provide more detail on the types of opportunities we would be missing out on? For example, how would the expansion of the Orbit chain be affected?
Overall, we are leaning to be in favor of this as it helps the foundation remain competitive in securing strategic partnerships. The ecosystem has grown significantly, and its current budget it seems, put it at a disadvantage. Increasing the budget by 250 million ARB would allow the Foundation to engage in larger, long-term commitments with partners, which is essential for the continued expansion through initiatives like Orbit chain. These partnerships should increase activity and have new markets and use cases.
Some questions we had were:
Voted For this Proposal
Rationale
Questions
First, I will say that I am grateful to the fund for its work and support them.
But as for the specific amount for the fund, I have several questions:
First, I will say that I am grateful to the fund for its work and support them.
But as for the specific amount for the fund, I have several questions:
1. Planning. It would be good if you presented a table of how much has been allocated, how much has been spent, what are the plans for payments (there are some), how much we have left in the budget and what are the long-term plans (for 3-5 years). Otherwise, it is difficult for me to estimate the need for exactly 250 million ARB, given that the entire budget was 750 million.
2. Comparison of statistics As for the statistics, it is worth indicating how much in $ has actually been allocated to other projects.
| Chain | Funds |
|---|---|
| Arbitrum | 427,500,000 |
| ZkSync | 501,480,000 |
| Starknet | 800,000,000 |
| Optimism | 1,073,741,824 |
Also, if we talk about the fact that only 1.8% is allocated at the moment, then other chains have the same story - no one lets you spend all the money at once - each chain has its own budget. For example, in Optimism, only 50 million OP is allocated per year to the Governance Fund until 2027. I think this should be discussed honestly.
3. Transparency. I am also interested in the question of how decisions are made on projects. I see this list, but the data on expenses is not open and this is a significant disadvantage. It turns out that the community must allocate 250 million to the fund without knowing what exactly these funds will be used for, except for the general concept. I would like more openness and transparency in these transactions.
Summary: Taking into account these points, I believe that the proposal is not sufficiently defined, there is a lack of significant data on planning and transparency of current activities on agreements and project financing.
The Arbitrum Foundations brings up many good points. We'd like to further the discussion.
most institutions are not inclined toward engaging and participating in public forums, and even when they do it is after extensive conversations with The Arbitrum Foundation and its service providers, who are making them aware of the opportunities and encouraging them to get involved. As front line enablers, The Arbitrum Foundation actively builds relationships with partners and encourages all partners to engage with the DAO. Most recent examples include Securitize (via BlackRock BUIDL) and Franklin Templeton.
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.
Some early thoughts I'm supportive of this proposal. The uniquely decentralized structure (which I generally like) of Arbitrum makes it difficult for the Foundation to compete directly with more centralized orgs. This proposal has the potential to strike a happy medium.
I think it's important that this program be actively deduplicated and aligned with GCP.
Some early thoughts I'm supportive of this proposal. The uniquely decentralized structure (which I generally like) of Arbitrum makes it difficult for the Foundation to compete directly with more centralized orgs. This proposal has the potential to strike a happy medium.
I think it's important that this program be actively deduplicated and aligned with GCP.
I'd like more detail into how the Foundation plans to approach transparency. The bar should be even higher in terms of reporting than it has been in the past, given the increased size of the program.
I would love to have this list https://arbitrumfoundation.notion.site/d8de51f4a1b84b18ab33b2c9d14c69ae?v=074f18f3a9514858b951998c320db9b0 be fully exhaustive and updated before the DAO is asked to make a decision about this. And ideally with the amounts that were awarded to all these grantees. I’m not sure why that isn’t the case since the beginning but would also love to get an explanation on why that’s the case.
Thanks for the proposal.
I have a few questions:
Thanks for the proposal.
I have a few questions:
Overall, I agree with the idea but wanted to check different options and have more data.
Two questions:
Funds will be used to further fund grants and support projects on this list. Is this correct? https://arbitrumfoundation.notion.site/d8de51f4a1b84b18ab33b2c9d14c69ae?v=4b8df83cbb7e4da9ad1e9b0e9354389a
You mentioned Future Capital Commitments. How can you commit to funding a grant if the capital is not secured yet? Is this because of ARB price swings?
Thanks!
Thanks for sharing ! I also support the proposal and agree that the Foundation has been doing a lot for the DAO. I also think we should have a bit more information on some of the details such as budget considerations, planning, etc.. it could help everyone feel even more confident about this. Looking forward to seeing how this progresses!
Won't comment for now on the specific amount of capital requested, but on the idea.
The foundation and OCL, as of now, have been the intermediary between projects wanting to launch their Orbit and our ecosystem.
Won't comment for now on the specific amount of capital requested, but on the idea.
The foundation and OCL, as of now, have been the intermediary between projects wanting to launch their Orbit and our ecosystem.
While this is permissionless from a tech standpoint, it requires a big BD effort for big projects. If you are bullish on orbit as value proposition on Arbitrum, you likely envision a future in which every app will most likely have his own chain more than not; and we need to think what that means for the most established dApp in crypto, currently multichain, that might want to launch their own chain, or new players with established non crypto presence wanting to get a foothold in here. These cases likely requires a monetary leverage that the Foundation needs to have at their hand, without having to go to the dao for a request for a public discussion that would kill any meanigful deal.
I'm in favour on the idea. No strong opinion on the amount requested, which could be tho the right amount at first glance.
We support this proposal unequivocally.
It's difficult to understand as a DAO participant exactly how much the Arbitrum Foundation does for the betterment of the DAO. Are they perfect? No. But are they more transparent (and under resourced...) when compared to other foundations in the industry? Yes.
We support this proposal unequivocally.
It's difficult to understand as a DAO participant exactly how much the Arbitrum Foundation does for the betterment of the DAO. Are they perfect? No. But are they more transparent (and under resourced...) when compared to other foundations in the industry? Yes.
The foundation's ability to remain competitive in the battle for partnerships is, in our opinion, of utmost importance for Arbitrum's continued success. It is worth noting that members of our team have historically been critical of the Arbitrum Foundation, as made evident by actions taken over AIP-1. We do not take the decision to top up the Foundation's budget lightly, but with all things considered, we believe this proposal does more in pushing the Arbitrum DAO forward than any drawbacks associated with its passing.
If a majority of the community is for some reason against this proposal, an alternative approach could be to accelerate the Foundation’s vest in order to free up budget for deals in the short-to-medium term. Considering the lack of overall token supply held by the Arbitrum Foundation when compared to other foundations in the industry, we prefer the proposal as written. However, we wanted to point this out as an option just in case.
It is interesting what you propose, and we agree that making a competitive offer requires a large amount of capital. To expand on the information in the proposal and focus more on what would be lost if this request is not approved, could you provide more detail on the types of opportunities we would be missing out on? For example, how would the expansion of the Orbit chain be affected?
