March 2024 Voting Updates
[Non-constitutional] Proposal to fund Plurality Labs Milestone 1B(ridge)
Vote: For
Type: Snapshot
We voted FOR this proposal. The UADP is excited to see the maturation of Plurality Labs from its acquisition by ThriveCoin. The Plurality team should now have more bandwidth to address some of the issues that they previously ran into, such as communications.
“We funded 250+ projects, and spurred movement all over the DAO. But we didn’t document our work and value well”
“Our bias was for action. We cared about creating value and learning - and put blinders on for everything else. We should have hired a Marketing or Comms person.”
“There seems to be wide agreement that we created value but need to scale, document, and showcase.”
One of the most important aspects of any grant program, working group, or sub-DAO is relaying information to the stakeholder who initially entrusted you with a particular task and set of capital. In this instance, we are appreciative of Plurality’s work and effort that has gone into providing resources for numerous projects.
Another aspect that we’re fans of is the funding of grant programs upon reaching particular milestones. This will allow for funds to be disseminated in a more calculated manner–it’s important to double down on the success stories and move on from defunct projects. As mentioned by a couple of other folks, we would like to see some general KPIs implemented for tracking the continual progression of a project–these can be a mix of both qualitative and quantitative metrics. They can also be done on an ad hoc basis since each grant may be unique.
ARDC Research Member Election
Vote: Blockworks/Delphi Digital
Type: Snapshot
Blockworks Research and Delphi Digital are exemplary candidates for the ARDC Research member role. Both entities demonstrate their mastery in dissecting the complex Arbitrum and Ethereum ecosystems through comprehensive reports and technical evaluations. For instance, Blockworks Research’s analytical deep dives into Arbitrum’s staking proposal and Delphi Digital’s early insights into Ethereum’s scaling solutions underscore their capability to navigate and elucidate sophisticated blockchain mechanisms.
Out of the two groups, we’re more intimately familiar with the Blockworks folks due to their historical involvement with Arbitrum. We look forward to seeing research groups like Delphi follow suit.
ARDC DAO Advocate Election
Vote: L2BEAT/Ant Federation
Type: Snapshot
Krzysztof and DK have been active community members, continually providing input into various discussions and acting in the best interest of the Arbitrum DAO. Therefore, we believe that L2Beat and Ant Federation are a strong group to act as the oversight committee/liaison between the ARDC and the DAO.
ARDC Security Member Election
Vote: OpenZeppelin & Trail of Bits
Type: Snapshot
Both Jun and I have been involved in the Compound DAO for the past few years, and OpenZeppelin is the DAO’s go-to security provider. Due to our familiarity with them and direct interactions with their work, we have given them 50% of our votes. The other 50% goes to Trail of Bits, another group that we’ve seen continually deliver via direct work with various protocols as well as their tools like Slither for contract vulnerability detection.
ARDC Risk Member Election
Vote: Elect Chaos Labs
Type: Snapshot
Chaos Labs has a strong background in assisting DAOs like Aave and GMX with risk assessment. We believe that extending this role to Arbitrum would serve to be beneficial. They’ve published various data-driven analyses in the past, and their CEO is already a part of the Security Council, making their organization an apt candidate.
[Non-Emergency Action] Fix Fee Oversight ArbOS v20 “Atlas”
Vote: Choice 1 as “Set L1 surplus fee and L2 min”
Type: Snapshot
We voted with the above decision since by aligning Arbitrum’s fee structure with these enhancements, the network can support increased transaction throughput while reducing costs for users, which is critical for maintaining Arbitrum’s appeal in a competitive Layer 2 landscape. Sure, we’ll see a revenue decrease, but that’s a needed sacrifice to make sure Arbitrum is able to price compete. The hope is that higher volume compensates for lower marginal revenues, thereby returning total revenue to its previous level–and ideally beyond that.
[Non-constitutional] Proposal to fund Plurality Labs Milestone 1B(ridge)
Vote: For
Type: Onchain
In line with our position during the Snapshot, we will be voting FOR this proposal. We are looking forward to seeing Plurality expand its operations after their recent acquisitions–we hope that the influx of manpower and capital will enable them to deliver on their promise to better “scale, document, and showcase.”
Request for Continuation of the Arbitrum DDA Program Request
Vote: For
Type: Snapshot
The UADP is supporting this proposal since we believe that continuation of this grants program will have an overall net benefit to the Arbitrum ecosystem. Since the program is in its second inning, we believe that the experience garnered by the four domain allocators will serve to be valuable for funding future projects. The budget increase also seems reasonable since there is clear demand for these grants, as highlighted the other week by @thechaingamer.eth–Machinata had to turn directly to the DAO to request funds for their game since the Questbook budget ran its course. Reporting from this program has also been better than other grant programs that we’ve reviewed across other DAOs. We’ve appreciated the disclosure of txns, PPTS, and reports produced by JoJo, cattin, Juandi and Flook.
This question is more for Questbook–is there a plan to do a retroactive analysis of the impact produced by these grant programs? We have disclosure reports, but going through and assessing which projects have succeeded would be helpful. A VC fund for instance would typically look at ROI, and of the funded projects, only a minority really succeed. Grant success is likely the same. Perhaps later on an analysis can be done regarding volume driven, sticky TVL, increase in user base, etc around the projects. Each domain will have its unique KPIs. This would be something to consider at the termination of this grant program and would allow us to make a more informed decision on whether to continue such grants in the future.
[Non-Constitutional AIP] Front-end interface to force transaction inclusion during sequencer downtime
Vote: For
Type: Snapshot
The UADP strongly endorses this initiative proposed by WakeUp Labs for creating a front-end interface that enables direct L1 transaction submissions during Arbitrum Sequencer downtimes. This solution enhances the network’s resilience, allowing users to continue their transactions uninterrupted, and will be a big help to non devs during downtimes.
Overall, the expertise and track record of WakeUp Labs in delivering these blockchain solutions are extensive and we believe ensure the reliability and effectiveness of the project. This proposal not only bolsters the network’s operational ease but also will ensure no temporary “mass drama” when systems inevitably go down for a time.
Catalyze Arbitrum Gaming: HADOUKEN!
Vote: Against
Type: Snapshot
Although we are generally in support of initiatives to further strengthen Arbitrum’s gaming ecosystem, we simply believe that the ask of nearly $400M here is exorbitant. One thing we’ve been thinking about is L2s having more of a concrete identity. Naturally, Arbitrum’s identity has become DeFi-biased. And although there are strong gaming initiatives that have sprouted out of Arb, like Treasure, we feel that doubling down on what we’re good at is what we should focus more attention on. That being said, we’re not in favor of eliminating gaming in its entirety. There should still be programs to support game devs and attract publishers–but to a smaller account. Game development is very much an all or nothing task. Either we go all in or keep it light.
Everyone saying these sorts of funding programs will seed the next AAA game are simply incorrect. The entire $400M budget would easily be spent curating a AAA game and would take numerous years. The goal of this proposal is to play catch up, it seems. Hence, the focus should be on a handful of strong indie games. This budget could address that market, but we still feel that a smaller budget can be more prudently allocated to serve that purpose. We would encourage this proposal to go forward with a much smaller ask and collaborate with the grant groups, like the gaming domain allocator, to come up with a way to grow gaming. That way, some data points are present to help guide the funding initiative.
A good idea may be to switch the framing of this program to an incubator/accelerator that is paid out in tranches. A big issue with this proposal is that longevity is not addressed. We need follow-on investments to support the groups who are the most promising, and the best way to do so is track and monitor continual performance relative to given KPIs. As soon as KPIs are met, those teams attain more funding. This would elongate the timeline here from 2 years to many more. It would also reduce the ask of $400M to something smaller due to the tranched setup. This way, we are thinking more long-term and in an organized manner. Currently, it seems things are being rushed, which sounds like a recipe for disaster.
The other aspect that we feel is unclear is how tangibly the reward will circle back to the DAO. There are two aspects this proposal can optimize for: increasing Arbitrum’s gaming presence and returning value to the DAO. Of course, both can theoretically be achieved, but there’s a very real likelihood that only one or none will be accomplished. If we are competing with groups like Immutable, who’ve spent the past several years throwing money at game studios, gaming partnerships, and tooling like their SDKs and custom APIs, it’s hard to justify spending this much capital to potentially see little return when a direct competitor is miles ahead and thinks about nothing else but gaming. What we could focus on instead is a chain agnostic approach, where the DAO truly runs a VC gaming arm for the sake of profit, and of course, has a bias towards developing on Arbitrum. That way, at least we can more reasonably forecast ROI.
Arbitrum Stable Treasury Endowment Program
Vote: For
Type: On Chain
In line with our past rationale, we are still fully in support of this program and look forward to this pilot program of sorts spinning up. Eventually, we look forward to expanding and allocating more and more funds to treasuries for passive yields.
Expand Tally Support for the Arbitrum DAO
Vote: For
Type: Snapshot
Tally has been of great help to the DAO and the customizations they have done for Arbitrum have been very helpful and useful. We are in full support of them expanding support for the DAO and the funding request they have targeted in both in line with our expectations and also very reasonable for this task.
Double-Down on STIP Successes (STIP-Bridge)
Vote: Abstain
Type: Snapshot
Our team is generally in favor of supporting incentive programs. We voted FOR the previous STIP initiatives, as well as the LTIPP. This proposal, however, caused us to pause. There’s a degree of ambiguity present that leaves too many questions unanswered, and we are unsure if further incentivizing these protocols is the best use of treasury funds. There needs to be a more comprehensive analysis of the impact of the STIPs–hard numbers and data.
It seems many are beginning to justify large incentive spending as a way to compete with other L2s. Vampire attacks become especially rampant during bull markets, with new protocols offering exorbitant APRs. We’re of the opinion that enough incentives should be paid out to worthy protocols–and those incentives must be coupled with products that have market fit. If STIP incentives for a protocol don’t work, the cop out cannot simply be “there are higher yields elsewhere”. We have to consider if the products we are incentivizing actually have merit. Sure, capital chases yields, but consumers chase good products. Before providing STIP projects with more incentives, the DAO should conduct a more comprehensive analysis of the failures and successes of the already deployed incentives.
Furthermore, capital inflows shouldn’t be the only metric for judging the success of the incentives. Stickiness of capital and users is perhaps a better measure for sustainability. It’s great that these incentive programs have increased Arbitrum TVL. And we get that there’s a desire to grip onto that capital, making sure it stays in the ecosystem. But we should also consider the lasting impact of these incentives. A good way of putting it perhaps–the current TVL is like pouring water into a glass…but that glass has a hole in the bottom. Instead of continually filling up the glass with incentives, maybe we should figure out how to patch the hole.
The UADP will abstain from voting for this proposal. We hope that the authors take the DAO’s constructive feedback and provide delegates with more substantive reasoning behind why this proposal is worthwhile. If the provided reasoning is sufficient, we may alter our vote to FOR later on either during a new snapshot or the onchain vote.
Security Council Nominee Selection
Vote: Certora, Mudit Gupta, Raf (1/3 each)
Type: On Chain
We split our vote equally on these three nominees due to their experiences and personal experience working with them which makes us think they would be a great fit going forward for the council. Certora has proven itself valuable with its formal verification services. Mudit has done a great job at Polygon and we have personally worked with Raf on Uniswap and has been really helpful with issues we’ve had in the past with Tally.