Summary
TreasureDAO (“Treasure”) is a prominent and respected member of the Arbitrum ecosystem. This position comes with significant responsibilities; both to the Treasure community in advocating for its interests, to be a leader championing web3 gaming more broadly within Arbitrum, and to support the success of Arbitrum DAO itself.
To fulfil this commitment, the Treasure core council has established the Arbitrum Council (ARC), an independant community-led council, consisting of members from both the Treasure and Arbitrum communities. By forming the ARC, Treasure core contributors were able to remain primarily focused on ecosystem growth at Treasure while also seeking to satisfy our obligation to Arbitrum - ultimately resulting in benefits to both the Treasure and Arbitrum communities.
The first term of the ARC formally ends on April 30, 2024. For this reason we present three different options for community considerations on how to proceed:
- ARC Renewed
- ARC Reelected
- ARC Dissolved
Background
To facilitate the community’s decision-making process on this topic, we aim to provide a comprehensive background detailing the various facets of the first iteration of the ARC, covering successes, challenges, and lessons learned throughout its duration.
ARC Charter
On January 2nd 2024 the ARC published its charter which outlined the vision, mission, and values of the ARC.
- Vision: To make Arbitrum the home of web3 gaming and Treasure DAO a leading voice within the Arbitrum gaming ecosystem.
- Mission: Empower web3 gaming on Arbitrum by swiftly identifying and onboarding talented developers, ensuring high impact execution of gaming initiatives and supporting effective governance of Arbitrum DAO.
- Values: Integrity, Innovation, Experimentation, Equal opportunity and Community driven
Inaugural ARC Members
The selection of the initial eight members for the ARC was confirmed on 30th October 2023. Inaugural ARC members are as follows:
- @thechaingamer | CEO Navigate, Decentralize Intelligence Platform on ARB - early and active Treasure community member from September 2021, game developer, 12+ years in big tech & tech startups, focused on AI. Founder of Forgotten Machine (Ruffion Reborn and Into the Dungeons)
- @CJ | LifeVerse - early and active Treasure community member from January 2022, council member of LifeVerse
- @Smol Phil - early and active Treasure community member from September 2021, highly involved in Treasure DAO governance having led TIP-26, web3 gaming angel investor
- @jona | Realm - early and active Treasure community member from September 2021, Founder of Realm, 15+ years of software engineering experience working in big tech and startups
- @Pepperoni Jo3 - Co-Founder of r3gen Finance (Treasure’s financial operations service provider), Head of Governance, Community & Change at Index Coop, Advisor to several web3 NFT, DeFi and DAO Tooling organizations
- @Karel Vuong- Co-Founder of Treasure, angel investor, former VC and Chief of Staff, and startup executive
- @John Patten - Co-Founder of Treasure and Founder of Smol
- @Peita - Economist at Treasure
ARC Success
During its first term the ARC worked tirelessly to service the needs of the Arbitrum, Gaming and Treasure communities. Notable successes include:
- Ranked 4th for participation in SeedLatams overall delegate score in December 2023
- Voted on 100% of all Tally and Snapshot Arbitrum Improvement Proposals (AIPs) during its term
- Secured a grant from Arbitrum DAO to build, test and deploy a Zodiac Roles mod which granted functionality for a separate ARC multisig to vote using Treasure DAO’s delegated tokens without requiring Treasury DAO Treasury signer. This is a first of its kind.
- Engaged across a variety of Arbitrum discussions, strengthening Treasure’s reputation as a good actor in the space and forging strong relationships with other leading delegates and stakeholders within the Arbitrum ecosystem.
- Drove forward discussion on the Gaming Catalyst Fund, ensuring Treasure DAO community considerations were top of mind when crafting the proposal
Gaming Catalyst Program
Working to catalyse gaming on Arbitrum was a core focus of the inaugural ARC. Whilst meaningful progress was made through delegate education via sessions and open office hours and a background post published on the forum (“Arbitrum and the Future of Web3 Gaming”), there is more work to be done to push this forward. With Arbitrum DAO delegates comprising primarily DeFi and non-gaming organizations and professionals, it underscores a steep learning curve and a great deal of work needed to bring the rest of Arbitrum DAO up-to-speed on the needs and intricacies of web3 gaming across game developers, studios, and publishers.
The ARC was frustrated at times by the balance needed to both catalyze immediate action in order to compete against more aggressive ecosystems while also striving to develop long-term frameworks and deliver ROI to the DAO. Karel Vuong’s Twitter post illustrates his perspective on this topic well. Following ETH Denver (~March 4), the ARC has been working to restructure the program to simplify the program and streamline the funding mechanism while helping establish a structure that could allow for a long-term, resilient, and sustainable program to support games building within the Arbitrum ecosystem. AIP Voting The ARC was an active participant engaging with and voting upon proposals throughout its tenure.
Arbitrum Governance Voting
The voting decision made by the ARC is detailed below for Tally and Snapshot respectively.
Grants & DAO Infrastructure
The ARC meticulously reviewed and assessed the effectiveness of grants programs and other organizational proposals within the Arbitrum DAO. Overall, the ARC expressed support for proposals that implemented a tender process for service provider selection and those that aimed to enhance the professionalism and overall impact of the DAO.
User Incentives
The ARC showed support for several initiatives aimed at utilizing DAO funds to offer direct user incentives for protocols developed on Arbitrum. Rather than having individual proposals draft specific funding requests, the ARC advocated for ecosystem-wide frameworks to ensure a consistent and standardized application of incentives. Karel Vuong was also selected as a Long Term Incentive Program Council member.
Despite these successes, we must express our disappointment with the slow progress of gaming-related incentive programs within the DAO over the past six months; with many of the user incentives primarily flowing to DeFi protocols based on Arbitrum.
Product & Security
The ARC endorsed all product and security-related proposals submitted to the DAO, with many originating directly from Off-chain Labs. We are fully committed to supporting the ongoing technical development and expansion of the Arbitrum ecosystem.
ARC Learnings
While we generally consider the first ARC term to have been a significant success, as an organization, Treasure DAO is deeply committed to continuous improvement. In February 2024, we conducted a retrospective to identify areas for enhancement in future iterations of the ARC.
Ideas for the future…
- Enhanced engagement between the ARC and the Treasure DAO Community
- Streamlined management of roles and responsibilities within the ARC, emphasizing specialization and division of proposal analysis rather than spreading efforts thinly across all areas
- Enhanced governance operations management, particularly in executing and documenting the outcomes of governance votes
- Proactive and earlier engagement with Arbitrum initiatives pre-forum to enable more timely feedback.
- Promotion of transparency within the Arbitrum DAO and encouragement of quicker decision-making processes with reduced bureaucracy.
We aim to complement these insights with feedback, thoughts, and comments from the community on how the ARC can enhance its impact further.
Rational
The Arbitrum Representative Council is fundamentally accountable to the Treasure Community. As the inaugural term of the ARC draws to a close on April 30, 2024, we recognize the importance of seeking input from the Treasure community on our next steps.
We are enthusiastic about gathering community feedback, encompassing both evaluations of the ARC’s performance and considerations for the future structure of ARC iterations. Our aim is to establish clarity on the future of the Arbitrum Representative Council before the current ARC’s term ends, facilitating a seamless transition aligned with the community’s desires.
Proposal
We present three options to the community for consideration:
- ARC Renewed - Existing ARC members serve an additional 6 month term
- ARC Reelected - New elections for ARC members are held for a 12 month term
- ARC Dissolved - ARC dissolves and no further community led governance activity taken by Treasure DAO
The Treasure community will vote on these three options using rank-order voting on Treasure’s Snapshot platform. This empowers the Treasure community to make the final decision on the future of the ARC.
1. ARC Renewed
1.1 Term
Under this proposal, current Council Members will serve an additional ~6 months, extending the new ARC term until October 30, 2024.*
While the anticipated term end date is October 30th 2024, under this approach, the ARC will continue its service until Treasure DAO either elects new ARC members or votes to dissolve the Council. This ensures continuity in Treasure DAO <> Arbitrum governance operations, even in the event of unexpected delays in electing or appointing new ARC members.
1.2 Membership & Elections
It’s noteworthy that Peita, an existing ARC member representing Treasure DAO, will step down from the ARC, bringing the total ARC members back to seven. Since the ARC expanded by one member at short notice, the remaining 8th seat will remain vacant, and the second term of the ARC will operate with one less member (n = 7).
1.3 Compensation
Recently, r3gen finance has become a long-term service provider for Treasure DAO. Excluding the two Treasure core contributors and one service provider member, each member (n = 4) on the council should be remunerated with 3,000 USD, paid in ARB each month, calculated using a 5-day moving average. This ARB will be drawn from the original DAO airdrop which has a balance of 6M ARB remaining following TIP-28.
In addition to this fee, the ARC will receive 50% of any income generated from Arbitrum DAO for their role as Arbitrum Delegate (“Delegate Revenue”), including, but not limited to, income generated from the Arbitrum Experimental Delegate Incentive Program. The remaining 50% of the Delegate Revenue will be paid to the Treasure DAO Treasury to replenish the ARB drawdown used for ARC compensation. Upon the Treasure DAO Treasury recapturing 100% of ARC compensation for the month in which the Delegate Revenue is received, 100% of any additional Delegate Revenue will be paid to the ARC.
All members of the ARC will be eligible to share the Delegate Revenue, and the mechanism for determining the allocation of the Delegate Revenue within the ARC will be determined by the ARC.
This structure ensures ARC members receive fixed-dollar compensation for their services, reducing price risk while aligning incentives for the ARC to best represent Treasure DAO within Arbitrum.
2. ARC Reelected
2.1 Term
ARC reelections will commence on April 1st, with new Council members confirmed by April 30th 2024 at the latest. Newly elected Council members, and the new iteration of the ARC will serve a 9 month term.
While the anticipated term end date is Jan 30th 2025, under this approach, the ARC will continue its service until Treasure DAO either elects new ARC members or votes to dissolve the Council. This ensures continuity in Treasure DAO <> Arbitrum governance operations, even in the event of unexpected delays in electing or appointing new ARC Liaisons.
2.2 Membership & Elections
It’s noteworthy that Peita, an existing ARC member representing Treasure DAO, will step down from the ARC, bringing the total ARC members back to seven. Since the ARC expanded by one member at short notice, the remaining 8th seat will remain vacant, and the second term of the ARC will operate with one less member (n = 7).
Under this option, two core contributors from Treasure DAO and r3gen finance, Treasure DAO’s long term service provider, will remain in position (n = 3). Four remaining slots (n = 4) will be opened up for Community Election.
The application template previously used for ARC elections can be viewed here. This is subject to potential adjustments before the next round of ARC elections begins.
Elections will be conducted via rank order voting on Snapshot.
2.3 Compensation
Recently, r3gen finance has become a long-term service provider for Treasure DAO. Excluding the two Treasure core contributors and one service provider member, each member (n = 4) on the council should be remunerated with 3,000 USD, paid in ARB each month, calculated using a 5-day moving average. This ARB will be drawn from the original DAO airdrop which has a balance of 6M ARB remaining following TIP-28.
In addition to this fee, the ARC will receive 50% of any income generated from Arbitrum DAO for their role as Arbitrum Delegate (“Delegate Revenue”), including, but not limited to, income generated from the Arbitrum Experimental Delegate Incentive Program. The remaining 50% of the Delegate Revenue will be paid to the Treasure DAO Treasury to replenish the ARB drawdown used for ARC compensation. Upon the Treasure DAO Treasury recapturing 100% of ARC compensation for the month in which the Delegate Revenue is received, 100% of any additional Delegate Revenue will be paid to the ARC.
All members of the ARC will be eligible to share the Delegate Revenue, and the mechanism for determining the allocation of the Delegate Revenue within the ARC will be determined by the ARC.
This structure ensures ARC members receive fixed-dollar compensation for their services, reducing price risk while aligning incentives for the ARC to best represent Treasure DAO within Arbitrum.
3. Dissolved
This option involves the dissolution of the ARC, resulting in the cessation of any further community-led governance activities by Treasure DAO. The responsibility for voting on Arbitrum Improvement Proposals and other governance engagement activities would then be transferred to core contributors within Treasure DAO.
Next steps
The Arbitrum Representative Council (ARC) exists to serve the Treasure community. As such, we propose utilizing Snapshot to present the three potential options and letting the DAO decided which pathway most resonates. This empowers the DAO to actively shape the ARC’s future direction according to their preferences.