Arbitrum Token Flow Report - August 2024

Arbitrum DAO - Treasury

Arbitrum Stable Treasury Endowment Program (STEP)

Following the successful deployment of 35M ARB into USD30.45M of stable, liquid real-world assets to generate yield for the DAO. Emphasis was placed on attracting service providers to the Arbitrum ecosystem, therefore achieving both treasury diversification as well as incentivising users within Arbitrum. STEP Allocations

15m

11m

9.6m

10m

6m

6m

5.2m

5.2m

4m

4m

4m

3.5m

3.5m

3.5m

5m

0

Securitize BUIDL

Ondo USDY

Superstate USTB

Mountain USDM OpenEden TBill

Backed Finance blB01

ARB Allocation

USD Allocation

The next step for the STEP is to establish a Steering Committee. The goal of this committee will be to: - Identify Topics to Research for STEP II & Definition of Broader Arbitrum RWA Strategy - Selection of the STEP Committee

The Steering Committee will not initial request funding - it will rather perform the initial workflow and likely put forward a future proposal to fund the completion of the identified scope of work. Conversations around overall Arbitrum DAO treasury management continue to evolve - various service providers and delegates are exploring ways to put in place a more robust Treasury Management function within the DAO to support long term sustainability and address several of the financial challenges observed in this report. Some areas of concern identified are:

Operational Spend Hedging

DAO-funded initiatives often involve service providers - these providers traditionally quote a USD-equivalent fee. Proposals to date have not been able to hedge this ARB / USD price risk - the only mitigating actions used have been to increase the ARB budget with a margin of safety to cover price movement. In environments where ARB prices are falling, this buffer can prove to be insufficient and the ARB budget is inadequate to cover service providers' fees (e.g. ARDC, MSS).

Unproductive ETH Holdings

The DAO holds material ETH that has not been deployed since the DAO's inception (although there is a plan to allocate some ETH to running a BoLD validator). This ETH could be utilized to generate yield for Arbitrum and reduce the attractiveness of an attack on the DAO to access this ETH.

ARB Price Sensitivity

98% of the DAO's treasury is held in ARB tokens - however, as outlined previously, this balance cannot be valued at market prices as deploying it into the market would cause a material price impact. Irrespective of the previous point, the DAO is highly sensitive to ARB prices as the majority of its funds are held in that token.

ARB Inflation

There is no clear plan around introducing ARB into the market (via AIPs) and the inflationary impact that will have. Additional ARB is being unlocked and brought into the market that is beyond the control of the DAO (e.g. for the OCL team, early investors) - AIPs should be linked to those unlocks with a bigger-picture view on how much ARB is brought into circulation. A potential method of managing this would be introducing a DAO-wide budget where all AIP spending is framed with reference to a targeted ARB 'inflation rate'. 21

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