Treasury Management V1.2

Abstract

On September 12th, Entropy hosted a preliminary treasury working group call (recordings available here) in an effort to align all of the different parties within the DAO on the optimal path forward when it comes to managing the different sections of the DAO’s balance sheet. I.e., chain profits (ETH) and tokens that have been authorized for spend but have not entered circulation yet (ARB). The primary points of contention were around ARB diversification, the need for a DAO budget before the conversation on treasury management continues forward, whether the DAO needs active treasury managers at all, infrastructure selection, and details around a treasury committee’s implementation, e.g., how many individuals/entities, are they DAO-elected or appointed, when should we target to have this committee stood up, etc. From our perspective, we did gain consensus that the DAO’s profits (ETH) in the treasury should be turned productive and that a treasury management committee of some sort should be established. However, even on these two points that most people seem to be in favor of, specific details need to be ironed out for actionable strategies to be implemented.

We believe that we have come up with a fair compromise between all of the various perspectives on these identified issues, all of which stem from the information gathered during the working group calls and conversations with delegates. The compromise suggested herein will, in our opinion, enable the DAO to move forward and initiate the required operational standards for optimizing the use of idle tokens in the treasury. Based on the feedback received on the call on September 25th (link to recording here) where we presented the overarching ideas herein, we feel confident that this proposal aligns well with the treasury managers, infrastructure providers, and overall DAO sentiment towards treasury management. We are eager to gather more feedback from the community and continue iterating so this initiative can move forward.

Key Issues Treasury Management can Solve Today

1. Service Provider Shortfalls: DAO-funded programs as well as service providers that have proved valuable to the DAO (the ARDC, Steakhouse’s services as a part of STEP, etc.) have run into the problem of having dollar-denominated contracts and not enough ARB to meet the agreed upon rate for services rendered.
2. Flexible & Metrics-Driven Capital Deployment: The DAO is reliant on RWAs/Treasuries for passive yield on dollars, but has no mechanism for reallocating to onchain strategies as we enter a global rate cutting regime that could make onchain yields more attractive. The DAO also currently lacks the ability to frictionlessly assess the returns and underlying risks of comparative liquid market investments, how much of/when ARB in the treasury should be diversified, and how to optimize operating cash-like reserves.
3. Reinvesting Sequencer Revenue: The DAO has neglected to do anything productive with its ETH holdings, which could provide the DAO leverage to fuel growth and partnerships alongside yield—consistent with the DAO’s growth-first mindset.

The Proposed Solution

TL;DR

• Establish two token management tracks (Treasury and Growth) with their own 3-seat committees. Treasury Management will focus on passive yield via ARB-only onchain strategies on Arbitrum One and create a cash-like reserve alongside a management strategy to cover service provider shortfalls. Growth Management will focus on strategic partnerships by exclusively reinvesting the DAO’s ETH holdings into “ETH-backed strategies”. ETH-backed strategies are defined as opportunities that earn yield on ETH or ETH-pegged assets, with high guarantees of returning the underlying deployed to the DAO treasury at a certain point in the future.
  • Treasury Management ™: 10M ARB for ARB-only onchain strategies + 15M ARB converted to stables or other cash-like holdings to serve as a pilot for the DAO’s “checking account”.
  • Growth Management (GM): 7,500 ETH allotted (about 75% of the DAOs ETH after BoLD bootstrapping), but all spend must be DAO-approved on a case-by-case basis.

Since inception, the DAO has spent 19.3M ARB on core DAO initiatives (long-term committees/groups that get funding directly from the DAO via proposal), grants programs, and direct DAO-to-service provider grants according to the August Token Flow report from @r3gen. So outside of protocol/user incentives and the large GCP initiative, the DAO’s spend has been relatively modest throughout the first 18 months of its life, spending about 1.07M ARB per month. The average price of ARB since the token launched sits at $1.16, which puts the DAO’s rough monthly spend on these types of initiatives at $1.24M USD.

In an ideal world, we would have a budget outlined before setting aside some ARB to be converted to stablecoins or other cash-like assets to cover general operating expenses and make up for any service provider contract shortcomings. However, we need the proper people and procedures in place in order for a budget to be executed to the expected standard. We believe that the OpCo will not only be better equipped to tackle this issue, but will also have better incentive alignment with the DAO than any other entity/individual tasked with creating a DAO budget, and more data surrounding DAO-revenue to analyze.

In many cases it is unprofessional for the DAO to put the burden of ARB volatility on its service providers. If we aren’t careful, we will negatively impact the pool of SPs that desire working with Arbitrum DAO. Given the aforementioned historical spend and the absence of a formal budget, we are suggesting the TM track be given 25M ARB with the intent to swap 15M ARB for stablecoins over the course of 3 months. This stablecoin reserve may be deployed in low-risk, yield-bearing strategies or other cash-like assets and will be used to cover DAO dollar-denominated expenses and service provider contract shortfalls. This cash-like balance should not be used to give out grants, but rather to pay out service providers that demand dollars. The remaining 10M ARB is to be used on ARB-only onchain strategies that are approved by the TM Committee (TMC). The TM track will solve problems 1&2 mentioned above by putting the infrastructure and service providers in place to conduct onchain strategies on both ARB and stablecoins while ensuring service providers enjoy a professional/stress-free experience working with Arbitrum. The TMC’s mandate also indirectly supports ecosystem growth by focusing primarily on ARB-only strategies by leveraging Arbitrum protocols.

The need to reinvest sequencer revenue is best depicted by the following chart, which shows the DAO has foregone ~400 ETH by not staking its idle holdings.

Arbitrum Revenue2400×1400 270 KB

However, given that the primary goal of the Arbitrum DAO is spreading its technology stack and promoting growth across its ecosystem, we believe that we can do better than just staking the ETH or otherwise reinvesting DAO profits into liquid market opportunities. Furthermore, Entropy Advisors has been approached by numerous protocols interested in strengthening their alliance with the Arbitrum DAO. These protocols include market leaders within well-established DeFi and infrastructure sub sectors as well as projects in emerging verticals that have generated significant attention within the industry. Some of these projects are pre-TGE, generate significant revenue, could solve liquidity fragmentation/interoperability across Orbit chains, or strengthen ARB narratives. These types of deals require a counterparty to negotiate with and discretion until a deal is formally reached. This will be one of the primary deliverables of the Growth Management Committee (GMC), but all deals will need to be approved by the DAO via a snapshot vote with a simple majority For/Abstain, and a quorum equal to 3% of the votable token supply prior to any engagement’s execution. Again, only strategies that rely on ETH and ETH-pegged asset strategies will be pursued. It is important to note that some specific details may need to remain confidential even once the DAO begins voting via Snapshot. The GMC will play a similar role as the STEP committee so that this can be achieved. A stark contrast between the TMC and GMC is that the former will make a one-time recommendation t

... please visit link below to view full proposal

https://tally.xyz/gov/arbitrum/proposal/111105159609719390908725919603971316574753860587890014819515615630412225940809