[SIP-32] - Allocation for 2M ARB STIP Grant

Overview: The Synapse DAO is receiving a 2M ARB($3.8M as of January 5th) grant from STIP, the Arbitrum Short Term Incentives Program [https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/arbitrums-short-term-incentive-program-arbitrum-im.provement-proposal/16131/1]

The core goals of this grant is to increase bridge usage & accelerate new efforts to make the bridge faster and cheaper, outlined in Synapse’s proposal. [https://forum.arbitrum.foundation/t/synapse-protocol-final-stip-round-1/17550]

The grant requires Synapse DAO to distribute 2M ARB before March 29th, 2024.

To accomplish these goals, in-line with Synapse’s proposal to the Arbitrum DAO, the following distribution was proposed:

• 1.5M ARB allocated to accelerating RFQ bridging
• 500k ARB allocated to fee & gas rebates to expand Synapse’s existing presence in the Arbitrum ecosystem

On the forum, two interpretations of this were put forward:

1. Allocating 750k ARB to bridger rebates and 750k ARB to relayer incentives
2. Allocating 1.125M ARB to bridger rebates and 375k ARB to relayer incentives

The remaining 500k ARB is distributed to Gas, fee & slippage rebates for Synapse’s existing ecosystem. More details and discussion can be found on the forum.

RFQ Bridging: RFQ bridging is a new Synapse bridge paradigm built around Intent based bridging. When users bridge, their intents(example: $500 USDC from Ethereum to Arbitrum) are passed onto relayers who compete by giving their best quote to complete the bridging transaction. The best quote from the relayers is matched with the user's intent and the bridge is complete.