Governance Lab #092
Lab Report #092 - Arbitrum GCP Clawback Proposal, Obol SQUAD Governance Framework, dYdX Buyback Program, and more
gm frens 👋
Welcome back to the Governance Lab, your weekly source for all things StableLab, DeFi, and DAO Governance. As always, we've filtered through the noise to bring you the governance signals (and drama) that matter.
At a Glance 👀
🎮 Arbitrum GCP faces clawback proposal amid transparency concerns and leadership changes
🏆 Obol Collective introduces SQUAD framework
💰 dYdX launches first-ever token buyback program allocating 25% of protocol fees
🎙️ New StablePod w/ Nevin Freeman (Reserve)
Let’s dive in 🏊
Arbitrum Governance
ArbitrumDAO debates Gaming Catalyst Program clawback proposal
A proposal to claw back all unutilized and uncommitted funds from the Arbitrum Gaming Catalyst Program (GCP) has sparked debate within the Arbitrum community. Authored by NathanVDH and GFXlabs, the proposal seeks to immediately cease non-essential GCP expenditures, return unallocated funds to the DAO, authorize limited winding down expenses, and revoke unvested compensation packages.
The proposal's authors argue that the GCP has failed to meet expectations, citing the departure of Treasure DAO (a major supporter), resignation of key council members, lack of transparency, and requests to increase contributor compensation while reducing reporting requirements. GFXlabs summarized GCP's "visible record" as requesting raises, asking to reduce reporting requirements, publishing bylaws late, and moving 40m ARB to a vesting address.
GCP council member David Bolger defended the program, emphasizing gaming's strategic importance for Arbitrum and noting that competing blockchains offer large grants to attract builders. The GCP team also responded, acknowledging the need for more transparency while highlighting recent progress: two pending offers to potential candidates, a co-investment framework with three major publishers in final review, over 50 investment opportunities processed, and the first cohort of grants being processed.
Obol Governance
Obol Collective introduces SQUAD framework
Obol has unveiled its SQUAD Goals Framework built around Strategic, Quantifiable, Unified, Achievable, and Decentralized principles. The framework aligns community objectives with Obol's mission through a transparent process that maintains decentralization as a core value.
The model establishes clear governance principles: Strategic decisions guided by long-term vision, Quantifiable progress through metrics, Unified alignment of stakeholders, Achievable realistic goals, and Decentralized power distribution ensuring community ownership.
The framework implements a structured decision-making cycle with notice periods, open submissions, community discussions, and collective selection of one-year objectives. By tying goals to Obol's mission, the system creates a low-friction consensus mechanism where treasury funding naturally flows toward community-selected priorities.
dYdX Governance
dYdX community launches first-ever DYDX buyback program with protocol fee allocation
The dYdX community has approved its first token buyback program, allocating 25% of net protocol fees to purchase DYDX tokens monthly from the open market. The initiative strengthens the token's ecosystem role while maintaining dYdX's commitment to sharing all revenue with participants. The updated distribution allocates 10% to Treasury SubDAO, 25% to MegaVault, 25% to Buybacks, and 40% to Staking Rewards.
The buyback comes as dYdX implements its most ambitious product roadmap to date. The protocol has generated impressive 2024 metrics: over $270B in trading volume and $46M in net protocol fees, pushing lifetime volume beyond $1.46T since 2021.
With 85% of DYDX tokens already unlocked and emissions set to decrease by 50% from June 2025, all remaining unlocks will conclude by June 2026. The community is discussing potentially increasing the buyback allocation up to 100% of net protocol fees over time.
Links
🚀 Launches, Deployments, Partnerships, and M&A
Introducing the Value Accrual Toolkit by Aragon
📑 Reads, Insights, and Reports
The State of DAO M&A
Optimism Governance is on the path toward algorithm-based voting models
The Arbitrum Foundation: 2024 Transparency Report
🧗 Milestones & Updates
Arbitrum DAO 2-year Key Milestones
Arbitrum Ventures Initiative AVI Final Report
🔒 Security, Risk, & Hacks
Reported Governance Attack on Polymarket
🗞️ Everything Else
zkSync Governance Performance Dune Dashboard
Compound DAO: Renew Proposal Guardian Role for the Community Multisig
Arbitrum DAO: OpCo – Oversight and Transparency Committee (OAT) Elections
📺 Podcasts, Presentations, & Listens
Delegate Voting with Gauntlet, L2BEAT, and StableLab at Messari Protocol Services Summit 2025
Proposal Tracker™️
⚡ VOTING UNDERWAY | Morpho DAO - Phase 2: Frontend for Compound <> Morpho <> Polygon Collaboration
Summary: This proposal details Phase 2 of the Compound <> Morpho <> Polygon collaboration, with Office Supply Ventures implementing three key features for Compound.blue: 1) AAVE v3 Position Migrator with Vault and Market migration capabilities, 2) AAVE v3 Liquidity Migrator for transferring entire portfolios while maintaining position health, and 3) Leveraged Position creation tools. The 5-week implementation (March 28-April 30, 2024) requests $100,000 in MORPHO tokens ($80,000 for new features plus $20,000 to cover MIP-96 shortfall). All code will be open-sourced under AGPL-3.0, creating reusable tools for the broader ecosystem.
💬 DISCUSSION | Balancer DAO - Establishing the Balancer Alliance Program
Summary: This proposal from Zen Dragon and Lipman introduces the Balancer Alliance Program to share protocol revenue with key ecosystem partners. It restructures fee distribution for core pools (like wstETH/wETH), allocating 12.5% to veBAL holders, 52.5% as bribes (down from 70%), and 17.5% each to partners and the DAO. For non-core pools, veBAL holders receive 65% (reduced from 82.5%). Eligible partners must have generated $1M+ in lifetime fees, with "E1 Partners" automatically receiving fee sharing on "Grandfathered Pools." Partners must bribe on Aura, maintain $5M TVL with weekly incentives, and permalock veBAL.
💬 DISCUSSION | Rari DAO - Proposed Mechanics of Fee Collection
Summary: This proposal outlines the RARI Foundation's approach to multichain fee collection while awaiting full on-chain governance implementation. The Foundation will deploy multisigs across 34 blockchains including Ethereum, Polygon, and Arbitrum, with ETH fees bridged directly to the DAO treasury and other tokens swapped to USDC before bridging. Implementation follows a three-phase process over 5+ weeks, covering DAO approval, multisig deployment, and contract integration.
From the Lab
Reserve: DTFs and the Future of Asset-Backed Currencies
On the latest StablePod episode, we're joined by Nevin Freeman, Cofounder of Reserve Protocol. We discuss Nevin's journey from Bitcoin skepticism to launching a decentralized stablecoin project, the challenges faced while serving users in Venezuela during hyperinflation, the evolution of the Reserve protocol, and the launch of Decentralized Tokenized Funds as an advancement over traditional ETFs.
▶︎ 📺 Watch on YouTube
▶︎ 🎧 Listen on Spotify & Apple
❲ Our Voting ❳
📆 Mar 20 → Mar 27 | 🗳️ Total Votes: 30
See our full vote history and detailed rationale HERE.
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