👨‍🔬 Governance Lab #095

Lab Report #095 - Arbitrum's DRIP Incentives Program, Lido DAO Institutionalization, Scroll Votable Supply Adjustment, and more

Apr 24, 2025

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 DAO discusses DRIP incentives program
🔍 Blockworks Advisory suggests Optimistic Financial Reporting
🗳️ Scroll DAO proposes temporary delegation of 1.5M SCR

Let’s dive in 🏊

Lido

Lido DAO discusses "Pragmatically Institutionalizing Lido DAO"

Blockworks Advisory has proposed addressing Lido DAO's "black box" governance structure. They note off-chain expenses account for 50% ($28.6m) of total expenses, growing at 54% CAGR (2022-2024). With 2025 budget at $56.59m and 75% of revenue immobilized, Blockworks argues Lido needs better operational visibility.
Their solution: implement "Optimistic Financial Reporting" (OFR) and strategic reviews for transparency. The proposal identifies four growth opportunities: automated real-time financial reporting, qualitative governance feedback, treasury diversification to reduce market risk, and analyzing votable supply to increase LDO participation. They claim these improvements would boost LDO interest, signal confidence through potential token cancellation, and de-risk operations.

Arbitrum

Arbitrum DAO debates DeFi Renaissance Incentive Program (DRIP)

Entropy has proposed the DeFi Renaissance Incentive Program (DRIP), a targeted incentives framework that focuses on specific assets and activities rather than protocols. The program would operate in quarterly "seasons" with focused goals like "Make Arbitrum One the best place to borrow USDT against wstETH," addressing evaluation challenges faced by previous broad-scope initiatives.
The proposal requests 80M ARB for the first 4 seasons (20M max per season), with a committee comprising the Arbitrum Foundation, Entropy Advisors, and Offchain Labs overseeing season planning and execution. External partners would handle reward distribution and program assessment, with a target launch of July 1, 2025.
Community feedback has been mixed, with delegates raising concerns about governance structure, transparency, and limited community involvement. Critics have suggested improvements including reward vesting requirements, operational expense caps, and adding community oversight mechanisms to balance the committee's broad discretionary powers.

Scroll

Scroll DAO proposes temporary delegation to boost votable supply

Scroll DAO has proposed a temporary delegation of 1.5M SCR tokens to 46 active delegates to address quorum challenges. The proposal aims to increase votable supply rather than lowering quorum requirements, with delegations managed through a Foundation multisig until October 2025.
Current voting data reveals a precarious situation where the total voting power among active delegates (2,419,471 SCR) barely exceeds the 2,100,000 quorum requirement. More concerning, the top two delegates control 887,149 votes, meaning their absence could cause proposals to fail quorum.
The proposal includes specific qualification criteria for delegates (participation in 2/3 recent votes plus forum/call engagement) and a distribution formula starting with 10,000 SCR for the largest delegate. The Foundation governance team will manage the program with provisions to revoke delegation from inactive participants, with success measured by whether proposals can pass even if top delegates are unable to vote.

Proposal Tracker™️

⚡ UNDERWAY | Lido DAO - Extend Delegate Incentivization Program through 2025

Summary: This proposal extends Lido's Delegate Incentivization Program through Q4 2025 with a $225,000 LDO budget ($75,000 per quarter). Key changes include lowering eligibility to 1M LDO delegated, implementing quarterly evaluations, and refreshing committee membership with Brennan and Maz replacing Charlie and Marcela. Core requirements remain: 70% vote participation, active proposal engagement, and anti-sybil compliance. Compensation is capped at $15,000 LDO per delegate quarterly (using 90-day TWAP), with equal distribution among qualified participants. If approved, LEGO will fund the oversight committee's multisig for quarterly distributions following performance reviews.

✅ APPROVED | Superfluid DAO - SIP #2: DAO voting - Pre-launch Delegates and Proto DAO

Summary: This proposal establishes a three-phase transition from ProtoDAO to full Superfluid DAO governance. It schedules "The Switch" for Season 1's end (May 18th), when 4.75% of SUP tokens will be distributed to approximately 25,000 holders. It includes a "Test" phase to validate Snapshot voting mechanics and requires governance vote proposers to control at least 1% of votable tokens. Implementation follows five steps: ProtoDAO voting (April 17-21), Constitution amendment, community testing, Season 1 conclusion, and ProtoDAO dissolution. The proposal passed unanimously (5/5 votes) and will be implemented by Foundation Staff Engineers at no additional cost.

💬 DISCUSSION | Summer DAO - Extend SUMR Governance Staking Rewards

Summary: This RFC proposes extending SUMR governance staking rewards beyond their April 28th expiration. Submitted by jensei, the proposal aims to maintain incentives until token transferability begins on July 1st. Three extension options are presented: 30, 60, or 90 days, with potential emission reductions to 75% or 50% of the current 15,982 SUMR daily rate. A formal SIP must be submitted by April 23rd to prevent reward interruption. Community feedback favors the 90-day extension with reduced emissions to balance staking incentives with long-term token value.

From the Lab

BLOG: Climbing the Governance Learning Curve

In our latest post, we dive into both the emotional and practical hurdles of participating in DAO governance. We examine the steep learning curve that new contributors face, while offering a structured framework that helps transform initial enthusiasm into genuine expertise.

▶︎ READ the blogpost

PROPOSAL: Analytics Hub for Uniswap’s Revitalization and Growth Program

We've submitted a proposal to Uniswap DAO to develop a terminal for the Revitalization and Growth Program. The initiative builds on our previously completed terminal and would further analyze the effectiveness of incentives across four additional chains by tracking key metrics including TVL, volume, fees, user growth, and ROI. The proposal requests $60,000 in UNI to fund development, maintenance, and regular reporting over a 6-month period, with the goal of providing actionable insights to optimize the program's $46M allocation and ongoing related Unichain incentive programs.

▶︎ READ the proposal

Matt at Token2049

Next week we're in Dubai for Token2049 🇦🇪👀

Find our Head of BD @mattstein111 at the event and various side events!

If you want to chat growth, incentives, or DAOs reach out via DM. See you there!

❲ Our Voting ❳

📆 Apr 18th→ Apr 24th | 🗳️ Total Votes: 21

We’ve updated our vote tracker, which you can now find on our website HERE. As always, our aim is to bring transparency and accountability with our votes. Check out our voting history and rationale for each decision.