Arbitrum poses new governance proposals after community furor

The Arbitrum Foundation has made a couple of new governance proposals following the fracas that occurred over its original.

The Arbitrum Foundation has released a raft of new improvement proposals following the fracas that ensued after its first failed attempt at governance.

On April 5, Ethereum layer-2 solutions provider Arbitrum posted new Arbitrum Improvement Proposals (AIPs) for the governance of the network.

The new proposals include AIP-1.1, which covers a smart contract lockup schedule, spending, budget, and transparency. The other, AIP-1.2, tackles amendments to current founding documents and lowers the proposal threshold from 5 million Arbitrum (ARB) tokens to 1 million ARB “to make governance more accessible.”

In an April 5 tweet, it confirmed the Arbitrum DAO came to a consensus against its first proposal, AIP-1.

1/10 With the ArbitrumDAO reaching consensus against AIP-1, it’s now time to incorporate community feedback, and move forward with new AIPs and documentation that address key areas of concern.

Details below

— Arbitrum (,) (@arbitrum) April 5, 2023

On April 2, the Arbitrum Foundation stated AIP-1 “likely will not pass” due to community backlash. Token holders objected to the proposal which encompassed too many topics and a ratification vote which granted control over around $1 billion worth of ARB tokens to the Foundation.

The Foundation backtracked stating in a tweet on April 5 that it would not take control of the tokens:

“The Foundation will not move any of the remaining 700M tokens in the Administrative Budget Wallet until an acceptable budget and smart contract lockup schedule have been approved by the DAO.”

The Foundation also issued a transparency report which “describes actions taken to get the DAO up and running.”

“We have heard the feedback,” it stated before adding that it has “worked diligently to address it and make sure the Foundation can represent, and serve the DAO’s best interests with their support.”

The two new AIPs were posted on the Arbitrum community forum and will be available for feedback for at least 72 hours before a planned week-long snapshot vote.

Arbitrum was lambasted by industry observers for being centralized after its initial proposal to use 750 million tokens to vote on its own proposal.

ARB prices have dropped 4% over the past 24 hours, falling to $1.22. The layer-2 token was dumped heavily following its airdrop on March 23 and is down 86% from its peak price of over $8.50 on that day.

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