Arbitrum DAO Votes to Return 700 Million Tokens to Treasury

The Arbitrum community is voting on a new proposal that would see 700 million ARB tokens returned to the DAO Treasury. 

AIP-1.05, a new proposal put forth by a community member on Arbitrum’s governance forum, has called for the Arbitrum Foundation to make a symbolic gesture to show token holders that they are in control of the protocol’s decentralized governance.

The proposal asks for 700 million ARB tokens that were “unjustly allocated” to the Arbitrum Foundation from the DAO last week to be returned. It also proposes a token buyback from market maker Wintermute using the proceeds left from the $10 million over-the-counter ARB sale and for the Arbitrum Foundation to disclose the terms of its market making deal with Wintermute.

As of late Sunday evening, the community appeared divided on the proposal, with 50% of voters in favor and 48% of voters against it. Around 2% of voters abstained from voting on the proposal.

The proposal’s author also suggested putting AIP-1.1 and AIP-1.2 on hold until the community’s faith in the governance process has been restored. 

Proposals AIP-1.1 and AIP-1.2 were introduced by the Arbitrum Foundation after it received a considerable amount of backlash over its first controversial iteration – AIP 1.

The two governance proposals offered amendments to the first proposal, laying forward a plan to place the 700 million ARB tokens in the Foundation’s possession in a smart contract-controlled lockup. Under this proposal, the tokens would be released to the Foundation in timed installments over the course of four years. 

Some members of the community believe that a proposal that calls for a show of good faith from the Foundation is a step too far.

“It seems like overkill just to make a point,” said one Arbitrum community member.

“Everyone agreed that the first proposal was bad and unfair to the DAO members, and Arbitrum Foundation have put forward 2 new proposals seeking to remedy it. This proposal seems to want to get the Foundation to kneel on the floor, as if to make a sorry statement,” they added.