Background
As part of Arbitrum’s drive to decentralize, tokens were airdropped to eligible DAOs within the Arbitrum ecosystem. API3 received 75k ARB tokens as part of this. These tokens were sent to the dAPI team multisig on Arbitrum One, because there were no other DAO-controlled addresses capable of receiving the tokens. This proposal seeks to start using these tokens in a way that helps benefits both API3 and the Arbitrum ecosystem, by using them to fund both self funded data feeds on Arbitrum, and upgrades of these to managed dAPIs.
Details
The ARB tokens will be transferred to a joint BD/Ecosystem Gnosis Safe multisig on Arbitrum One, 4/6 signatures, with 3 from each of BD and Ecosystem subteams. This ensures that no single subteam alone can withdraw the tokens. This address is 0x53d3F348F2663552049ffE9Fa18aBF79BF4c8d76, and remaining tokens will be held there. Periodic withdrawals will be made from here, ARB tokens converted to ETH, and the ETH used to fund feeds on Arbitrum One. Signers will be Dave, Kevin, and Gio from BD, with Ashar, Ben and Vansh from Ecosystem.
For a rough indication of costs, at a current approximate ARB token value of 40ETH, it is estimated that (using current marketplace gas calculations and deviation) the following number of Phase 1 (self funded) feeds could be operated for a year:
Stablecoins - 4000
Large Cap Crypto - 1000
Medium Cap Crypto - 500
Volatile Crypto - 80
For self funded feeds, estimates of how long different feeds can be funded for are available on the market UI. Managed dAPI pricing will be available nearer to their release. Note that managed dAPIs will involve a higher cost, as gas costs increase. This cost will be visible on the marketplace when it is available, and comparing this cost to the balance of ETH/ETH equivalent of ARB held in the multisig will allow similar figures to be calculated.
Managed feeds will not be funded prior to dapps integrating them to avoid wasting funds, and self funded feeds only funded when dapps have signalled a strong desire to integrate. For operational reasons, no announcement will be made when feeds are funded, but it is the intention of the BD team to ensure all users are announced as soon as possible. Funded self funded feeds and feeds upgraded to managed can also be viewed by anyone from the API3 market.
A subjective assessment process for which feeds the grant is used to fund will be carried out by a combination of the BD and Ecosystem teams, based on operational costs and expected users.
This proposal is intended to be a signal proposal only. The ARB tokens are held by the dAPI multisig, on Arbitrum One, which is not under secondary agent control (which means that this proposal passing cannot directly move the tokens). If the proposal passes, the dAPI team will action the transfer. Should the DAO pass a future proposal about the remaining balance of ARB tokens, the BD/Eco multisig will also abide by this.