Arbitrum DAO approves $23 million 'backfund' for projects that missed initial grant

The Arbitrum DAO has voted two-to-one to disburse 21.1 million ARB -0.55% tokens ($23.5 million) into projects that were approved for a grant from the Ethereum Layer 2 network's Short-Term Incentive Program (STIP), but failed to receive the funds due to the program's initial 50 million token budget.

In addition to the 29 projects funded in the first round, 26 projects will now receive grants, with the largest being Gains Network GNS -1.48% at 4.5 million tokens ($5 million). Other top grants include Stargate Finance STG +0.67% and Synapse SYN -2.37% , which will each get 2 million tokens ($2.2 million), and Wormhole, which will receive 1.8 million tokens ($2 million). 

With the approval of the proposal, the STIP's program total budget has increased to 71.1 million ARB tokens. The additional funds will be dispersed following a three-day waiting period, according to the proposal. 

Some projects that received funding in the initial round, such as Camelot and MUX, joined the one-third of voters who rejected the additional funding proposal. Camelot explained their 'no' vote in a lengthy comment, arguing for a second round of proposals instead of a backfunding event. MUX's comment was more concise, arguing "proposals with good protocol fundamentals, proper incentives execution strategies and reasonable grant size should be supported, but not in a bundle of proposals with mixed quality."