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 + 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 + at 4.5 million tokens ($5 million). Other top grants include Stargate Finance STG + and Synapse SYN + , 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."