Arana Digital Delegate Thread

Name: Arana Digital
Delegate Address: 0x0579A616689f7ed748dC07692A3F150D44b0CA09
Delegate ENS Address: aranadigital.eth
Twitter/X: https://x.com/aranaventures

About Arana

Our members are deeply steeped in the crypto space and have multiple years of participation in protocol governance. With delegation history for DEXs, money markets, L2s, liquid staking protocols, and stablecoins, we’re acclimated with a breadth of sectors. We bring a diversity of experience to DAOs–our members have consulted for companies like Immutable and dYdX, worked at crypto investment and trading firms, set up various validator nodes, and run educational events for university students.

Core Values

Diligence: We thoroughly investigate each proposal, engaging with other delegates and service providers to gather diverse perspectives and insights prior to making a decision.

Transparency: We openly share information about decisions and their rationales, providing clear and accessible updates, and ensuring that all processes are effective to the community.

Innovation + Sustainability: We champion initiatives that will both allow the DAO and its underlying protocol to sustain its advantages, all the while continuously looking to iron out flaws and introduce efficiencies.

COI Disclosure

We are actively involved as delegates and contributors in multiple other DAOs. Any relevant conflicts of interest will be publicized when needed.

Waiver of Liability

By delegating to Arana Digital, you acknowledge and agree that Arana Digital participates on a best efforts basis and will not be liable for any form of damages related to its involvement in 1inch governance.

319 Likes

Hey @Arana Digital, some large hoolders recently delegated to you. Your current voting power is over 700k. Just a heads up!

[1IP-74] Messari Protocol Services 1inch Proposal 2025

Summary:

This proposal suggests that the 1inch DAO engage Messari to produce four quarterly reports in 2025, analyzing metrics and providing insights into the 1inch Network. These reports aim to enhance transparency and inform strategic decisions within the DAO.

Voting Position: No

Justification:

We voted against this proposal since it’s difficult for us to justify this expenditure as the value attained from the Messari report is rather hazy. A key question to ask here is what the purpose of this proposal is—do we intend to utilize the information produced from this report to support internal initiatives, or do we want to spread awareness for 1inch to investors, for example? Arana has an investment arm, and we do use Messari. They do great work; however, the conversion rate for us investing in protocols that Messari reported on is rather low. We use Messari to collect general information about the status of protocols. I think we can fund another research team to conduct similar research for a smaller capital investment.

[1IP-75] Offboard low-volume chains from 1inch

Summary:

This proposal aims to offboard Fantom, Kaia, and Aurora from the 1inch protocol due to their relatively low volume and high operational costs.

Voting Position: Yes

Justification:

We voted in favor of this proposal as it allows 1inch to reduce its spending on chains that bring little to no ROI. Fantom makes sense due to the transition they’ve recently had towards Sonic. Gnosis has a bit more volume than the other three chains, but the presence of CoW Swap makes it very difficult for 1inch to remain competitive in any capacity on Gnosis. Offboarding Aurora also makes sense, and I don’t think I’ve even heard of Kaia. Periodically revisiting this type of exercise would prove financially prudent for 1inch with other chains as well, along with effective exploration of up-and-coming chains.

[1IP 76] Recognized Delegates Program Renewal

Summary:

Renew the Recognized Delegates Program for 12 months.

Voting Position: Yes

Justification:

Our team joined 1inch DAO over the past couple of months and have partaken in the recent recognized delegate calls, becoming more acclimated with the DAO’s operations. In order to bring more delegates on board over time and further increase productive discussions, we have voted in favor of this proposal. As the potential responsibilities of delegates increase, like with the legal working group, this stipend is a beneficial incentive.

1IP-92: Optimizing Treasury Yield via Lending

Summary

This proposal allocates 2,000,000 USDC from the DAO Treasury to the Aave V3 USDC market.

Voting Position: FOR

Justification

We authored this proposal and vote in favor; we disclose that conflict up front. The treasury has had no operating revenue since swap surplus fees were paused in 2023, and its value has declined since 2024, yet nearly 45% of holdings sit idle as non-yielding USDC. The precedents are proven: 1IP-27 and 1IP-41 have together returned over $280k at a blended ~5.3% CAGR. Aave’s USDC market is deep and driven by organic borrower demand, with rates holding above a ~1.8% floor over the past year. At $2M we capture yield while preserving a ~$2.47M liquidity buffer, and even at a 2.00% floor the position still earns ~$40k. This is low-risk capital efficiency on a battle-tested primitive.

1IP-93: 1inch DAO Aqua Revenue Stream Incubator

Summary

This proposal establishes a $400,000 incubator funding teams (up to $50,000 each) to build revenue-generating Aqua and swapVM strategies in exchange for a negotiated share of gross revenue.

Voting Position: FOR

Justification

We support it because it fixes the problem we raise across most spend proposals: grant capital leaving the treasury with no expectation of return. Here revenue sharing begins from the first dollar, funding is released only against verifiable on-chain milestones, and the largest tranches wait until a strategy is live and generating aggregator volume. The program should lead to increased involvement for the DAO in the protocol since swapVM strategies are picked up automatically by the aggregator, creating a plausible flywheel back to the DAO. The steward fee is modest and the reviewer work is covered by our existing mandate.

1IP-94: Renewal of Engagement of MME as External Counsel to the 1inch DAO

Summary

The Legal Working Group proposes renewing MME as external counsel via a new $15,000 retainer, used as-needed under the same itemized invoicing established in 1IP-72. The prior $50,000 retainer is fully utilized, with all invoices approved.

Voting Position: FOR

Justification

We voted in favor. Legal counsel is baseline risk management. The prior mandate delivered concrete value via the arbitration analysis in the HW matter, the standardized Grant Terms and template now used across the DAO, a legal-wrapper cost-benefit study, and ad hoc sanctions and AML reviews on live proposals. At a third of the prior retainer, this is fair.

1IP-95: Dispute Resolution Proposal (1inch DAO and HWLT)

Summary

This proposal resolves the HW/HWLT dispute (originating in IP-30) by having HWLT fulfill its grant obligations through a phased publication of the ERA Wallet source code.

Voting Position: FOR

Justification

We voted in favor. This dispute has lingered as an unresolved obligation, and the publication roadmap is a verifiable path to closing it rather than leaving the commitment open-ended. Phase 1’s six repositories are already published. The phased structure fairly balances the DAO’s interest in auditability against HWLT’s legitimate need to protect IP during patent filing, and the BUSL-to-GPLv3 model guarantees eventual full open-sourcing.

1IP-96: 1inch events Grant Proposal 2026

Summary

Submitted by the Degensoft Ltd Events Team, this proposal requests $546,400 to fund 1inch participation in US events across 2026: a university program (Yale, Fordham, NYU, Cornell Tech, Stanford, Harvard, Michigan), conference side events (Consensus Miami, ETHConf, Stablecon DC, Messari Mainnet NYC), and four Crypto Mondays meetups. Unspent funds above 10% return to the treasury.

Voting Position: FOR

Justification

We vote in favor, with the reservations we always raise on event spending. The budget is forward-looking rather than the retroactive fitting we objected to before, there is an explicit clawback for cancelled or reduced events, and all content is licensed back to the community. Our concern remains measurement, since attendance and impressions do not equal protocol adoption. We want the post-program report to lead with developer sign-ups converting to integrations, qualified BD leads converting to partnerships, and per-event cost breakdowns so underperformers can be pruned next cycle. The focus on US and universities is the main advantage here. US-based exposure is not something that 1inch has historically been as involved in. The directional change here is good.

1IP-97: 1inch Public Policy & Regulatory Engagement Grant Proposal 2026

Summary

Submitted by the 1inch Foundation and led by the Degensoft legal and compliance team, this proposal requests $155,000 to fund 1inch’s public policy and regulatory engagement for 2026, covering US trade-group memberships, lawmaker engagement, and the 1inch Shield framework.

Voting Position: FOR

Justification

We vote in favor. Proactive regulatory engagement is risk mitigation, and the cost of a single enforcement action dwarfs this budget. The 2025 program delivered a documented record: 10+ regulatory meetings, comment letters to FinCEN and the US Senate, and the INATBA Best DeFi Solution award. 1inch’s non-custodial architecture and certifications are worth representing. We note the ~41% increase and would normally press harder, but the absolute cost is modest and is explained by the accelerating US calendar and expanded memberships. We expect the mid-year update and full-year KPI report to substantiate it.

1IP-98: 2026 DAO Governance Operations and Support

Summary

Submitted by the 1inch Foundation, this proposal allocates $200,000 to fund a dedicated DAO governance operations function for 2026, with Degensoft Ltd as recipient. Scope covers proposal lifecycle management, delegate coordination, compliance monitoring, and forum and Snapshot administration.

Voting Position: FOR

Justification

As long as 1inch continues its DAO-based operations, with delegates, treasury management, and programs like the Aqua Incubator, we believe that funding personnel using this capital, connecting the bridge between delegates and the core team, is fair.

1IP-99: 1inch ⟷ ETHGlobal events Grant Proposal 2026-2027

Summary

Submitted by the Degensoft Ltd Events Team, this proposal requests $695,000 to fund 1inch sponsorship across 21 ETHGlobal hackathons and Pragma conferences over 18 months (2026-2027), passed through directly to ETHGlobal. The program centers on Aqua adoption and developer onboarding, with roughly 26,000 expected participants and the same clawback and licensing terms as 1IP-96.

Voting Position: FOR

Justification

While we strongly support the Aqua-centric framing as a vital dealflow pipeline to drive volume and revenue back to the DAO, we have voiced reservations regarding the proposal’s lack of forward guidance, high event volume, and budget structure. The absence of proactive roadmap planning blindsided us after a prior 2026 proposal we assumed was comprehensive, and funding 21 events over 18 months risks diluting both focus and capital without historical ROI data to justify the spend. To mitigate these risks in a precarious market, we request clearer prospective budgeting moving forward and recommended splitting this proposal into two tranches: approving the defined 2026 events now, while deferring the unconfirmed 2027 events to a separate vote once full details are available. The team sustained their original approach stating that it’s more cost effective to structure all of the events upfront—cost and planning-wise—which is fair. We hope that better guidance is still provided in the future.

1IP-100: Recognized Delegate Program Renewal

Summary

Submitted by DAOplomats, this proposal renews the Recognized Delegates Program for 12 months (June 2026 to May 2027) with a reduced $220,000 budget.

Voting Position: FOR

Justification

We disclose that Arana Digital participates in this program and is among the evaluated delegates. On the merits we vote in favor, consistent with our support for 1IP-76. This iteration lowers the budget while raising the bar, a combination we welcome. The move to a transparent points-based rubric and quarterly eligibility thresholds ties pay to contribution rather than membership. The delegate program is how independent scrutiny reaches proposals, and a performance-gated, cost-reduced renewal serves the DAO.

1IP-101: Request to and Authorisation of 1inch Foundation as Aqua Incubator Administrator

Summary

This proposal authorizes the 1inch Foundation to act as the off-chain legal administrator of the Aqua Incubator established under 1IP-93. The role is strictly administrative: executing grant agreements, running KYC/KYB, and pursuing remedies. All funding decisions stay with the Grant Reviewers, and all funds continue to flow from the Operations Multi-Sig.

Voting Position: FOR

Justification

We again disclose that Arana Digital is one of the three Grant Reviewers this proposal preserves. We vote in favor because it closes a gap in 1IP-93: the DAO cannot sign contracts, so without an administrator the incubator cannot execute enforceable agreements, complete KYC/KYB, or pursue clawback. Those are the enforcement backbone that makes the revenue-share model collectible. The Foundation is the natural choice, already serving as the DAO’s off-chain representative with existing compliance infrastructure. Their authority is rightfully bounded around no vote on funding, no custody of funds, no duty to assess strategy, and remedial powers exercised only with the reviewers. The one-time authorization also spares a separate vote per grantee.

1IP-102: Aqua/SwapVM License for 1inchDAO & Security Audit Funding

Summary

This proposal requests $1,201,000 from the DAO Treasury to fund Aqua and SwapVM security audits and the discounted 2026 OpenZeppelin retainer, settled by Degensoft, while confirming the DAO’s irrevocable operational rights under the Aqua Source License 1.1.

Voting Position: FOR

Justification

We vote in favor. Security audits are non-negotiable, and Aqua and SwapVM underpin the revenue programs we already backed in 1IP-93. 1IP-86 approved $1,359,000 for the same purpose in 2025, making this a slight reduction against an expanded multi-version pipeline. However, it is still important for delegates to be aware of the size of this withdrawal. The proposal removes capital from the DAI facility, so the yield from lending activities would be reduced as a result of this Audit Funding allocation. We also requested the team to more proactively update the DAO on the audit reports on the public GitHub and forum.

1IP-103: Aqua Launch Framework, Interface Authorization & Protocol Fee Activation (Fast Track Revote)

Summary

This fast-track proposal authorizes Degensoft to deploy Aqua and SwapVM to production and operate the official Aqua interface and activates protocol fees that accrue 100% to the DAO Treasury. It requests no treasury spending and requires no onchain execution.

Voting Position: FOR

Justification

This finally turns on operating revenue to the Treasury, which has had none since swap surplus fees were paused in 2023. The interface authorization confirms a role Degensoft already holds under 1IP-88 and 1IP-102 rather than granting new rights, and the deployment runs on the audit program the DAO just funded in 1IP-102. Degensoft is developer, licensor, deployer, and operator, which we note, but all fees accrue to the Treasury and no operating funds are requested here. We voted For.

1IP-104: Adopt The SEAL Safe Harbor Agreement

Summary:
This proposal adopts the SEAL Whitehat Safe Harbor Agreement, letting vetted whitehats intervene during active exploits and return rescued funds within 72 hours for a 10% bounty capped at $500,000. It requests no treasury funds.

Voting Position: For

Justification:
We voted in favor. This is a strong addition to the security stack, complementing the audits funded in 1IP-102 with a rapid-response mechanism for live exploits that audits cannot cover. The terms are sensible: mandatory full return of funds, pseudonymous but screened whitehats, sanctions and AML checks, a former-insider look-back, and a bounty cap matching the existing bug bounty so incentives do not conflict. It is already the industry standard at Uniswap, zkSync, Pendle, Pancakeswap, and Balancer.

1IP-105: Aqua LP Incentive Program

Summary:
This proposal allocates up to 500,000 USDC over three months to a maker incentive program on Aqua, paid via Merkl for processed volume and stacked on the Foundation’s 10M 1INCH base campaigns. Unspent funds return to the Treasury.

Voting Position: For

Justification:
This is the DAO’s fuel for the Aqua launch it just authorized in 1IP-103. Rewards pay pro-rata to handled volume rather than parked TVL, so the budget only pays where flow actually routes through Aqua, and it is partly self-funding since the same volume accrues protocol fees back to the Treasury, with roughly $2.5B of cumulative volume repaying the full allocation.

The safeguards are fair: per-wallet caps, wash-trading filters, taker-maker exclusion, 50/30/20 tranches gated by day-30 and day-60 checkpoints, and automatic return of anything unspent. As with 1IP-102, delegates should register that this is a further 500,000 USDC treasury draw, but the pay-for-volume structure and unspent-fund return make it more measured.

We hope to see traction numbers and a post hoc analysis of this program to better address incentives in the future and address any potential findings pertaining to Aqua traction itself.