Arbitrum DAO approves second RWA investment program worth $15m to increase stability

The Arbitrum has approved the allocation of 35 million ARB for purchasing tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) for the network’s treasury. The decision is part of the decentralized autonomous organization’s (DAO’s) program to diversify its treasury holdings.

The DAO’s decision launches the second version of its Stable Treasury Endowment Program (STEP). It will grow the RWA ecosystem and diversify the DAO treasury with stable, liquid assets whose yield is not correlated with crypto markets, according to the proposal.

Arbitrum wants to stabilize its token

The DAO will accept applications for new U.S. dollar-denominated RWA providers from Feb. 20 to March 20. A committee will consider the applications and a project manager will make a decision on the applicants. Those decisions will be ratified by the DAO. 

Arbitrum emphasized the benefits of investment over grants, saying that “many of the top protocols do not need grants so much as AUM [assets under management] for their product.”

The proposal noted that “the volatility of the ARB token has highlighted the need for prudent diversification.” At the time of writing, ARB was trading on Coinbase at $0.45, making 35 million ARB worth $15.75 million. The token’s all-time high was reached on Jan. 11, 2024, at $2.15. The trading value of ARB had declined 8.36% in the last 24 hours.

Arbitrum is one of many DAOS investing in RWAs

The proposal received 93% support in a Feb. 17 vote,  the results of which were announced on X the next day. The proposal was published on Jan. 27 and voting took place over two weeks. The first STEP, for an investment of 35 million ARB, was executed on April 9. In addition, 15 million ARB have been invested in RWAs as part of treasury management. 

STEP 1 and a treasury management program instituted in December netted the DAO $450,000 interest. Arbitrum ranks third for RWAs on-chain. It follows Ethereum (67) and ZKsync Era (28). Polygon and Base follow Arbitrum with 19 each. There are a total of 110 tokenized RWA issuers.

Private credit dominates the tokenized RWA market by a wide margin, followed by U.S. Treasurys and commodities. On-chain RWAs have a total value of $17.3 billion with $8.8 billion total value locked (TVL).  

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