Areta: Introduction as Delegate

Governance Delegates
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Name / Alias:

Areta

Key Information

Introduction

Areta specializes in helping foundations and DAOs establish and grow decentralized governance structures. We develop tailored solutions in governance inception and optimization, ecosystem growth, and service provider selection. Our connected investment bank with deep strategic expertise enables us to serve our partners holistically, rather than working in isolated governance silos.

We have had the privilege to work for some of the leading companies and DAOs in the crypto space such as Arbitrum, Uniswap, Aave, Safe, Polygon, ZKsync, and dYdX. Examples of our work include managing a larger Aave delegation, setting up key contribution initiatives for SafeDAO, leading the first cross-ecosystem growth initiative for Uniswap and Arbitrum, and crypto-native transactions like the first acquisition of Coingecko or the sale of Solscan to Etherscan.

As DAOs emerge from their infancy, their structures have proven powerful tools for enabling decentralisation and autonomy. We view a well-designed governance system as a critical enabler for decentralized projects to allow them to leverage decentralization as a strategic advantage, rather than an inconvenient necessity (where most of the market is currently at).

However, DAOs often encounter challenges in maintaining organisation, highlighted by governance issues such as contributor onboarding and delegate overload. These scenarios highlight areas where DAOs can improve by establishing structured processes for better collaboration and being open to further strengthening against inefficiencies.

Recognising the need for evolution, we focus on excellent DAO participation with robust, defensible analysis of proposals through a structured voting process while simultaneously applying our deep institutional knowledge and strategic governance expertise to offer proactive DAO governance solutions aimed at nurturing the ecosystem for the long term.

Expertise and Experience:

Having collaborated with industry leaders, Areta’s governance team offers a range of specialized services designed to support protocols and institutions in achieving their strategic goals, including:

  1. Governance Inception & Design: Set-up of key governance elements and structure, and build out tailored functions depending on ecosystem needs. Examples include: Contributor Program for Safe.
  2. Growth & Capital Allocation: Development of capital allocation and optimization strategy, along with innovative grant and contributor program design. Examples include: Uniswap-Arbitrum Grant Program, M&A Strategy for Arbitrum.
  3. DAO Strategic Operations: Design and operation of key executive functions, including leading key initiatives and filling gaps in DAO operations. Examples include: Service Provider Procurement for Arbitrum, RWA Strategy for multiple DAOs.
  4. Professional Delegation: Institutional-grade voting and decision-making, including creation of reporting material for key stakeholders. Examples include: Professional Delegation for Aave, Delegation for zkSync.

Selected Experiences

  • Contributor Efficiency System: Development of Safe DAO Contributor Efficiency System. Read more here.
  • Uniswap-Arbitrum Grant Program: Launch of Cross-Ecosystem Growth Initiative for Uniswap and Arbitrum. Read more here.
  • Service Provider Selection: Development of a procurement framework for security-oriented service providers as part of the Arbitrum DAO Procurement Committee. Read more here.
  • Aave Delegate: Incentivized Delegates for the Aave DAO. Read more here.
  • Wind-Down: Led the strategic wind-down of Gro DAO. Read more here.

Motivation:

Core Tenets as Delegates

Areta’s core tenets as delegates are as follows:

  • 100% Voting Participation - we are deeply invested in the ecosystem and our goal is to meaningfully support its direction via thoughtful, educated governance decisions.
  • Independent and Impartial Voting - our voting is strictly informed by critical analysis and years of experience and is not based on bias or external influences.
  • Communication of Voting Rationale - we will communicate the rationale behind our votes through frequent updates to this thread, making us accountable to the community

We will achieve these core tenets through our unique sources of value as follows:

a. Structured & Streamlined Voting Process
  • Our Head of Delegation adds new proposals to a shared tracker and assigns each incoming proposal to a specific member of the team.
  • For each proposal, we prepare a standard memo summarising the key issues, the black and white hat case (pros and cons), and a recommended decision with accompanying rationale.
  • Each proposal is then peer reviewed by another team member.
  • For complex proposals that require more discussion, we involve more members of the team as necessary to form a joint opinion.
  • We then publish our voting rationale externally on our public forum.

We always try to base our votes on sound, defensible rationale so that we are internally consistent and our voting track record stands up to external critique.

b. Ecosystem Growth and Expansion to Institutions

Leveraging the Areta network to promote and foster flourishing ecosystems across DAOs. Bringing unprecedented ties to a deep traditional network of corporates, strategics, and investors.

c. Governance Optimisation

Utilising our expertise to diagnose, analyse, correct, and enhance the effectiveness of DAO governance, ensuring streamlined operations and decision-making, while building up accountability structures.

Conflict of Interest / Waiver of Liability

Areta currently does not have any material conflicts of interest. We agree to keep the Cow DAO community updated should any conflicts of interest arise. Our work in other DAOs is solely focused on supporting structural projects that are advancing the overall DAO space, are open-sourced across DAOs and will not influence any decision-making.

By delegating to Areta, you acknowledge and agree that Areta will participate on a best efforts basis and will not be liable for any form of damages related to participation in this DAO.

CoW Tokens Allocated for Voting:

TBD

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Recognised Delegates Scheme
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Hi Areta team - nice, thank you for your introduction!

one thing that’s nice is that becoming a CoW DAO delegate as such is without a gatekeeper: You can tailor your Statement here on your CoW DAO Snapshot space

One thing you can do right away is start voting, of course, to emphasise being a self-motivated delegate :slight_smile:

Then additionally to that, there is what we call “recognised delegate”, which is basically a delegate that someone from the Grants Committee has soft vetted. Here is the entry on the role description (+ the conditions such as 10k COW voting tokens put up themselves to signal incentive and motivation alignment) and then there is the respective thread for the Grant Committee’s review (available here).

Happy to answer questions

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Proposal: CIP-70: Operational CoW DAO Safe Renewal 2

Vote: FOR

Rationale: This proposal seeks to allocate 50 ETH to the CoW DAO Ops Safe to fund operational expenses for CoW DAO. The Ops Safe covers key DAO OpEx such as transaction costs, user research, testing, and bug bounties, all of which are critical for the development of the CoW Protocol Suite. We view this funding as necessary and will therefore be voting in support.

Proposal: CIP-71: Appointment of Leeward Supervisors as Supervisor of the CoW Foundation

Vote: FOR

Rationale: This proposal seeks to appoint Leeward Supervisors Limited as the sole supervisor of the CoW Foundation. Following the resignation of the former Supervisor, Travers Thorp Alberga, it is reasonable for Leeward to assume this role, given that they already serve as Secretary and corporate-services provider. Consolidating both functions within the same entity is lean and cost-efficient. Therefore, will be voting in support of this proposal.

Proposal: CIP-72: Aligning quoting and solving behavior of solvers

Vote: FOR

Rationale: This proposal seeks to redesign the incentive mechanism for the Price Estimation Competition of the CoW Protocol. The competition established a competitive quoting system by incentivizing solvers to act as price estimators. The proposed redesign introduces additional conditions for quote rewards in order to improve quoting accuracy and efficiency. As this update tightens the requirements for quote rewards and encourages better solving and quoting behavior, we see this as a positive step and will be voting in support.

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Proposal: CIP-73: General Authorisation & Confidence Mandate to Sell CoW DAO’s Stake in MEV Blocker

Vote: FOR

Rationale: This proposal seeks to reaffirm the mandate for the CoW Foundation to negotiate and execute a potential sale of CoW DAO’s 50% stake in MEV Blocker. Divesting a non-core product allows the core team to concentrate on CoW Protocol and CoW Swap, while converting the value of MEV Blocker into treasury assets that can fund the DAO’s primary roadmap. The outlined guardrails and reporting commitments provide appropriate protections and transparency for such a transaction. Therefore, we are voting FOR on this proposal.

Proposal: CIP-74:Align Solver Rewards with Protocol Revenue and introduce a volume based fee

Vote: FOR

Rationale: This proposal seeks to replace the fixed solver reward cap with a dynamic cap linked to protocol fees and introduce a 2 bps unconditional volume-based fee. Tying solver rewards to actual fees generated better aligns incentives, reduces situations where rewards exceed protocol revenue, and allows upside participation in high-value batches. The modest base fee improves economic sustainability across networks while preserving competitive execution quality and maintaining DAO oversight on fee adjustments. Therefore, we are voting FOR on this proposal.

Proposal: CIP-75: Partner Incentive Alignment - Partner Fee, Partner Price Improvement Share and Increased Cap on Partner’s Maximum Aggregate Revenue Share.

Vote: FOR

Rationale: This proposal seeks to amend CIP-61 by introducing a partner share of price improvement, allowing partners to combine revenue streams, increasing the partner revenue cap to 5%, and adjusting the default revenue split on volume-based partner fees. The changes strengthen integrator incentives and remove blockers to high-volume partnerships, while maintaining user protections through capped shares and DAO oversight. Expanding monetization flexibility can attract strategic partners capable of driving meaningful order flow to the protocol. Therefore, we are voting FOR on this proposal.

Proposal: CIP-76: Continued funding for development services - Service Agreement No 5

Vote: ABSTAIN

Rationale: This proposal seeks to allocate 13,800,000 USDC from the treasury for the Core Team’s 2026 operations and grant a 100,000,000 COW token top-up for long-term contributor incentives. The team has demonstrated strong execution and financial discipline, and the shift to quarterly allocations with monthly invoicing improves oversight; at the same time, the size of the request and expanded token allocation merit broader community alignment and continued scrutiny. Therefore, we are voting ABSTAIN on this proposal.

Proposal: CIP-77: Disabling oSnap Module due to UMA Deprecation

Vote: FOR

Rationale: This proposal seeks to disable the UMA oSnap module attached to the CoW DAO Treasury Safe following its announced deprecation. Since the service will cease functioning, retaining the module would create unnecessary risk and provide no operational benefit, making its removal a prudent security measure. Therefore, we are voting FOR on this proposal.

Proposal: CIP-78: Dissolve Sprinter Bonding Pool

Vote: FOR

Rationale: This proposal seeks to dissolve the Sprinter solver bonding pool and return the deposited USDC and COW tokens to their original funders following Sprinter’s suspension of solver operations. This is a sensible step to take given the suspension of solver operations. Therefore, we are voting FOR on this proposal.

Proposal: CIP-79: Continued funding for Development Services - Service Agreement No 5. V2

Vote: FOR

Rationale: This proposal seeks to allocate 12,600,000 USDC from the treasury to fund the Core Team’s 2026 operations under the legal structure established in CIP-64. The team has demonstrated consistent delivery across product development, integrations, network expansion, and financial discipline, and the quarterly allocation with monthly invoicing introduces regular oversight checkpoints for the DAO. Continued funding provides stability for roadmap execution and growth initiatives across protocol, infrastructure, and business development. Therefore, we are voting FOR on this proposal.

Proposal: CIP-80: CoW DAO Grants 2026 Renewal

Vote: FOR

Rationale: This proposal seeks to renew the CoW DAO Grants Program for 2026 with a refined strategic focus, quarterly fund releases, and a budget of 500,000 xDAI plus the remaining COW balance held in the Grants Safe. The program has matured operationally, aligned more closely with core team priorities, and introduced capital-efficient mechanisms that reduce idle treasury exposure while preserving flexibility for high-impact grants. Continued investment in developer enablement, ecosystem integrations, and novel applications supports long-term protocol growth. Therefore, we are voting FOR on this proposal.

Proposal: CIP-81: Whitelist “Generalized Wrappers” as Solvers

Vote: FOR

Rationale: This proposal seeks to formalize the Generalized Wrapper architecture as a protocol extension and authorize the Core Team Multisig to whitelist the initial Euler Finance pilot wrappers as bond-exempt solvers. The design cleanly separates execution logic from solver logic, enabling more complex DeFi flows without burdening every solver with bespoke integrations, and the defined security criteria, audit requirements, and limited mandate preserve DAO oversight. Approving the pilot provides a controlled path to validate the architecture before broader adoption. Therefore, we are voting FOR on this proposal.

Proposal: CIP-82: CoW DAO Grants 2026 Renewal

Vote: FOR

Rationale: We previously voted in support of the earlier version of this proposal (CIP-80) which failed due to low voter participation during the holiday period but has now been resubmitted for voting. Our position remains the same and we will therefore be voting in support.

Proposal: CIP-83: Renewing Team Grant Allocation with Performance-Linked Milestones

Vote: FOR

Rationale: This proposal introduces a refreshed team allocation structure that balances guaranteed retention with performance incentives tied directly to protocol revenue. The 5% base allocation ensures continuity, while the 10% performance-based tranches provide strong alignment between team effort and CoW DAO growth, with safeguards against excessive dilution via USD/ETH targets and value caps. It also includes clear milestone reporting and clawback provisions, maintaining accountability. Approving this CIP supports both long-term talent retention and incentivizes measurable protocol success. Therefore, we are voting FOR.