This project was conducted under the Arbitrum Foundation’s Research Bounty Initiative, focusing on the Long-Term Incentive Pilot Program (LTIPP) — a strategic effort to evaluate and optimize incentive mechanisms within the Arbitrum ecosystem.

The research involved comprehensive quantitative and qualitative analysis of LTIPP’s impact on protocol performance, liquidity, and user engagement. Two major analytical studies were carried out:

1. Effectiveness of Incentive Programs for LTIPP Participating Protocols
   • Evaluated how ARB incentives influenced protocol activity, total value locked (TVL), reward distribution, and user retention.
   • Analyzed efficiency of reward utilization, liquidity depth, and mercenary user behavior.
2. Effects of Growth Incentives on Non-Recipient Protocols
   • Explored spillover effects of incentive programs like STIP and BSTIP on non-participating protocols.
   • Examined shifts in user activity, liquidity migration, and ecosystem-wide performance dynamics.

The project delivered a suite of analytical outputs, including:

• Four detailed research and statistical reports,
• Interactive Dune dashboards and Python-based visualizations,
• An ARB Distribution Tracker mapping token flows across protocols, and
• A Key Takeaways document summarizing core insights and governance recommendations.

Together, these deliverables provided a data-driven evaluation of incentive design, supporting transparency, accountability, and evidence-based decision-making for future ecosystem incentive programs.

Project Resources