PANews reported on February 24 that according to Theblock, a proposal recently put forward by the newly appointed Growth Management Committee (GMC) of Arbitrum DAO has sparked community controversy. The proposal suggests deploying 7,500 ETH to Lido, Aave and Fluid (three non-Arbitrum native decentralized financial protocols).

The committee proposes to invest 5,000 ETH in the liquid staking protocol Lido in exchange for 5,000 wstETH (staked ETH) tokens, and then invest 5,000 wstETH in Aave V3 on Arbitrum to encourage lending and benefit from planned incentive programs involving Lido, Aave, Renzo and Kelp. The final 2,500 ETH will be deployed to the Arbitrum platform on the lending protocol Fluid. wstETH deposits are expected to generate a 4.54% yield, while Fluid allocations will generate 1-2% native ETH yield and generate liquidity for the Arbitrum ecosystem.

The proposal argues that the selected protocols "represent secure applications that achieve conservative returns and strongly support ecosystem growth," while critics argue that the move ignores Arbitrum's native ecosystem projects. The proposal will enter the Snapshot voting phase on February 27. If the proposal fails, GMC will consider community feedback and change its choice, and propose a new proposal in the following weeks.