Arbitrum's Watchdog Committee has proposed permanently excluding Good Entry, Limitless and APX Finance (formerly ApolloX) from future ArbitrumDAO programs. No ban has been approved, and the projects have until September 10 to present their cases. The committee says it will seek votes if their explanations are inadequate and the respective funds are not returned.

The vote would restrict funding, not network access

If the cases proceed, the committee plans to hold three separate Snapshot votes, one for each project, per the proposal on the Arbitrum forum. Snapshot is an off-chain polling platform widely used in Arbitrum governance, where ARB token holders signal support without executing transactions on-chain. A successful vote would make the relevant project and covered people ineligible for future grants, incentive programs and other DAO-backed opportunities.

The measure contains no on-chain action. It would not seize tokens, close smart contracts or stop a wallet from interacting with Arbitrum. Its practical effect would be to block the named recipients from seeking future DAO funding. For a team that closes one product and later returns under another brand, that restriction can matter more than a ban attached only to an inactive protocol name.

That funding role is also becoming broader. Robinhood Chain, for example, directs 8% of its protocol net revenue to the ArbitrumDAO treasury, as explained in Coindoo's analysis of how Robinhood Chain's activity feeds back into the Arbitrum ecosystem.

A successful ban would affect:

• Eligibility for future grants, incentives and other programs funded or administered by ArbitrumDAO.

A successful ban would not affect:

• Wallet ownership, token balances, smart-contract deployment or ordinary use of Arbitrum's public network.

The Watchdog was built to recover grants and deter repeat misuse

Arbitrum created the Watchdog Program to reward verifiable reports of grant misuse and pursue the recovery of funds. Its framework classifies alleged large-scale and deliberate misuse, including fabricated deliverables or theft, as high severity.

As of September 2, the committee said the program had received 90 reports, recovered about 532,000 ARB and distributed roughly 268,000 ARB in reporter bounties. The proposed exclusions would add a longer-term consequence where recovery alone does not settle the issue: a recipient judged to have misused funds could lose access to future DAO support. That model mirrors a broader trend in DAO governance, where decentralized treasuries increasingly rely on accountability mechanisms such as bounty programs and social-consensus votes because they lack the legal recourse available to traditional grant-making institutions.

Three cases, one question about future eligibility

The three investigations describe different forms of alleged misuse. The committee's allegations and the amounts at issue in each case:

• Good Entry: 142,839 ARB allegedly distributed to 1,032 ineligible users, alongside suspected team-linked incentive farming.
• Limitless: 75,000 ARB allegedly swapped into USDC and transferred from Arbitrum to Base.
• APX Finance: 239,714 ARB allegedly tied to unreturned funds, delayed distributions and suspected team-linked Sybil activity.

The claims have not become DAO-approved findings, and their severity does not make the three cases identical. Token holders would need to weigh the available evidence, any explanation from the projects and the status of the funds before deciding whether exclusion from future DAO programs is justified.

A project name is easy to leave behind

Good Entry is described as having ceased operations, while Limitless appears to have stopped operating. A ban directed only at either project name would therefore have limited value. A team could close one brand, form another and return to the same funding ecosystem.

The committee therefore proposes extending a ban to founders, current team members and affiliated contributors. The scope is intended to prevent a simple rebrand, but it also puts attribution at the centre of the vote. Token holders will need to consider what evidence links a wallet or contributor to the people who controlled the relevant grant decisions.

That does not mean every association should carry the same weight. A former contractor, investor or community member may have had a very different role from someone who controlled treasury wallets or distributions. The DAO will need to decide how it distinguishes those roles if it wants an exclusion policy that is both enforceable and fair.

September 10 determines whether the cases reach a vote

The current process gives each project one week to reply in the governance thread. If the committee remains unsatisfied and the relevant funds have not been returned, it expects to publish three off-chain votes on September 10, although the timetable is marked as tentative.

Each Snapshot vote would ask whether the named project, and where applicable its founders, team members and affiliates, should be permanently barred from future ArbitrumDAO programs. The proposal says the votes would serve as the DAO's final social-consensus decision; no on-chain transaction is required to implement them. Because the outcome is social rather than contractual, its force would depend on future grant administrators and program managers honoring the DAO's decision.

The projects' replies, any repayment and the committee's evidence on team affiliation will decide whether the cases reach a vote. They will also show whether Arbitrum can apply a permanent-ban standard consistently across three very different allegations.

The allegations are contained in a Watchdog Committee proposal. No ban has been approved, and the named projects may respond before any Snapshot vote.