Arbitrum holds RAD dollar budgets flat even as ARB climbs

The quarterly RAD budget review posted October 9 on the Arbitrum Foundation Forum shows OpCo leaving every per-proposal budget unchanged for Q4 2026. ARB’s price has risen materially over the past few weeks — most of that increase occurring in the last month — and none of it moved the numbers.

The program’s design explains why. A higher token price doesn’t lift a delegate’s dollar ceiling; it just reduces the token quantity they receive.

The Q4 figures are unchanged across all five categories. “On-chain constitutional quorum” holds at a $10,000 budget with a $550 payout cap. “On-chain non-constitutional quorum” stays at $5,000 and $400. “Off-chain decision-making (non-constitutional)” is also $5,000 and $400.

The remaining two are equally static. “Off-chain election” carries a $5,000 budget and a $400 cap; “Off-chain temperature check (non-binding)” carries $3,000 with a $250 cap.

Sum them: $28,000 across the five per-proposal category budgets ($10,000 + $5,000 + $5,000 + $5,000 + $3,000) and $2,000 in combined payout caps ($550 + $400 + $400 + $400 + $250). Those totals come from the figures in the review; the forum post presents each category individually. Eligibility and rationale rules are also unchanged.

Delegates working toward RAD eligibility face the same dollar ceilings they did last quarter. Their ARB-denominated payouts will still shift with the token’s value at conversion time — a rising ARB price produces fewer tokens for the same dollar cap.

The review period also recorded a structural change in how funds flow. Per the MSS handover report covering July through September 2026, an Arbitrum DAO vote wound down the MSS and transferred its funds to the Arbitrum Foundation, which now handles the DAO’s payroll operations.

Seven initiatives had held funds under the MSS. Only two were still active during that three-month window: Stylus Sprint and the Delegate Incentive Program (DIP). Neither wallet received deposits during the period.

DIP’s wallet opened July 1 at 4,882,488 ARB_ARBITRUM and closed September 30 at 2,882,488 ARB_ARBITRUM. The 2,000,000 ARB_ARBITRUM gap is the second tranche moved to OpCo for the RAD program — roughly 41.0% of the opening balance (2,000,000 ÷ 4,882,488 × 100). The handover report references a first tranche transferred before July 1 but doesn’t state its size. Stylus Sprint’s wallet sat at 1,943,317 ARB_ARBITRUM on both dates, untouched.

On the operational side, the Arbitrum Foundation began routing outbound payments through aggregator wallet0x453Fc9b6E5991c574349Da4b7849e2B2BAD4e99E to centralize disbursements.

Crypto Desk has previously covered the Arbitrum treasury runway calculations under spot-price pressure.