To participate in ArbitrumDAO, decide whether to vote through your own eligible address or appoint a delegate to represent your voting power. Delegation is a governance action, not a transfer of your ARB to the representative.
Start from the official governance links and inspect the action requested by your wallet. If the underlying role of the asset is unclear, the ARB token overview explains the difference between holding the token and using its governance rights.
Both approaches require attention to the proposal rules, but they place the ongoing work in different hands. Choose based on how much time you can spend reading proposals and following decisions.
Self-delegation assigns your voting power to your own address. It is useful when you want to evaluate proposals and submit your own votes rather than have another address represent the balance.
Do not assume that simply holding tokens makes the address eligible for every vote. Complete the required delegation in time and check the eligibility details of the proposal you want to join.
A delegate votes using the power assigned to their address. This lets you participate through a representative without reviewing every item yourself.
Read the person’s or organization’s governance profile, previous votes and explanations. A familiar name or a large delegated balance is not a substitute for knowing how they approach treasury spending and protocol decisions.
Use the official ArbitrumDAO on-chain governance interface reached through the Foundation’s governance resources. Check the domain before connecting a wallet, especially when following a link in a message or search result.
The normal sequence is:
For a standard on-chain action on Arbitrum One, prepare the required ETH gas balance. A connection request, a signature and an on-chain transaction are different actions; read the wallet prompt rather than approving them as a group.
Delegating does not give the representative a token-spending allowance. If a prompt asks you to send the token balance to the representative or reveal a recovery phrase, stop and verify that you are using the intended service and action.
Save the confirmation so you can distinguish a completed delegation from an unsubmitted or failed request. Do not repeat a successful transaction simply because the interface has not refreshed.
A governance discussion, an off-chain poll and an on-chain vote can be separate stages of a proposal. Opening one stage does not establish that an address can participate in all the others.
Read the proposal’s discussion, requested change and voting instructions. Follow the governance interface linked for that proposal instead of assuming the same action applies everywhere.
Check whether you are expressing an off-chain preference or sending an on-chain vote. The wallet request and the record confirming your participation can differ between these stages.
A proposal can use voting power recorded at a particular point rather than the balance visible in your wallet now. The official on-chain guidance requires delegation before the voting period begins.
Buying or delegating tokens after a vote has started therefore does not automatically create eligibility for that vote. Inspect the proposal’s snapshot or eligibility information, then check the voting power attributed to your connected address.
If eligible, review the available voting choices and submit the choice you intend. Confirm afterward that the proposal records the action from the correct address.
Delegation is not a decision you must leave unchanged forever. You can choose another representative or assign voting power back to yourself through the governance interface.
Check the new assignment after its transaction succeeds. A change to current delegation should not be assumed to rewrite voting power already captured for a proposal.
Changes in your holdings matter too. The ARB supply and unlock guide explains why balances becoming transferable and the act of exercising governance rights are separate events.
If your purpose changes from holding ARB to receiving a different asset, you can exchange ARB for ETH on Ethereum mainnet. That is a separate exchange with its own payment requirements; the receiving balance is not an advance payment for an earlier Arbitrum One governance transaction.