OpenBlock Labs Review

How OpenBlock Labs scores in incentive program operators

This entry rates OpenBlock Labs, which now brands itself OpenBlock, in our incentive and grant program operator ranking. It is listed under the role of program evaluation: it measures whether incentive programs worked and screens their claimants for sybil wallets. For an evaluator, the programs it assessed count as its programs. The basis is desk research of OpenBlock's research pages and its posts on the Arbitrum DAO governance forum, read on November 6, 2026. The category uses six criteria on fixed scales of marks, weighted equally, as set out in our ratings methodology.

The overall score is the plain average: (8 + 5 + 10 + 10 + 5 + 0) / 6 = 38 / 6 = 6.3.

One mark changed at this check. Named programs rose from 5 to 8: the earlier review counted only the two Arbitrum programs, but OpenBlock's research page also carries the Solana RetroPGF Round 1 announcement, which states the network, the funding and a timeline to October 30, 2023. The overall moved from 5.8 to 6.3.

Strongest criteria: the evaluation method and the sybil method

Impact report scores 10 because OpenBlock says how it measured, not only what it found. The STIP report fixes a cut-off for each grantee relative to its first distribution date, divides growth by the dollar value of ARB claimed, and compares grantees with protocols that did not receive grants. The LTIPP report uses control groups on other chains and says plainly that some protocol-level comparisons were limited by missing data. These are analyses commissioned by Arbitrum DAO, published by the firm being paid, so they are detailed but not independent audits.

Abuse protection scores 10 because the mechanism is written out with its thresholds and its clustering algorithm, so another analyst could rerun it. No error rates are published, and the method was applied to one program's claimants.

Weakest criteria: independence, open data and volume

Independence is 0. OpenBlock evaluates programs and also sells incentive design to protocols, and the forum proposal names its backers, but no page discloses its relationships with the grantees it measured. On this scale, silence scores 0. That records what is published, not what the firm does.

Open data is 5. A reader can still open the STIP address sheet, but the dashboards that carried the program data return 404, so the evaluation cannot be checked against OpenBlock's own data without an account.

Disclosed volume is 5. Amounts are given for STIP and the Solana round but not for LTIPP, and the scale needs a figure for every named program. Its research list also has no new program report after October 2024.

What the score does not cover

The criteria measure what OpenBlock publishes about programs. They do not test its paid data products, its models' accuracy or its Universal Data Protocol, and they say nothing about whether a protocol farming on Arbitrum is a good place for funds. For background on the network these reports measure, see our explainer on layer-2 rollups.

OpenBlock Labs vs Merkl and Metrom

After this week's checks Metrom reads 6.7, ahead of OpenBlock's 6.3, and Merkl 5.8. All three score 0 on independence. OpenBlock and Metrom share the full mark for an impact report with a stated method, and OpenBlock's described sybil method scores 10 where both distributors score 5. OpenBlock trails both on open data, where their campaign data is public without a login.

Who it suits

The score is most useful to a DAO or foundation weighing whether an evaluator shows its working. OpenBlock's Arbitrum reports state their baselines, normalization and sybil thresholds. A delegate who needs to check the underlying data, or to know the evaluator's ties to grantees, will find the dashboards gone and no disclosure.