Accelerated Decentralization Proposal For Optimism

Hi everyone, it’s great to see this conversation happening on the forum. We wanted to give an update on the other conversations that have been happening throughout the Collective on this topic:

  • The Foundation has received feedback on a framework for decentralization milestones from the Collective Feedback Commission and joined a call to discuss it with members in more detail last week.
  • The Foundation discussed this petition on the Token House community call last week.
  • The Foundation joined a call with the Anticapture Commission to discuss this petition and some of the potential roles the ACC might play in regards to this conversation.

To reiterate, we remain fully committed to full decentralization, using the initial approach and timeline outlined in the Working Constitution, and will continue to have ongoing conversations about this path with the community. We understand that governance participants want more transparency around the path towards decentralization and regular opportunities to hold the Foundation accountable to making progress on this path and we are supportive of both.

Immediate next steps on our side:

  • Incorporate CFC feedback on our framework for decentralization milestones and publish (along with other resources) for broader community feedback. We are targeting early Voting Cycle #29 for this.

To address specific aspects of the Phase 1 suggested in the above petition:

  • The Token Contract is already owned by governance. A concrete example of the process to upgrade the token contract will occur as part of the upcoming interop upgrade.
  • Agora plans to post a governor upgrade proposal that would transfer keys to the Security Council and move the full governance contract onchain to be voted on in Voting Cycle #29.
  • The conversation about sequencer ETH remains ongoing, but should include Citizens, as sequencer ETH defaults to Citizen management (it goes to Retro Funding), as outlined here.

The Foundation recommends we focus on completing the above milestones and revisit the path forward from there. We expect many OP Chain delegates to begin participating in governance between now and 1Q25 and it’s important that their perspectives be represented in this conversation. The same goes for Citizens, as they play a critical role in protecting the long term interests of the Collective. This is foundational to our bicameral design but absent in the process around this petition.

We expect this conversation to be ongoing throughout this iterative process. As several people have highlighted above, many projects have decentralized quickly only to realize that they hadn’t laid the foundations to support that decentralization properly, and then resorted to re-centralization. We believe we can avoid this pattern by taking the time to lay the foundation that can support full decentralization for the long term.

15 Likes