Airdrop #1 Feedback Thread

[edson]

Timing of Airdrop

OP airdrop was one of my favorite airdrops. The timing of the airdrop seemed good at the time, as it looked like there was a market recovery about to happen. Unfortunately, there was a small correction after it, bringing down OP with it. As the market is recovering, OP is going up aggressively as well. TLDR; on that point, unlucky timing but it doesn’t matter in the end.

On punishing past airdrop participants

It’s good to define what the goals of the airdrop are. Immediately after the first airdrop, there was a forum post suggesting that no one who sold their tokens should be eligible for future airdrops. People may sell for a variety of reasons. For example, airdrops are taxed as income the moment they are received, so it’s responsible to sell some to set aside for taxes.

Was the purpose of the airdrop so no one would sell the airdrop? If so, then yes, not giving an airdrop to people who sold it seems reasonable. But is the purpose of the airdrop to distribute governance, or to incentivize people to use Optimism? If so, I don’t think withholding an airdrop from users of the network is aligned with those goals.

Governance experience of the airdrop

With regards to the experience with the previous airdrop. My understanding is OP is mainly a governance token. So, I would have liked more transparency around how to participate in governance from the Optimism website. I had to ask around in Discord to get this information, and it took a while to get the answers I was looking for.

For example, the process for how delegates were chosen in the claims page wasn’t clear to me. Or how new people were to be added to it.

Also, there is an option to delegate anyone not listed, even your own address. However, there’s no guidance on where to go from there. There was no link to the page where votes take place. The option to delegate to someone not listed in the page, to delegate whoever you’d like, was hard to find as well.

If I were to purchase OP tokens, for example, my intention would be to participate in governance directly, as the best way to make sure your representative votes the way you want is by being your own representative.

We have the technology now where electing representatives is no longer a requirement. There’s no one room people need to be in to sign off on decisions like there were in ~1787 when the US government was created. We can discuss online. And we use token allocation proven onchain to weigh votes. So this barrier to participate in governance as an individual I’m not a fan of.

If the main purpose of OP token isn’t governance, then I’m open to being corrected.

[Ikpeamarom]

For starters, thank you very much for the airdrop… personally, I don’t think the idea of multiplier is so cool. The tokens would have been distributed to mostly the L2users and donors, since there is a plan for more airdrops in future, the voters and other contributors to governance could have been rewarded in future

[PieterKlaas]

Wow, fully agree as well going for a sweet approach will definitely increase the quality of the experience.

[igrkalina1]

It 's interesting and informative .

[TheDoctor]

@danftz

ith the team in more depth and also connect you to with the people behind Superfluid if you want to explore this idea further. Also would love to talk about some ideas I have to improve sybil resistance and filter both amateurish and more sophisticated airdrop farmers

Interesting approach. There are many ways of incentivizing participants, we just need to explore them and try.

[GinjaNinja]

I did not receive the drop even though I bridged ETH and used Optimism platforms, mainly AAVE and Uniswap multiple times starting May 12. Not sure what happened, hope to qualify for round 2.

[TheDoctor]

Hi,
I think you were late: A snapshot of addresses was taken on 03-25-2022 0:00 UTC
I hope you’ll find your place in the DAO.
Good luck

[dippudo]

Airdrop #1 was, without a doubt, a great success - congrats to the team. I loved how easy it was to claim, and the steps users had to take before receiving (e.g. briefing the users on the Optimism Collective).

With that being said, there is always room for improvement:

• Given the inherent “farming” mentality which people get upon airdrop announcements, it would be reasonable to not give away the exact day/week/month subsequent airdrops will occur. This will help filter out some airdrop farmers.

• I have seen some people request for an in-depth list of what the airdrop criteria is made up of, but I do think that it has some risks of targeted transactions to effectively farm the future airdrops.

• Timing is definitely a key factor in airdrops. From what I have noticed, token airdrops most commonly get dumped 1-2 weeks after the airdrop itself.

  • Airdropping a token during a bear market does somewhat incentivise users - even more - to sell the airdrop off to remain liquid.

  • Airdropping a token during a bull market may stunt the token price appreciation in the short term: while the rest of the altcoins are pumping, your token is getting dumped because it got airdropped.

  But don’t get me wrong, threading such a needle in airdrop timing is incredibly difficult. It does require a substantial amount of luck and faith in your community to hold the fundamental principles and values of the token close enough that they wouldn’t paper hand them upon claim.

• Another thing that relates to token prices after an airdrop is the airdrop size. We all want big airdrops, because that means big money. But, reducing the size of the airdrop does make the user think twice about selling right of the bat.

  • Yet another needle to thread: the balance between an airdrop proportion fair enough to keep people happy, and an airdrop proportion insignificant enough that people won’t sell

  Instead of granting lump-sums of airdrops in 1-4 phases, maybe stretch it out a bit more to about 5-10? Not sure what the broader community feels about this, would like to hear some thoughts on this.

• Lastly, expanding token use cases in DeFi. This will help reduce sellers in the short term, while providing more options and usability of the token in the long-run. For example, hardly any protocols have a farm for single-staking $OP - many community members including myself are keeping an eye out for the “big-names” of DeFi to implement this, such as Aave for example.

  • This was a problem which some DAOs (I shall not name them) that I participated in have. Expanding use cases of the token (e.g. more dApp implementation) will incentivise airdrop receivers to utilise their airdropped tokens in helping grow the Optimism ecosystem.

I have made some points on token price as I hate to see the community feel down after watching their tokens fall in price. As much we’re all in here for the tech and values, we must remind ourselves to keep our heads up during downturns. If we can’t do it ourselves, then better tokenomics must be implemented to help us. Moral and narratives matter more in crypto than anywhere else, we must remain optimistic.

I would like to end this by saying, thanks for the great work Optimism - we’re all looking forward for future advancements and developments.

[hank]

Optimism is a base layer for apps, apps that needs a lot of interactions and become too costly to entertain on ETH mainnet.
One of the features are advanced voting.
Voting are there to steer the growth of optimism. I think the system should reward great voters!! Voters that help spread the funds for public good in such a way that optimism grows as much as possible and as efficient as possible.
If optimism works best for builders, builders will come, if builders come users will.
Check my thread

Proposal for a governance structure

The forum of Optimism need to be the backbone of our governance. The forum will be a place to share proposals, bounce ideas, rank proposals and promote engaged members to suiting roles. Different roles that are needed are a treasury, voters and proposal promoters. The goal should be too automate as many tasks as possible to make pay for work efficient. What do we want? We want to grow OP as much as possible with the least possible resistance. That’s why we should create different groups and t…

[GinjaNinja]

Airdrops are great, agree with they should go towards governance vs people immediate selling. They are not in for the long road and dont see a future in OP

[hank]

I like your points but i would like to add some thoughts i had when reading your text.

@dippudo

• I have seen some people request for an in-depth list of what the airdrop criteria is made up of, but I do think that it has some risks of targeted transactions to effectively farm the future airdrops.

This could also be used to motivate the person receiving the airdrop to follow the criteria. Optimism can come up with a criteria which stimulates growth in the optimism network.

@dippudo

Airdropping a token during a bear market does somewhat incentivise users - even more - to sell the airdrop off to remain liquid.

And also motivates people to hold with a longer timeframe, that takes advantage of a bear market.

@dippudo

Lastly, expanding token use cases in DeFi. This will help reduce sellers in the short term, while providing more options and usability of the token in the long-run. For example, hardly any protocols have a farm for single-staking $OP - many community members including myself are keeping an eye out for the “big-names” of DeFi to implement this, such as Aave for example.

Creating value for the holders is great. And that is what gives the token real value. I would say that it’s the tokens only purpose to create a value for itself.

[PieterKlaas]

Yess Indeed. good topic’s you roll on. The growth of OP is important.

[lazeeeerlin]

rewards are distributed based on user activity rather than funds, which is more conducive to decentralization

[PieterKlaas]

Good Topics bro, good one. Governance Token.

[chrishan]

for the one who keep OP and the new user

[S4t0sh1]

Delegating ones own voting power should definitely be a criteria for future airdrops, at least to some extend after the implimentation of Agora.

[Noodles]

I suggest a 2nd airdrop be given to those that are still holding ALL of their 1st airdrop tokens. This is way better than the tasks as this invites bounty hunters and not loyal holders.

[blackWidowOS]

I think the approach to the airdrop is great. But for whatever its worth, under “priced out of ethereum”

[Statych]

To onboard ecosystem-aligned actors who have proven their early dedication to Ethereum.
Validators are likely to partake in governance and node operations on L2

[KYPRIVETZDAROVA]

although I did not receive a drop, I am very glad that you have introduced a new multiplier system for active users of the ecosystem