Hey there!
I think the initial thought (yet again, 3 months ago as of now) was that the 7m would’ve been distributed at a quicker timeline and the 2m would be around for a longer period. Yet again, I’m more or less speculating here because while the Ambassadors prepared the proposal, the distributions were left in the hands of the Synthetix Treasury Council to ensure the OP was used wisely.
With that said, Millie answers this question in the reply above yours where he says:
“The amount which is delegated can’t be specified, once an address delegates their OP all of the OP in that wallets gets delegated automatically. Delegating a specific amount would require some changes to how the treasury custody’s its assets and transferring a portion of OP to a new address.”
To your point regarding missing the drama regarding Perpetual Protocol and its self delegation – I’ll admit that while I had been discussing these points with Millie and others privately, I hadn’t been super closely following it on the OP forum. I was aware of this once the delegation was requested from the TC, but I had thought Synthetix Ambassadors were in a very different situation compared to Perp that warranted the delegation. I still believe that delegation isn’t a problem, and does not harm overall Optimism governance.
I think this does bring up an interesting point to explore, though, governance tokens are governance tokens – do some tokens have less governance power because they’ve been distributed for the purpose of protocol incentivization? Should governance tokens now have tiers and such, where some have voting power, and others are only for incentivization?
Should protocols such as Synthetix, that have such a sizeable impact on Optimism be left with an underrepresented community simply b/c of a missed line in a proposal? Furthermore, would delegates/OP governance forum users have had this same feedback if only 2m was delegated - which would’ve followed the exact proposal from May (disregard concerns of custody of funds and such for a moment discussed earlier by millie and myself)
Millie also brings up a LOT of good points in his comments about Perp Protocol where he discusses the following:
I too am left with more questions than answers after this situation, but I am happy that we were able to have an open conversation. As of right now, we are in the midst of regaining control of our original wallet with the help of Ben Jones. I’d like to note that I don’t hold a grudge against any user, (OPUser references this at some point in his last message).
I highly respect the role of governance in DeFi, and I’m happy that we continue to iterate to ensure this process gets better and better and that Optimism grows. Furthermore, the SNX Ambassadors plan to launch a large campaign with the goal of gaining governance power to properly represent the SNX community.
On a complete side note, I’d love to chat about Twitter Space opportunities and the like with you as well. I respect your goals of marketing Optimism and would love to help in any way possible.