Blockchain@USC - Delegate Communication Thread

🏛 Token House Governance Delegate Updates
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Hello all! We are the blockchain club at the University of Southern California.

Our delegate address is: 0x995013B47EF3A2B07b9e60dA6D1fFf8fa9C53Cf4

Here’s what we stand for:

Mission: In our role as a delegate, we strive to promote equitable, inclusive, sustainable, and effective community ownership and governance of key web3 infrastructure through thoughtful and researched decision-making and community engagement.

Values:

  • Consistent
  • Having integrity
  • Community-centric
  • Sustainable
  • Thoughtful and researched
  • Transparent
  • Constructively critical

Within this thread we will be communicating our voting rationale, and other important updates about our work.

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Bedrock

We voted FOR

Bedrock is an important step in the progression of Optimism’s technology. We believe the Foundation and OP Labs have done a thorough job of making sure the upgrade is secure and reliable, and we believe they will continue to do so, only implementing it when the time is right.

Does it fulfill our mission?

“We strive to promote equitable, inclusive, sustainable, and effective community ownership and governance of key web3 infrastructure through thoughtful and researched decision-making and community engagement.”

Yes. Bedrock contributes to the improvement of web3 infrastructure.

Primary decision-maker: @chaselb

Fractal Visions Delegate Suspension

We voted ABSTAIN

We do not believe that we are provided enough information to vote on this decision. There is no evidence provided by the foundation to help us make this decision, simply the verification of evidence existing by the foundation. This means that a vote FOR or AGAINST is simply whether or not we trust the foundation to be acting honestly and fairly in their representation of the code of conduct violation. We believe that as this process stands now, any decision made by us on the subject would neither be thoughtful nor researched.

Does it fulfill our mission?

“We strive to promote equitable, inclusive, sustainable, and effective community ownership and governance of key web3 infrastructure through thoughtful and researched decision-making and community engagement.”

Yes. A decision here would neither be thoughtful nor researched, and thus we abstained.

Primary decision-maker: @chaselb

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Council Reviewer Elections: Growth Experiments Grants

We voted for: Katie Garcia, Matt L, StableLabs, Michael Vander Meiden, and GFX

We used a rubric, taking into consideration the following categories:

  • Dedication to Optimism (0 to 6 points): self explanatory. Are they uniquely committed to the optimism ecosystem? Have they put in work to improve it?
  • Expertise (0 to 5 points): do they have expertise that would be useful in this council?
  • Originality/Strength of Ideas (0 to 3 points): did they present strong, well thought out, and original ideas ideas in their application?
  • Governance distribution (0 to 2 points): we awarded points here if the candidate was NOT a large delegate. We believe it is important to distribute governance power, and would like to propel those who otherwise put in the work but don’t have large delegation

We then voted for the top 5 people according to this rubric (since this council has five total spots). If you were a candidate and are curious on how we graded you, please reach out!

Does it fulfill our mission?

“We strive to promote equitable, inclusive, sustainable, and effective community ownership and governance of key web3 infrastructure through thoughtful and researched decision-making and community engagement.”

Yes. We believe that the rubric we used to consider the candidates is in accordance with this mission.

Council Reviewer Elections: Builders Grants

We voted for: Gonna.eth, Jack Anorak, and Krzysztof Urbanski (kaereste or krst)

We used the same rubric as above. We then voted for the top three people (since this council has three total spots).

Does it fulfill our mission?

“We strive to promote equitable, inclusive, sustainable, and effective community ownership and governance of key web3 infrastructure through thoughtful and researched decision-making and community engagement.”

Yes. We believe that the rubric we used to consider the candidates is in accordance with this mission.

Treasury Appropriation (Foundation Year 2 Budget Approval)

We voted ABSTAIN

We believe that votes should hold weight. They should be specific, and result in some sort of action or ratification. They should allow for the collective to decide on how optimism moves forward. This vote was none of those things, and thus we do not feel it appropriate (or necessary) for us to vote one way or another. We echo the sentiment of other delegates: if the Foundation would like community feedback, then ask for feedback. Voting (especially on-chain votes which cost money) is for actual decisions.

Does it fulfill our mission?

“We strive to promote equitable, inclusive, sustainable, and effective community ownership and governance of key web3 infrastructure through thoughtful and researched decision-making and community engagement.”

Yes. We believe that this decision helps promote more effective community ownership and governance.

Inflation Adjustment Proposal

We voted FOR

We believe it wise to set the inflation to 0%, especially in this time of rapid increased token circulation, and then make data-driven adjustments as time goes on. However, we would like to note that we are not experts in the area of tokenomics, and only felt comfortable voting FOR in this case as 0% inflation is a neutral position to hold right now, and also because it is fairly inconsequential due to the plans for increased token supply in the near future (you can read more about why this vote is fairly inconsequential on the original proposal post).

Does it fulfill our mission?

“We strive to promote equitable, inclusive, sustainable, and effective community ownership and governance of key web3 infrastructure through thoughtful and researched decision-making and community engagement.”

As explained above, we are not experts in tokenomics, but this decision was thoughtfully made in order to force future adjustments in token inflation beyond 0% to be voted on, where we (and hopefully others) can and will encourage those adjustment proposals to be backed by data driven research.

Primary Decision Makers: @chaselb @sator

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Mission Proposals

Intent #1

We approved:

Superchain Deepdive
Reason: Superchain is on the roadmap of Optimism, and there needs to be an initiative be in place for progressive decentralization
Reviewer: @Sator

TechNERD Program
Reason: Technical education inside Optimism are essential
Reviewer: @Sator

Extend the L1Block contract to store historical blockhash data
Reason: Access to historical data allows for further decentralization
Reviewer: @Sator

Spearbit + Immunefi Bug Bounty Program for Large Protocols on Optimism
Reason: Security is of paramount importance to the Optimism ecosystem, particularly for large protocols such as Velodrome.
Reviewer: @chaselb

We did not approve:

Fully Decentralized and Independent Oracle and Data Infrastructure
Reason: Through consulting with more technical members of our club, we do not believe that this is a practical enough solution considering the request asked for.
Reviewer: @sator

Future-proofing UI/UX of OP nodes
Reason: The timeline for this proposal appeared to be out of scope of the restrictions imposed upon Mission Proposals.
Reviewer: @chaselb

Intent #3

We approved:

Velodrome: Spread Awareness Through Direct Outreach and Onboarding

Reason: Attracting more protocols to the biggest DEX on $OP would definitely bring attention to the OP vision across the DeFi space.

Reviewer: @sator

BanklessDAO’s Global Campaign to spread the Optimistic vision

Reason: BanklessDAO is a cost-effective platform for the intent

Reviewer: @sator

Create and Maintain the ‘Optimism Vision Reservoir’

Reason: Resource Aggregator on Optimism Vision is an essential for spreading the OP Vision.

Reviewer: @sator

Optimistic Womxn Shinning in Blockchain

Reason: Education + Building in Cohort Style for the LATAM woman community makes sense.

Reviewer: @sator

Let’s take the Optimistic Vision to LATAM with Espacio Cripto

Reason: Education for the LATAM community makes sense.

Reviewer: @sator

Spread Optimistic values across Latam with Solow

Reason: Spreading Optimistic values to diverse communities is important and the ask seems reasonable.

Reviewer: @chaselb

‘Thank Optimism - powered by ThriveCoin’

Reason: https://gov.optimism.io/t/final-thank-optimism-powered-by-thrivecoin/6104/56

Reviewer: @chaselb

Web3xplorer - A curated web platform to discover useful web3 apps, resources and tools

Reason: https://gov.optimism.io/t/final-web3xplorer-a-curated-web-platform-to-discover-useful-web3-apps-resources-and-tools/6143/25

Reviewer: @chaselb

Rumbo Optimista - Hacia Ethereum Mexico The Event || Optimistic Road in the way to Ethereum México The Event

Reason: https://gov.optimism.io/t/final-rumbo-optimista-hacia-ethereum-mexico-the-event-optimistic-road-in-the-way-to-ethereum-mexico-the-event/6179/22

Reviewer: @chaselb

We did not approve:

Fueling RetroPGF Growth through Education, Collaboration, and Active Marketing

Reason: The initiatives in our opinion were too scattered for the mission proposal format.

Reviewer: @sator

Develop the most relevant and aligned audiovisual content for the Optimism Collective

Reason: [FINAL] Develop the most relevant and aligned audiovisual content for the Optimism Collective - #25 by chaselb

Reviewer: @chaselb

Intent #4

We approved:

Multi-lingual Lesson on Optimism Governance, by Bankless Academy

Reason: Bankless IP will be effective in increasing the Governance Accessibility

Reviewer: @sator

The RetroPGF Podcast

Reason: The blockchain guy youtube channel with 7k+ followers and quality content will be effective in increasing the governance accessibility. Michael is also an experienced operator in internet native organization.

Reviewer: @sator

Delegate Corner Podcast

Reason: Experience under MetaFactory and especially podcast-related experience at Roll proves a legit track record Sinkas, and we believe they will be able to spread the voices of delegates of OP and enhance the governance accessibility

Reviewer: @sator

REGEN Score - Attestations for the Citizen’s House

Reason: Building out an on-chain reputation metric is aligned with the intent

Reviewer: @sator

Pairwise: Tinder UX For Web3 Community Signaling

Reason: It will be a great tool for community signaling usage during the retroPGF voting period, and with an experienced team, we believe they will be able to ship it according to the listed milestone.

Reviewer: @sator

DAOStar: Governance standards for the Optimism ecosystem

Reason: [FINAL] DAOstar: Governance standards for the Optimism ecosystem - #31 by chaselb

Reviewer: @chaselb

OP Governance Analytics Dashboard

Reason: [FINAL] OP Governance Analytics Dashboard - #19 by chaselb

Reviewer: @chaselb

NumbaNERD Program

Reason: [FINAL] NumbaNERD program - #10 by chaselb

Reviewer: @chaselb

We did not approve:

Improving Governance Accessibility through Praise and Contribution Based Attestations

Reason: At the time this proposal was already approved and we did not have strong feelings either way, thus we chose to abstain.

Reviewer: @sator

Economic Co-design of Gas Fees for the OP Stack

Reason: Interesting project but we also echo Linda’s point on the huge 125k $OP ask (even with the 1-year lock-up). Also we’d like to echo Bobby’s point that “OP Mainnet’s gas fees will not be subject to governance until a proposal type to do so is introduced in a future governance season”, and thus we abstain from this vote.

Reviewer: @sator

Velodrome: Fostering Inclusive Governance through Leading Optimism Builders and Long-term Users

Reason: [FINAL] Velodrome: Fostering Inclusive Governance through Leading Optimism Builders and Long-term Users - #22 by chaselb

Reviewer: @chaselb

Enable aOP as A Votable Token in Optimism’s Governance

Reason: [FINAL] Enable aOP as A Votable Token in Optimism's Governance - #22 by chaselb

Reviewer: @chaselb

OPdelegate.com

Reason: [FINAL] OPdelegate.com - #17 by chaselb

Reviewer: @chaselb

Facilitate and empower community members to actively engage in governance through an educational course

Reason: [FINAL] Facilitate and empower community members to actively engage in governance through an educational course - #11 by chaselb

  • Additional context: upon checking in with my co-lead, we both agreed that the course style is insufficient to address the stated problem.

Reviewer: @chaselb

Does it fulfill our mission?

“We strive to promote equitable, inclusive, sustainable, and effective community ownership and governance of key web3 infrastructure through thoughtful and researched decision-making and community engagement.”

Yes. We sought to approve proposals that maximized this goal in the best interests of the collective, and we conducted research and sought informed opinions where we didn’t have expertise.

Intent 2 Budget Proposal 2

We voted FOR

Reallocating left over budget from the Mission Proposal Process to an effective and well-run grants program seems like a no brainer. In the future we should try to conduct an analysis on the impact of the grants program on the collective, to better inform decisions like this.

Does it fulfill our mission?

“We strive to promote equitable, inclusive, sustainable, and effective community ownership and governance of key web3 infrastructure through thoughtful and researched decision-making and community engagement.”

Yes. The grants program is an important avenue for the community to have impact on the Optimism ecosystem, and giving them access to more funds (that were allocated for the community to use anyways) enables the community have more impact on the ecosystem. The only drawback in the context of this mission statement is the potential for the grants council to be a centralizing force asking for more power, however, we believe this is a non-issue as we only are voting to give them leftover funds, and the request for these funds was well argued and justified.

Feel free to contact us with any questions, comments, or concerns about the way we have voted!

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