SEED Latam - Delegate Communication Thread

Season 2 has come to an end! and with this we write here our thoughts of community and participants for the DeFi LATAM delegation for this governance.

Introduction

First of all we want to clarify that this doesn’t represent isolated individual thoughts, but also a compilation of thoughts from members interested in the Optimism governance from our DeFi LATAM community delegation, as is described in our commitment as delegates.

Very important say that this includes the thoughts of our work team to make possible our labours in DeFi C committee and the Tooling committee. Our contributors: @Netrim, @AxlVaz and @Jadmat.

Next we are going to express positives, negatives and other thoughts that we learned from season 2.

Internal work in DeFi LATAM

As we expressed in our participation in the two committees, as a team we managed to carry out our work in a timely manner. As a team of 4, the division of labor for each of the proposals in the queue according to the corresponding committee, based on the expertise, knowledge, and context of each proposal and the team behind it, was correct. Then these discussions ended internally among our team, supporting our independent line of thought. Happily we were able to gain experience in a shared way.

Positive

  • More minds, better ideas.
  • The determination of tasks and responsibilities for each one facilitated the development and delivery of reasoning in an orderly and formal manner, ready for discussion.
  • Each member worked on the proposals where they liked to focus the most and with the greatest motivation.
  • Participation in the forum was remarkably active as a group and individually.

Negative

  • Coordination work is not easily achieved in the early stages.

Workflow between committees

We are one of the few delegations that formally work as a group, which implies that coordination for the rest of the fellow committee members must be well managed. In this sense, we need to issue a special thanks to the committee leaders @OPUser and @krzkaczor because we are happy with the trust received, as well as the rest of the members. We learned a lot in the process and we hope that you all have also felt comfortable with our participation.

Positive

  • Good relationship between the members of the committees from the beginning and motivations to do what is right at all times in our internal work.
  • The discussions about the evaluation of the proposals in themselves and according to the expertise of each member were learning for all.
  • Consensus was reached in relativegood way and was never a reason for division.

Negative

  • Communication is not always optimal.
  • The lack of availability caused delays in some parts of the process, so it did not fit well with the timing of the governance processes.

Impact on season 2

Committees contributed at first to lighten the workload of the delegates to evaluate the proposals, but they quickly became a cause rather than a discouragement for the participation in the forum by delegates not involved in some form of committee, mainly. On the other hand, the presence of these committees as a “trusted source of consultation” for governance generated more friction and sometimes personal discussions that lost focus or turned the environment into a hostile one, for example, when some proposals were rejected.

Seen from the outside, the committees failed on several occasions in their communicative role of being up to date, accompanying the proposals until their evaluation. From our side, we are proud that the reports issued by our committees had a comprehensive and even sophisticated analysis for the understanding of all parties.

Positive

  • Iterative governance generated interesting discussions regarding the scope of the Committees that are reflected in Season 3, with the Council of Grants.
  • Helped show which delegates were really involved, even if they were not part of any committees.

Negative

  • There was a dispersion of information between Discord and the Forum, making it difficult to follow the thread of certain conversations.
  • Moderation in the Forum was non-existent.
  • Too many backchannels and/or private communications, there was no open communication from the committees in general.

Final thoughts and conclusions

Organization in governance is not easy, even more so when we’re just starting out for a protocol of such prominence as Optimism itself. As a result, following governance is not an easy task and we need to revisit how to align incentives so that contributing participants are rewarded in some way.

Forum discussions are desirable but we note the need for a more moderated environment to stay on topic, fueled earlier by challenged action by committees, but surely in the future by action by the Grants Council.

We want to note that since Phase 0 significant sums of OP tokens have been delivered to numerous projects, it’s time to thoroughly analyze the current impact and assess KPIs where appropriate, or have protocols report performance.

On our side, our commitment to this governance remains the same as the first day and we remain committed to the Optimism ecosystem. We are going to continue working with our community and the entire ecosystem to continue representing Latam within this governance.

Stay Optimistic!

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Special thanks to rest of our committee team members @lefterisjp @ScaleWeb3 @cryptotesters @Gonna.eth @ceresstation @MinimalGravitas

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In the context of upcoming Season 3, we’re issuing our first thoughts about these new process and proposals and its impact to the governance. Read below:

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Hi again!

The year 2022 is about to end, and this week we have decided to make our last governance call for the rest of the year, discussing our pending decisions, always in collaboration with Optimism Español, specifically to discuss the proposals of this last voting cycle (#9a) and sharing other important topics.

Participants: +33 attendees. Duration: 2hs.

Our voting procedure

Sticking to our way of making decisions, we explain to the community the current status of active proposals. Then, we carry out the respective votes with the following results:

  • Grant Council: For

The feeling from us (as delegate + contributors) and the rest of the community is that a twist is needed to cover the gaps that the committees couldn’t fill last season. This new iteration looks reasonable, but it’s a big change for delegates to focus on now; if this proposal passes.

  • Protocol delegation program: Against

Despite several of us and contributors expressing about various positive aspects of this proposal, in the final consensus with our community there were more doubts or questions about the purpose of the proposal, such as, for example, if there is not a clearer path to where we should go, how to guide protocol representatives to pursue the interest of the network and not a shock of conflicting interests.

About our committee and retroactive compensation

As everyone can note, this delegation received a total sum of 16695 OP. In terms of contribution received by each delegate, joxes.defilatam.eth is positioned as the Top 1 delegation in funds received, which makes us feel proud of all the effort made. In details, the rewards have been received for the following reasons:

  • Participation in DeFi Committee C: 4043 OP - 24%

  • Participation in Tooling Committee: 4652 OP - 28%

  • Season 1 and 2 retroactive delegate rewards: 8000 OP - 48%

As we know, this delegation has worked together since its inception through Joxes (me), our group of contributors and Latam community, accompanied by an initiative started from DeFi LATAM called Optimism Español. In order to honor the efforts of our community, we have decided to distribute said funds to everyone involved in the community to participate in governance and support Optimism in its own growth and future:

  • Committee Contributors: who shared the responsibility of carrying out the work in both committees for season 2. Joxes, @Netrim @AxlVaz and @Jadmat7200 OP.
  • Optimism Español: to support the group of contributors who helped this initiative in any meaningful way. @NicoProducto, @et_2244, Pacha, @CryptoChica, Candu, Lu, @eriksuazo, Gasm and @ahhsun4700 OP.
  • SEED Latam: an allocation for the next initiative to insert people from the web3 ecosystem of latam in governance – 2295 OP.
  • Community Airdrop: a distribution to those who frequently participated in our governance calls and contributed to governance discussion and decision-making, counted by POAPs, excluding the contributors listed above – 2000 OP. More details will be shared in the next few days.

Call for optimism

We love working as a collective intelligence and transparency, something that makes us feel identified with the ethos of the Optimism ecosystem. If we want Optimism to be the transformative engine of Ethereum and the future of the internet, we must start iterating ourselves as best we can. So far, we’re all very proud of what we’re doing to encourage the rest of the Optimism community to appreciate these efforts, and we invite other delegates to refine their own participation processes, if applicable.

For now, we are preparing for Season 3, Citizen House release and RetroPGF 2 to continue contributing to public goods and Ethereum ecosystem.

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Sharing my thoughts on the citizen house and public goods

Finally the Citizen House has been announced for its first iteration. As we know, since its inception it has been thought to focus on the idea of funding public goods, as a way to potentially contribute to the future of the internet and free software, where Optimism and Ethereum are immersed.

As a second iteration of RPGF, the amount allocated by the foundation has been 10m OP ($9m today), and it will be focused on Optimism and its new release OP Stack, although it would be desirable if it’s also accompanied by Public Goods built for Ethereum base layer. Anyways, it’s also understandable that starting with public goods that help Optimism itself and not beyond is easier to align incentives and take note of lessons learned before being ambitious and later broading scope.

LATAM and public goods for Ethereum

In this part of the so-called “third world”, the Internet has always remained relatively distant or under the radar of a good part of Western and Eastern capitalism, mainly in finance. Coupled with our political and economic particulars, it explains why free software initiatives have been relevant, and most notably, Ethereum.

The role of Latin America for the Ethereum ecosystem has been important, as it happens in other regions. Despite the average low income, the masterminds have been at the start, in the formation of by example OpenZeppelin, MakerDAO, Hardhat, Flashbots, Decentraland and many other projects, not to make a long list. Different generations of builders have been contributing to the ecosystem and the different Ethereum communities in this region have accompanied and nurtured to impact Ethereum for good, including DeFi LATAM, with a remarkable degree of sophistication, recognized by Vitalik.

Funding in Latin America is not easy to find, but fortunately the region has had access to these new mechanisms to build public goods such as having its own category in the Gitcoin Grants rounds, and Quadratic Funding in recent times such as:

  • Ethereum TGU Grants (12444 USD)
  • EthLatam BA (25000 USD)
  • EthColombia (292300 USD)

More than sixty projects have benefited, including open source contributions, communities and projects that try to solve problems in Latin America. In the process, many members of the ecosystem here have gained enormous experience on how to understand the proposed objectives, the selection process, voting, and how to improve it for future rounds. Our community members have been voters, applicants and even developers of some of these.

There are several members of the Ethereum ecosystem in our region that I think could also contribute to the process in a significant way with direct experience in said rounds (in the same order) such as crisgarner.eth, @CryptoChica and juandav.eth; but also others like Mariano Conti, @Gonna.eth and @NicoProducto. My suggestion is that if any badge holder (elected by OF or by snapshot) wishes to nominate a person with a focus on this geographic location, my suggestion is on these persons.

The values of this delegation and a wish list

I must thank @kaereste for nominating this delegation (and @lefterisjp for keeping an eye out that we had a nomination), very excited by this. Elected or not, I will be looking closely at all infrastructure proposals with some priority as it is the key before building novel things on top of any form of Optimism.

Again, the objectives of this RPGF are clear: to help Optimism and its OP Stack in their degree of sophistication as a competitive framework that developers prefer to use over others. Some interesting things to see are communication between OP chains, consensus mechanisms for them, new L2 clients of Optimism and focused on being the most optimized possible, infrastructure to enable other data availability schemes, VMs and innovative fraud proof systems, and of course, true education initiatives without value extraction to attract more developers and users to Optimism. Additionally, if any initiative is also matchable for the development of the Ethereum base layer in some way, it would be considered as a plus and not to be ignored.

Lastly, although it’s not detailed yet, we expect Citizen House to have their own chat channels open prior to the launch of RPGF 2, including allowing them to iterate the process if there’s anything worth tweaking prior to the round. Excited for what’s to come!

Happy Citizen House!

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About Badgeholder Nomination Voting

A total of 19 delegates were nominated to be part of Citizen House for this second iteration of RPGF. Regarding the voting decision, I have decided this time to receive an opinion from our main contributors about who could be the 10 most suitable for this round. It’s definitely not an easy task because all the nominees have demonstrated commitment to Optimism ecosystem and governance, and experience in public goods.

As a result, the following people who we have voted for and who we believe can truly contribute to this next iteration are: Linda Xie, Bobbay (vía Stablenode), Lefteris, OPUser, Polynya, Scott Moore, Dhannte, Minimal Gravitas, Kris Kraczor and Jack Anorak.

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As promised, we have decided to distribute a total of 2,000 OP tokens to our participants in governance calls throughout the year, being our first community airdrop. This was never intended until the announcement of the retractive rewards for Season 1 and 2. As a result, it allowed us to do a very simple fair distribution among those who listened and discussed our decision making for Optimism.

The rules were: have claimed at least 2 POAPs from our governance calls (out of a total of 8 editions).

A total of 35 eligible, under the following distribution and by number of addresses:

  • 8 POAPs = 120 OP (2)
  • 7 POAPs = 95 OP (3)
  • 6 POAPs = 85 OP (2)
  • 5 POAPs = 75 OP (3)
  • 4 POAPs = 60 OP (1)
  • 3 POAPs = 50 OP (6)
  • 2 POAPs = 40 OP (18)

*This excludes all 13 contributors between DeFi LATAM and Optimism Español.

These distributions and others can be followed watching my ENS, being also our delegation address (joxes.eth or joxes.defilatam.eth).

Optimistic Holidays!

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ICYMI – we’re postulating to Grants Council for Season 3 in Growth Experiment Sub Committee. An interesting thing, we’re proposing participate as a group, with Joxes (me) as leader and responsible to the vacant, but working as a group composed by 4 contributors.

Read our entire proposal here: Grant Council Reviewer Nominations - #7 by DeFi_LATAM_Joxes

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And, yes! Happy new year 2023! :tada:

The last year we have publishing all our activities, and this year we’re keep doing the same and making things better. So, this Monday 01/16 we had our 9th Governance Call in DeFi LATAM in collaboration with Optimism Español to discuss the proposals of this special #9b voting cycle.

As a reminder, we continue to improve internally the way our contributors and rest of our community reach consensus on decision making within the Optimism Collective.

Participants: +40 attendees. Duration 1hs 40min. As always, many thanks to our contributor Pacha for the design of these POAP series.

Our voting procedure and rational

Our evaluation was shared among the contributors and then taken to the community to reach a consensus among the enthusiasts of the OP ecosystem.

Protocol Delegation Elections

We have decided to vote for the following 8 protocols as most voted:

  • ENS
  • BeethovenX & Balancer
  • Connext
  • Paraswap
  • Li. Fi
  • QiDao Protocol
  • Revert
  • 2Pi Network

These are a mix of protocols of which the community in some way reflects a preference regarding usability, appreciation or recognized builders behind it.

Grants Council Elections - Growth Experiments

After a great debate about some considerations, mainly because our application to this council sub-committee, we have decided to vote 5 of most properly candidates:

  • @fig: his contributions to the ecosystem and expertise were well valued as The Optimist Score, as well as his trajectory.

  • @Bobbay_StableLab: their good level of participation and experience as a group (StableNode) and working with other protocols/DAOs. Bobbay has reproduced this for Optimism governance.

  • @GFXlabs: in the same line, this group has been in DeFi with a large experience in DAOs and helping to build and grow protocols.

  • @katie: good commitment and highly recognized in the space for her contributions. Expertise is also well known.

  • Joxes | DeFi LATAM: we’re generally against voting for ourselves (even before code of coduct was established), leaving the rest of governance to faithfully express their preferences for us, as by example in committee and badger holders elections. In this case OP foundation allowed the applicant delegates to vote for themselves as long as we chose 4 others and the community agreed to take this step. It should be noted that some of our contributors didn’t fully agree with this.

Grants Council Elections - Builders

Regarding Builders, the community followed up with a good debate to choose the best 3 candidates, resulting in voting for:

  • @Gonna.eth: several community members acknowledge Gonna.eth (Dhannte) and their work on EthernautDAO, we believe that he is ideal for this work.
  • @kaereste: seems as a natural fit for this work also, well recognized in the community for his work on L2beat.
  • @jackanorak and @OPUser: there was a technical tie for 3rd place. We see in Jack as likely to strongly contribute in this council based on expertise in protocols and analytics, demonstrated here in governance. In the other hand, we worked with OPUser in DeFi C committee and continues to maintain a longstanding dedication to governance, vision, and product. Without a clear consensus, we voted for both.

Final thoughts

Season 3 will be quite different than previous iterations of Optimism governance. Council will occupy efforts that will no longer be the direct responsibility of the full set of OP delegates as was the case last year.With the new approach for grants, let’s see how the new council and foundation can improve the system of delivery of funds to reduce the waste of resources and increase the impact with short periods of time to guarantee the growth of the Optimism ecosystem.

Optimistic optimism!

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Hello all!

This March 17th we held our 10th Governance Call in Discord to discuss about the RPGF2, the process and voting approach in community.

Participants: +30 attendees (32 :medal_military:collected; special thanks again to Pacha for the design).

Duration: 1hs 53min.

Recap

In this occasion we meet to discuss everything about the RPGF 2 and from the participation of SEEDLatam through joxes.eth as bagdeholder. To do this, we cover the following topics:

  • What is RPGF
  • Current scope of RPGF 2
  • Experience of the onboarding and process as bagdeholder
  • How is the voting process
  • Reviewing some projects
  • How to vote in the SEEDLatam poll

We were fortunate to have team members with Spanish-speaking members such as Proof of Integrity, web3beach, ETH México, Bankless DAO & Academy, WakeUp Labs, etc. We reviewed their applications, what they are doing and questions were answered. Very positive discussion.

We launched our snapshot page to experiment with community decision-making. Our snapshot page here.

In this occasion, we decided to grant the decision to allocate 20% of the voting power as bagdeholder for RPGF 2 in the hands of the community. You can check all the details in our voting rationale below. Please read.

We hope that our experience is useful for the collective and we look forward to see the results and what we learned in this round with the rest of the bagdeholders.

Happy Retro!

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Hello OP users!

This April 4th we held our 11th Governance Call in Discord to discuss about proposals in this cycle 11, related to Bedrock and FractalVisions suspension proposals.

Participants: +50 attendees (49 :medal_military:collected; special thanks again to Pacha for the design).

Duration: 1hs 26min.

Voting procedure

As usual, we conducted a 1 person 1 vote procedure with the participants of the governance call. The discussion about it in both proposals was fruitful and there was a lot of debate, mainly in the suspension of FractalVisions. Consensus is reached with the option preferred by the majority.

Results and rationale

Below our decisions and rational. Please read our post published in each related thread.

  • Upgrade Proposal: Bedrock v2 - YES
  • Delegate Suspension: Fractal Visions - YES

Bedrock is coming!

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Hi all! :red_circle:

Season 4 is coming up and we have spent time reviewing the possible governance changes and giving our first impressions from the internal team of this SEED LATAM delegation.

Summary and inspiring words

About the Collective Intents

About Token House Missions


:date: We’re going to make our next governance call this coming Monday, May 1 at 9pm UTC in our SEED LATAM discord. If you understand/can speak spanish and want to participate in the discussion about everything that is coming up for Season 4, we are open to discuss and share ideas together. Open invitation to all. More about the details and formal announcement of this governance call soon.

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Thx Fren, ill try to get to the call :smiley:

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Is there an Istanbul or Turkish community?

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hey @thinking may be @arabianhorses could help you.

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Hello OP users!

This May 1st we held our 12th Governance Call in Discord in collaboration with Optimism Español to discuss about proposals in this cycle 12, all of these related to the upcoming season 4.

Participants: +50 attendees (48 :medal_military:collected; special thanks again to Pacha for the design).

Duration: 1hs 34min.

Voting procedure

We had the opportunity to welcome @Pumbi as a new member of the Optimism Español team, who helped us with a review about the upcoming Season 4. As usual, Joxes as a delegate expressed his views regarding this new scope for governance, and we conducted a 1 person 1 vote procedure with the participants of the governance call.

Results and rationale

Our initial opinions were published in the last post. Please read our post published in each related thread. This was retified by the community members, so the decision made has been:

  • Intent #1 Budget Proposal: Yes
  • Intent #2 Budget Proposal: Yes
  • Intent #3 Budget Proposal: Yes
  • Intent #4 Budget Proposal: Yes
  • Protocol Delegation Program Renewal: Yes

For season 4, we have also ratified our participation as a group, with @Joxes as the leader and our three contributors from season 1 and 2: @AxlVaz @Netrim and @Jadmat.


Yes! Bedrock is coming! :red_circle: :tada:

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Hello, Joxes. This is a test. New profile here! Trying not to get our account suspended :slight_smile:
We will soon publish a recap of this first year of participation in Optimism Governance.

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Last week we celebrated the first anniversary of Delegate Joxes’ platform in Optimism’s governance!

A year ago, Joxes brought this platform to life and assumed its leadership with the support of the community. During this time, we have been dedicated to contributing to the growth of Optimism in Latin America, and we are proud of the achievements made.

https://twitter.com/SEEDLatam/status/1660785678462902274/photo/1

Our journey has been filled with valuable lessons and rewarding experiences.

Let’s take a moment to recollect:

It all started with the launch of Optimism’s governance and our introduction in the delegate commitment.

From the start, on the platform, we aimed to improve governance organization through efficient processes, clear workflows, and effective communication.

First season

We dedicated our efforts to enhancing governance, working on process dating and strengthening communication among members. Our proposals and discussions in the governance threads reflect our commitment and dedication in this regard.

The first governance call took place on July 6th. It was an exciting moment where we had the opportunity to connect with other community members and share our ideas and perspectives on the future of Optimism.

Second season

We joined the Tooling & Infrastructure and DeFi C committees, where we reviewed funding proposals for projects aimed at fueling the Optimism ecosystem. Throughout the months of September, October, and November, we worked diligently on these tasks with the goal of supporting the growth and development of the platform.

We achieved a significant milestone in December by receiving 16,695 OP tokens as recognition for our work in Optimism’s governance!

We distributed these tokens among our collaborators and the community. It was a retroactive airdrop to reward those who attended the calls. This milestone not only showcases the transparency but also the importance we place on active participation and collaboration.

https://twitter.com/SEEDLatam/status/1605973257219211264/photo/1

Moreover, Joxes was chosen by the governance as a badgeholder in the RPGF2, also nominating another distinguished member of the Latin American community, CryptoChica. This opportunity enabled us to actively engage in the allocation of 10 million OP tokens, thereby making a valuable contribution to the growth and fortification of Optimism.

The platform was created with the purpose of engaging in Optimism’s governance and giving voice to Latin America.

n response to the need for a close delegate who represents the interests of the region, we took on this commitment responsibly, guided by our core values of decentralization, transparency, and always prioritizing the users. Our main goal is to ensure the development of Optimism and contribute to the open-source ecosystem and public goods.

We are aware of the importance of participating in governance and embrace that role with a committed and active community. This hard work is reflected in:

  • 12 governance calls
  • 100% participation in formal proposals
  • 18,945 received OP tokens
  • 925 delegating addresses

Our delegate, Joxes, leads a team of three dedicated collaborators: Axlvaz, Netrim , and Jadmat. They work tirelessly to amplify the voice of the Latin American community within Optimism’s governance.

As we gaze into the future, we have ambitious goals for 2023. We aim to further strengthen Optimism’s governance, promote active community participation, and foster Ethereum adoption in the Latin American region.

Living the experience of participating in Optimism’s governance for a whole year gave us the background to embark on two more new governances. Thanks to each and every member of the forum!

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Hello all community members!

Le’ts recap some of our lastest activities:

13th Governance Call

As usual in our Discord channel we held a new governance call to discus the voting cycle 12b. This was the last round for the upcoming season 4.

Participants: +40 attendees (38 :medal_military:collected; special thanks again to Pacha for the design).

Duration: 1hs 19min.

Results

  • Inflation Adjustment Proposal: For
  • Treasury Appropriation (Foundation Year 2 Budget Approval): Against
  • Council Reviewer Elections: Builders Grants: Gonna.eth, Krzysztof Urbanski (kaereste or krst), Oxytocin.
  • Council Reviewer Elections: Growth Experiments Grants: Katie Garcia, GFX, StableLab, Michael Vander Meiden, DAOStewards.

Ecosystem updates

In recent weeks, we have accompanied other organizations in the ecosystem in Latam to carry out different activities to bring the vision of Optimism and its technology together and that we want to share:


Bedrock! Bedrock! Bedrock!

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Hi governance and community members!

With season 4 and the launch of the missions, the SEED Latam delegation team is working on revising the mission proposals. For this we have joined forces once and we are counting on the help of @AxlVaz, @CryptoChica, @Jadmat and @Netrim to tackle our duties at the proposals in the forum.

Providing feedback and comments

The number of proposals and the expected impact for this first wave of missions is high, we will take the evaluation and compliance with the criteria of each proposal very seriously, leaving the pertinent comments and questions, and finely analyzing the requirements prior to any approval to move to vote. For it:

  • Complete review of the structure of the proposal - meet requirements
  • The funds requested and spending plan - should be reasonable
  • Reasonable metrics - scope with respect to what is desired by the mission scope

What to analyze first?

As delegates, we received several requests for a review of missions carried out by Latin American projects. In order to be fair in our procedures, we will review all the proposals carried out in this region and address them only and completely in public without preferences. We hope to use our degree of involvement in the Ethereum ecosystem in Latam to reconcile the best interest of Optimism and the benefit of the community in the region.

Immediately after that, we’ll address the rest of the proposals according to our expertise until the last day of tracking the approvals and then moving forward with the proposals approve a vote, of course.


Ready for adventure? optimistic forever

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