To clarify, three programs are competing in Uniswap’s in-house OP LM program. Of those three, Arrakis Finance did not receive an allocation from OP governance. Their solo application was rejected. xToken and Gamma did receive a grant from OP governance.
I don’t think you are characterizing the Uniswap OP LM program fairly. The Uniswap Foundation didn’t blindly “outsource” this. They created a competitive, staged program that passed their governance process with community feedback. UF’s program includes an analytics period (just awarded) where the LM programs are scrutinized before moving forward to the next stage.
This is exactly the kind of due diligence many who participate in the OP governance process have been asking for. Especially in regard to incentivizing liquidity. That due diligence was prioritized over expediency.
Uniswap running their LM program would require them to manage the LP positions. That management could lead to wildly different results based on strategy. That is why they created a competitive program to manage the distribution of OP rewards. Uniswap heavily promoted the program on Twitter.. Likewise, all three managers had robust participation in the grant for the number of rewards allocated.
You can read about some of the results here
I do feel it’s important to point out that Uniswap allocated 0 OP of a 1m OP grant towards participating in OP governance. In contrast, Synthetix self-delegated 2m OP they received from the OP partner fund. That is your right to do so under the terms of Layer 0 rules and your internal SIP, but attempting to punish Uniswap for not “having any activity or interest in Optimism governance” when they had zero votes is not fair.
The whole point of the Protocol Delegation Program is to allocate funds for governance to the projects actually building on the platform. Uniswap should absolutely have a voice in Optimism governance based on its credentials, usage, and relevance with DeFi.