I recently saw this proposal on the Optimism forum: Users who sold the initial OP airdrop should become ineligible for all future airdrops.
Have seen enough wallets collect the OP airdrop, swap it straight to Uniswap.
These accounts are not playing a constructive role in Optimism governance. Instead of contributing to governance, they are maximising for profit. Nothing wrong with that, as per the airdrop criteria the coins are theirs and they are free to do as they wish. However, from Optimism governanceās perspective, such accounts are counter-productive for our stated goals.
I was extremely pleased to see this proposal. Canceling the future airdrops of those that have sold their initial OP airdrop seems sensible, well-considered and targets the heart of any crypto protocol: the price of its token.
However, I am unable to support this proposal in its current form.
My lack of support for this proposal is not because I disagree with the sentiment. On the contrary, it is because this proposal does not go far enough. In order to support this proposal, I believe it needs to be significantly extended in scope (who is punished) and severity (what the punishment is).
I have included my extended suggestions:
- Increase the scope of the proposal.
In addition to canceling the airdrops of OP sellers, we should also consider a wider net of eligibility for airdrop slashing.
I propose that we, Optimism Collective, cancels the future airdrops of anyone that has sold any token in the last 6 months. These people have a pattern of undesirable behaviour, we can consider them āpotential future sellersā. I think I speak for everyone when I say: do we really want people that might sell one day in the governance group? No, we donāt.
Optimism governance should be a group that you can never leave: until death do us part.
I will note that the 6-month mark may be too short. I have selected this as I believe that people can find the error of their ways and move forwards as a better person. But perhaps we should check if they have sold any tokens ever? Or include non-crypto assets too? Have they sold a used car before? Could be predictive of undesirable āsellerā behaviour.
- Increase the severity of the punishment.
Is cancelling a future airdrop good enough?
I propose that the punishment for disrespecting Optimismās governance token price should be significantly harsher in order to dissuade future bad actors. Two ideas I have:
a) We issue a debt token to the sellers, and instruct local debt collection agencies to collect the debt money from these people. Bonus: added revenue for optimism.
b) We consider physical violence against sellers. Nobody will take us seriously unless we are willing to fight for what we believe in. There is precedent here, most governance groups have an active army eg. US Government.
I think this is a good area to get creative, so I would request of my fellow Optimism Collective governance group colleagues to also suggest preferred punishment ideas.
- Also cancel the airdrops of everyone that bought OP since the airdrop.
Everyone that has bought the airdrop has also sinned.
Firstly, they have interacted with the sellers. That is bad enough by itself. The OP tokens they hold are tainted āsoldā tokens.
Yet, additionally, they have purchased OP, potentially with a market buy! This makes OP more expensive and harder to participate in for the common man. By buying OP, and making it more expensive, not only do you encourage people to sell since they are in profit, but you also make OP governance only accessible to a16z and other rich whales.
In many ways, buyers are just enabling the sellers, while making selling more desirable, and increasing the price to make membership to this group harder to achieve. I believe they should have equal (if not harsher) treatment as the sellers.
- Cancel the governance power of any token that has been sold.
Tokens that have been sold on the market should lose all governance power. The airdrop was gifted to people with the goal of participating in governance, not to be sold! Sellers have effectively stolen money from the Optimism Collective.
Therefore, owning sold OP tokens is isomorphically similar to owning stolen property, or accepting money from proceeds of crime. Sold tokens should be considered void and potentially a criminal act.
I did consider some additional ideas, including:
- Cancel the future airdrops of anyone that posted on the forum so far (they clearly do not need additional incentive to govern)
- Cancel the future airdrops of anyone that commented on the price (since they are focused on the wrong metric, the important metric is number of governance proposals)
- Instead of mass physical violence against sellers in general, could instead have one large horrific outsized violent event (eg. but more like the crucifixion of Jesus rather than a terrorism-type event) in order to dissuade sellers
However, I thought these ideas were impractical because Jesusā message travelled long beyond his death and making a martyr of a seller might not be a good idea.