[FINAL] Superchain Governance Deep Dive

ARCHIVED & OLD Missions
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Hi Optimism Collective, I’m back again with a midway check in for our Superchain Governance Deep Dive Mission Proposal!

We’ve identified three viable implementations of Superchain governance: message passing, storage proofs, and zero knowledge proofs. We believe implementing Superchain governance via zero knowledge proofs is the most promising implementation, because it scales well to a future where the Superchain includes millions of users across thousands of chains.

We envision a zero knowledge proof-based solution that relies on the Optimism Collective to maintain a registry of chains that are included in Superchain governance. The recursive, parallelized nature of zk proofs would enable Superchain users to generate all of their delegations and total voting power across all chains in the Superchain in a single, inexpensive proof and use it to participate in governance on OP Mainnet. This solution is exciting because, unlike other possible implementations, it doesn’t require users to manage their voting power across many chains, and because it would scale well from a cost perspective as more chains and more users are added to the Superchain over time. The zero knowledge proof is generated offchain and would not require any additional infrastructure to be deployed across various member chains. Additionally, the system can accommodate tokens that are locked in smart contracts and tokens that may require different interfaces due to bridge differences.

We plan to use the remainder of Season 4 of Optimism Governance to ensure our solution is technically viable and to write up a detailed potential implementation. In the meantime, I put together a summary of each approach (message passing, storage proofs, zero knowledge proofs), including documentation that provides an idea of how each implementation would work.

Zero Knowledge Proofs

  • Solution Summary: Zero Knowledge proofs using systems such as RISC Zero, Axiom or 0(1) labs allows us to create a simple, intuitive system for voting. Proofs are generated off chain and submitted as part of the voting process. Proofs can accommodate power users with many delegations, tokens on different chains, and tokens locked in smart contracts with minimal UX overhead.
  • Challenges
    • Newer tech means at this time proofs may require hours to generate for power users
    • Protocol logic needs to be written in Rust or zk specific languages
  • Advantages
    • UX enables delegates to generate a proof of voting power in one transaction.
    • Costs scale as Superchain grows
    • Technology is practical today
    • Proof generation costs are competitive and expected to continue to decrease.
    • Proof generation costs can be covered by the DAO rather than the user.
    • Smart contract proving gas costs are constant, and lower than direct smart contract voting.
    • Tech is aligned with possible/probable technical development theme of OP Stack
    • Adds value to Optimism Collective and Superchain by empowering Optimism Collective to maintain registry of chains that are included in proofs
  • Example implementations

Storage proofs

  • Solution summary: Users submit a proof of their voting power across every Superchain chain to OP Mainnet, then vote on OP Mainnet with
  • Challenges
    • Requires power users to submit many proofs, which is potentially quite costly from both a monetary and time-required perspective.
    • Is exposed to denial of service griefing vector from delegating to a user an unlimited number of times with trivially small token amounts
    • Creates confused UX around delegation: Is a user A delegating to user B on network Alpha, also delegating to user B on network Beta? How does user A update their delegation?
  • Example implementations

Message passing

Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have feedback or would like to contribute to this Mission Proposal. Cheers!

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