14 Polls Closing October 20, 2022
Yearn
Summary: This proposal would disburse 1,000,000 OP to Yearn. The tokens would be earmarked to incentivize yVault users to migrate to Optimism, and distributed over 40 weeks.
Recommendation: Vote Yes. In line with our committee’s recommendation, we support subsidizing Yearn’s program to migrate users to Optimism. Yearn boasts an impressive TVL, which has proven to be stickier than many in DeFi. It will already support strategies for five different assets on Optimism immediately. We believe Yearn will be a valuable way to bring new market participants to Optimism that are otherwise still on mainnet.
Li.Fi.
Summary: This proposal would disburse 200,000 OP to Li.Fi, which provides infrastructure for developers to add cross-chain capabilities to their dApps.
Recommendation: Vote Abstain. GFX Labs is a major delegate on Hop Protocol, which represents a conflict of interest.
Safe
Summary: This proposal would disburse 500,000 OP to Safe, which develops increasingly granular controls and access for multi-sig contracts. 15% would go to users, 20% to SafeDAO as a retroactive reward, 20% to fund R&D, and the balance to various partnership programs.
Recommendation: Vote Yes. SafeDAO has been spun out by Gnosis, and Safe is a reputable product with an important role in the ecosystem. The grant request is large, and were this anything but an established product with a clear priority of developing a suite of solutions further, we would be unlikely to recommend an affirmative vote. In particular, a 20% retroactive reward to SafeDAO stretches what we would prefer to see, but are unwilling to let perfect be the enemy of good at the end of the day, and so recommend a vote in favor.
Karma (Discourse Plug In)
Summary: This proposal would disburse 15,000 OP to Karma to create a custom discourse forum plug-in that would display a custom badge for larger delegates and two forms for delegates to fill out that would be linked to their profile prominently.
Recommendation: Vote Yes. We agree with excerpts from the Tooling Committee recommendation that this a low-impact, low-cost request. The badge should probably not even be included as a deliverable, since it can be readily done by any administrator. The utility is in a user-friendly format to view recent votes with a link to stated reasoning. This is, however, likely to be of use only to regular forum users and limited in reach. The total request is small, and so we support it.
Karma (Delegate Dashboard)
Summary: This proposal would disburse 10,000 OP to Karma to create and maintain a dashboard to track Optimism delegate activity and metrics.
Recommendation: Vote Yes. Both delegates and their delegators have a high need for up-to-date, reliable information. Echoing the positive recommendation of the Tooling Committee, the ask is small and possible utility high.
Rainbow Wallet
Summary: This proposal would disburse 420,069 OP to Rainbow Wallet, a mobile wallet that integrates Ethereum, Polygon, and Optimism tokens, NFTs, and other functionalities. The entirety of that amount is earmarked to incentivize users to make swaps on or bridge to Optimism from within Rainbow Wallet.
Recommendation: Vote Yes. The Tooling Committee recommendation makes a compelling case that the applicant can be expected to provide substantial value to Optimism with its existing user base, planned functionality improvements such as integrated bridging, and being a mobile wallet that already prominently features Optimism.
Summary: This proposal would disburse 50,000 OP to Otterspace, which aims to provide easy infrastructure for DAOs that wish to utilize non-transferable NFTs.
Recommendation: Vote Yes. Following guidance from a previous draft of this proposal last cycle, the amount requested was reduced by half. The Tooling Committee recommends a positive vote for this proposal on the basis of reasonable ask and the possibility of this experimental utility being useful. We agree.
Dope Wars
Summary: This proposal would disburse 300,000 OP to Dope Wars, a play-to-own metaverse gaming platform that also utilizes NFTs.
Recommendation: Vote No. We agree with the assessment made by the NFT & Gaming Committee to recommend against voting for this proposal. The major guidance – which applies broadly to many grants in all areas – is that an iterative approach to funding with more payments at various milestones is better than an up front funding for new projects and initiatives.
Alchemix
Summary: This proposal would disburse 500,000 OP to Alchemix. These funds would be earmarked for 50% vault incentives and 50% Velodrome LP bribes over 1 year.
Recommendation: Vote No. Consistent with previous recommendations from GFX and DeFi Committee A, we do not generally support long-dated plans, as the market price of OP is volatile, making it difficult to forecast whether spending is actually in line with what is proposed and approved. Alchemix appears to have already incorporated this feedback into their forum proposal, and we look forward to seeing them resubmit in the next cycle.
Tarot
Summary: This proposal would disburse 540,000 OP to Tarot. This amount would be distributed over 24 weeks amongst a variety of incentives for liquidity provision for OP, ETH, and USDC pairs.
Recommendation: Vote Yes. Following our own committee recommendation, Tarot made substantial changes in line with guidance DeFi Committee A provided in the previous voting cycle. With these changes made, the size and scope of the proposal seems in-line with previous grants.
Sushi
Summary: This proposal would disburse 504,000 OP to Sushi. This would be used to incentivize OP-ETH, ETH-USDC, and ETH-USDT pools over 180 days.
Recommendation: Vote Yes. Following our own committee recommendation, Sushi also incorporated previous feedback from DeFi Committee A to reduce the time and scope of the proposal. With these changes made, the size and scope of the proposal seems in-line with previous grants.
Overnight.fi
Summary: This proposal would disburse 400,000 OP to Overnight.fi. 50% is earmarked for liquidity mining, 25% for “ETS” development, and 25% for “insurance” development.
Recommendation: Vote No. Following the recommendation of DeFi Committee C, a request of this size should come from a finished product, and not for funding development.
Overtime Markets
Summary: This proposal would disburse 300,000 OP to Overtime Markets, a sports betting AMM DEX. 70% is earmarked for general fee rebates, and 30% for targeted incentives for new integrations.
Recommendation: Vote No. Following the recommendation of DeFi Committee C, we agree that the structure of distribution needs closer attention to avoid capture by a few large users. Overtime is also affiliated with the Thales team, which already received 900,000 OP earlier this year. That does not disqualify this request, but does factor against it while there are other requests awaiting grants.
Abracadabra Money
Summary: This proposal would disburse 800,000 OP to Abracadabra. 100% would be earmarked for a liquidity mining program over 1 year. 20% are also stated they will be delegated to Abracadabra.
Recommendation: Vote No. As stated in the grant template guidelines, OP is expected not to be self delegated. We also do not generally support long-term plans, given the volatile price of OP. This is also a very large grant request given Abracadabra is not yet fully deployed to Optimism. Our views are consistent with the negative recommendation and guidance given by the DeFi Committee C.
NB: GFX Labs is experiencing technical difficulty voting. A recent update at either Snapshot or Boardroom appears to have disabled our technical workaround. Given the extended difficulties multiple large delegates have had with Snapshot voting on Optimism, alternatives should be considered.