18 Polls Closing November 9, 2022
Velodrome Finance
Summary: This proposal would disburse 4,000,000 OP to Velodrome. 37.5% would be earmarked as veVELO locking incentives, 37.5% for bribe matching, 25% for direct bribing of 8 pairs Velodrome considers strategically important for Optimism. All would be used over 6-8 months. OP would be delivered in two tranches.
Recommendation: Vote No. Velodrome has positioned itself as a large ecosystem actor on Optimism. That being said, Velodrome has already received a large grant from Optimism. The ask is also very large – eight times that of Curve’s current or Sushi’s approved request. Therefore we are not supportive of this proposal based on valuation and cost.
Mochi
Summary: This proposal would disburse 100,000 OP to Mochi, a staked-coordination protocol for DAO contributors. The OP would be earmarked to match a variety of Mochi token incentives for players and users.
Recommendation: Vote Yes. Following guidance from the Tooling Committee, we agree the request is reasonable in size, for a finished product, and includes measurable KPIs.
Ambire Wallet
Summary: This proposal would disburse 425,000 OP to Ambire Wallet, a smart contract wallet. 88% would be earmarked to incentivize users in various ways, and 12% for developers utilizing Ambire.
Recommendation: Vote Yes. While we are typically skeptical about funding for wallets, Ambire offers two novelties that potentially improve quality of life for users on Optimism: gas payment in stables, and onboarding with email. The request is a bit larger than we would prefer, but without opposition from the Tooling Committee on this topic, we do not see a compelling reason to oppose this request.
Agora
Summary: This proposal would disburse 50,000 OP to Agora, which aims to build a suite of delegation/voter capabilities such as partial delegation and time-bounded delegation.
Recommendation: Vote Yes. The request is small, and the metrics to track effectiveness and use are relatively straightforward. While the product is not yet finished, if it has even a 50% chance of delivering upon the stated capabilities, then this grant is worth making.
DeFi Llama
Summary: This proposal would disburse 300,000 OP to DeFi Llama as retroactive compensation for Llama Analytics and LlamaPay support of Optimism since July 2021 and April 2022, respectively.
Recommendation: Vote No. A recent presentation by the Optimism Foundation on the efficacy of grants made from the governance fund has suggested that retroactive awards brought little to no discernable return on investment. It is wonderful that Llama has provided useful products, but given the ultimately limited resources of the governance fund, we prefer to reserve OP to incentivize future or ongoing action.
Messari
Summary: This proposal would disburse 365,000 OP to Messari for provision of quarterly reports and various other reporting initiatives
Recommendation: Vote No. It’s not clear that Optimism needs some of the services offered in this bundle. In the event that Optimism governance does feel it needs these services, there should be a general Request For Proposals (RFP) so that competing offerings can be evaluated. DeFi Llama, for instance, has already offered to provide the same services plus additional dashboards for half of the original 420,000 OP request. That the original request appears to have been a meme number and has been reduced to 365,000 already suggests that competitive bids would result in the best deal for Optimism.
Tally Ho
Summary: This proposal would disburse 400,000 OP to Tally Ho, a wallet provider. The funds would be evenly divided between bridge incentives, intra-wallet swapping, integrations incentives, and growth/marketing.
Recommendation: Vote No. It’s not clear that Tally Ho provides anything not already available to Optimism users or its ecosystem. Governance funding should be used to grow or otherwise improve the Optimism ecosystem, rather than subsidize competing wallets. We encourage Tally Ho to revise this proposal to highlight what makes it different from existing wallets and/or how it would utilize funds in a way that is not already being done by other wallets.
EthernautDAO
Summary: This proposal would disburse 120,000 OP to EthernautDAO, which seeks to provide resources to Web2 developers entering the Web3 space. The funds would be used to incentivize mentors.
Recommendation: Vote Yes. Clearer milestones and deliverables would be helpful, but the request is low, and this is a public good that does not charge users to learn through the program. This is consistent with the recommendation made by the Tooling Committee.
Socket
Summary: This proposal would disburse 500,000 OP to Socket, a cross-chain bridge and DEX aggregator/asset transfer protocol.
Recommendation: Vote Abstain. GFX Labs is a major delegate on Hop Protocol, which is a potential competitor and conflict of interest in evaluating this grant request.
Overnight
Summary: This proposal would disburse 400,000 OP to Overnight.fi. Funds would be earmarked for liquidity mining and ETS incentives on Velodrome
Recommendation: Vote Abstain. GFX Labs developed and is involved with Interest Protocol. Interest Protocol’s USDi is a competing yield-bearing stablecoin, and presents a conflict of interest in evaluating this grant request.
PoolTogether
Summary: This proposal would disburse 550,000 OP to PoolTogether. 70% would be for depositors, 20% for those building new UIs, and 10% for integrations partners.
Recommendation: Vote No. PoolTogether already received a 450,000 OP grant from the Optimism Foundation. While the subsidy appears to be successful, projects should not expect continued and/or expanded subsidies. This stance disagrees with the recommendation made by DeFi Committee C.
Curve
Summary: This proposal would disburse 504,828 OP to Curve. The entirety would be directed as incentives to veCRV voters over 12 weeks.
Recommendation: Vote Yes. We agree with the recommendation of DeFi Committee C. Curve as a protocol has a history of execution and utility. This amount is also comparable to that approved for Sushiswap in the previous voting cycle.
InsureDAO
Summary: This proposal would disburse 100,000 OP to InsureDAO, a decentralized insurance protocol. 65% would be used to subsidize underwriters, 20% would provide partial subsidies on user premiums, 10% for integration partner support, and 5% directed at the INSURE-WETH Velodrome pool.
Recommendation: Vote Yes. The request is modest, with measurable underwriting and policy sale metrics for KPIs. We agree with the recommendation of DeFi Committee C to support this grant request, which is clear and reasonable in scope.
Angle
Summary: This proposal would disburse 250,000 OP to Angle Protocol, which would distribute the entirety as liquidity incentives over 6 months for three pools – directly for a Uniswap pool and indirectly through bribing on Velodrome for two other pools.
Recommendation: Vote Yes. Consistent with DeFi Committee C’s recommendation, we support this grant. It is reasonable in size and scope, and Angle provides the only decentralized Euro-denominated stablecoin on Optimism, which adds a utility to the overall ecosystem.
Homora
Summary: This proposal would disburse 684,000 OP to Alpha Venture DAO, the developer of Homora. 56% would be earmarked for liquidity incentives, and 44% for builder grants. Homora is a leveraged yield farming protocol.
Recommendation: Vote No. We’re not enthusiastic about the relatively large request to subsidize a leverage yield farming protocol, and find ourselves disagreeing with DeFi Committee C’s recommendation. We would prefer to see stronger co-incentives and a more clear use case that this is not simply a subsidy to users who are already yield farming (and likely getting subsidies through that activity already). If the organic yields and likely subsidies on the underlying protocols are not enough to attract users, then a temporary subsidy for another layer in the stack does not logically suggest that it will attract users to Optimism.
Symphony Finance
Summary: This proposal would disburse 250,000 OP to Symphony Finance, which aggregates DEXs + aggregators while assets being traded earn yield on other protocols in the meantime. 35% would be for retroactive airdropping to limit order users, 20% for gas refunds, 15% for marketing and content grants, 30% for development/maintenance. The intended timeline for use is 3-6 months.
Recommendation: Vote No. We recommend revising this proposal to reduce the ask by 35% to remove the retroactive airdrop. In a recent presentation by Optimism Foundation staff on the efficacy of previous grants, retroactive benefits were highlighted as the lowest return on investment. There should also be clarification on whether the 30% for development would be able to avoid violating the no sale rule. See our general position as laid out by the committee in the Arrakis recommendation on this issue.
Arrakis Finance
Summary: This proposal would disburse 500,000 OP to Arrakis Finance. 100% will be earmarked for liquidity incentivization, over 3-6 months, for assets that do not currently have Uni V3 pools. This is envisioned to be primarily protocol-owned liquidity at first, and Arrakis will require their partners to stake or delegate 50% of OP delivered.
Recommendation: Vote No. The ask is fairly high for a protocol that’s not demonstrated product-market fit outside of use in Maker, which is not yet present on Optimism. This proposal also violates the no sale rule for OP. GFX does not agree with this rule, but agrees with the overall committee that we should be consistent in its application.
Alchemix
Summary: This proposal would disburse 250,000 OP to Alchemix. 50% would be earmarked to subsidize alUSD and alETH users, 50% earmarked for bribes on Velodrome. Both portions would be used over 6 months.
Recommendation: Vote Yes. Alchemix incorporated changes requested by the committee in the previous cycle, which mainly consisted of a more limited timeline and request.
NB: GFX Labs is again 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 for months on end, alternatives should be considered. @ben-chain et al, please let us know what we can do to speed a transition to an alternative service or assist in building a voting portal.