7 Polls Closing October 25, 2023
Anticapture Commission
Summary: This proposal would establish an Anticapture Commission, charged with alerting Citizen’s House when imbalances of power between various stakeholders arises (e.g. different OP chains, delegates, tokenholders, individuals, or governance bodies).
Recommendation: Vote No. The Anticapture Commission proposal does not include a well-defined scope, or any guidance (or supplementary document promising guidance) as to what constitutes concerns… over significant imbalances of power. The danger with this type of commission is one of two outcomes: 1) The commission does very little of value, but takes up time and resources, 2) The commission is overzealous in an attempt to justify its own existence.
All of this assumes that it is even desirable for specific stakeholders’ or classes of stakeholders’ interests to be deprioritized. Traditionally, tokenholders’ interests are supposed to be paramount within a DAO. Optimism expands on this with its bicameral structure, but it’s not been discussed whether any other organ of governance – including Citizens’ House – is appropriately considered a stakeholder in its own right, or a servant of collective tokenholder interests.
We would contend that – absent any approved resolution to the contrary – all of governance, from Grants Council to Token House to Citizens’ House to any prospective Anticapture Commission, serve at the behest of, and for the benefit of, tokenholders. To the extent that imbalances of power are not desired, it is between tokenholders themselves.
GFX Labs does not at this time support an Anticapture Commission as outlined in this proposal, on grounds that the scope is not defined and we may conceptually disagree with the purpose of the commission as written.
Code of Conduct Violation: Carlos Mengar
Summary: This proposal seeks to suspend delegate Carlos Mengar from Optimism’s official forum and Discord for a period of 3 months for the infraction of intentional doxxing.
Recommendation: Vote Abstain. Consistent with our previous votes, we abstain in the absence of reviewable evidence. Due to the nature of the accusation (doxxing), we have very little public evidence to review.
Code of Conduct Council: Budget
Summary: This proposal creates a 18,000 OP budget to fund a 5-member (plus lead) council to process Code of Conduct violations. This process is currently performed by the Foundation. Included in this proposal is power for the council to perform enforcement actions optimistically; 12% of token voting power can object to force a Token House vote to stay any enforcement action.
Recommendation: Vote Yes. There have now been two Code of Conduct violation votes before Token House. On both, GFX Labs chose to abstain because details needed to make an informed decision could not be made public. Establishing a body whose responsibility it is to evaluate allegations and censure offenders removes wider governance from weighing in on alleged violations without proper review process that is fair to both parties.
Security Council: Vote #1
Summary: This proposal would authorize the creation of a Security Council. The council would control a multisig which itself would join the Optimism Foundation on a 2/2 multisig that controls protocol upgrades for all Superchain participants. The stated intention is for the Foundation to eventually be removed and the Security Council itself have these powers.
NB: 76% approval is required for this proposal to pass.
Recommendation: Vote Yes. GFX Labs firmly believes that protocol upgrades and other governance powers need to ultimately be vested in the OP token, rather than multisigs. We recognize, however, that this represents an interactive improvement, and are willing to support for the time being.
Grants Council Operating Budget
Summary: This proposal provides a 440,000 OP operating budget for the Grants Council (if approved) for Season 5.
Recommendation: Vote Yes. This funds a renewal and expansion of the Grants Council, which has seen increasing interest and workload each season. GFX Labs has announced that it is seeking re-election to its seat on the council.
Developer Advisory Board Budget
Summary: This proposal provides a 70,000 OP budget for a Developer Advisory Board. This is a body with advisory powers only, and is intended to make recommendations to the Grants Council and governance on technical aspects of grant requests.
Recommendation: Vote Yes. This is a small expense, and worth a trial period.
Ratify Developer Advisory Board Members
Summary: This proposal ratifies this slate of initial Developer Advisory Board members.
Recommendation: Vote Yes. We’re not familiar with all of these members, but those we are familiar with have technical backgrounds and/or are strongly aligned with important stakeholders.