Governance Report: November 2024 Update

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November 2024 Update

Key Insights

  • Holocene Network Upgrade:

    The Holocene Network Upgrade enhances Optimism with stricter block derivation, EIP-1559 configurability, and updated MIPS contracts for improved security, performance, and flexibility. Scheduled for January 9, 2025, it supports decentralization and better cross-chain interoperability.

  • Grants Council Season 6 Concludes:

    The Grants Council Season 6 allocated 16.3M OP tokens across 122 grants, boosting decentralization, developer growth, and ecosystem diversity. Key challenges included narrow mission scopes and awareness gaps, with proposed solutions for broader outreach and flexible funding.

  • RetroPGF Rounds 6 Voting Complete:

    Voting for the RetroPGF Round 6 that focuses on the Governance contributions is complete, the results are expected to be announced on December 2nd 2024.

  • Special Voting Cycle #31a:

    Special Voting Cycle #31a commenced on November 28, 2024, at 19:00 GMT and will conclude on December 18, 2024, at 19:00 GMT. Following this, the Citizens’ House has a one-week period to veto any Token House-approved upgrades. Delegate voting weights were captured at the cycle’s start. Voting occurs at vote.optimism.io from December 12 to December 18, 2024. The Citizens’ House veto vote is scheduled via Snapshot from December 19 to December 25, 2024.

Primer

The monthly governance recap serves as a compendium of key governance updates for the preceding month. This update covers Optimism governance activities for November 2024.

This recap includes the following sections

  • Key Metrics
    • Success Insights
    • Delegate Participation
    • Other Governance Metrics
  • Main Governance Initiatives in November
  • Community Overview
  • Closing Statement

Key Metrics

  • OnChain Proposals
    • 0 On-chain proposals were submited in the Month of November
    • However Special voting cycle #31a has been announced at the end of November, which will witness multiple proposals posted around mid December
  • Forum posts
    • Topics created: 62
    • Topic posts (includes above number): 344

For User information, we take a quick look at the on-chain metrics for the Month of October 2024.

The number of active voters for onchain proposals averaged 50.51M OP, with a minimum of 31M OP and a maximum of 65.72M OP.

Proposal Onchain Votes Boardroom Link
Rolling Mission Requests: Voting Cycle 28 31.4M OP Link
Governor Update Proposal #3 65.72M OP Link
Standard Rollup Charter Ratification 54.42M OP Link

Off-Chain votes for the OP governance are not active, no snapshot votes were held in the past 30 days.

Success Insights:

  • Onchain: No Metrics available for On-chain proposals as no proposals were created during the month of observation
  • The last time when there were no proposals in a month for OP governance was in September 2023.

Browse all of the proposals on the Boardroom proposal tracker here.

Other Governance Metrics

Metric Data
Delegates 152,254
Top 5 wallets Voting Power 31.519M (30%)
Top 100 wallets Voting Power 95.851M (92%)
Top-200 Wallets Voting Power 99.45M (95%)
Delegate Quorum Gage 5
Nakamoto Coefficient 12
Early Voters 33%
Mid-Proposal Voters 31%
Late Voters 18%
End of Proposal Voters 18%
Top -1000 Delegates Active 67.19% (68.86M OP)
Top-1000 Delegates Inactive 9.76% (10.3M OP)
Top-1000 Delegates Ghost 23% (23.62M OP)
  • Delegate Quorum Gauge: The number of delegates required to reach quorum
  • *Nakamoto Coefficient: The number of delegates required to reach 50% of the total voting power
  • **A delegate is considered inactive if they have not voted on any of the last 3 proposals but have voted on at least 1 proposal in the past.
  • ***A delegate is considered a ghost if they have never voted on any proposal.

Main Governance Initiatives in October

Holocene Network Upgrade

The OP Labs has proposed the Holocene Network Upgrade, aiming to enhance network security, configurability, and performance.

Key Features

  • Holocene Block Derivation: Introduces stricter and simpler derivation processes, improving fault proofs and interoperability.
  • EIP-1559 Configurability: Allows independent configuration of gas target and gas limit via the SystemConfig L1 contract, enhancing flexibility in transaction fee management.
  • MIPS Contract Upgrade: Updates to support additional calls made by the new op-program version, ensuring compatibility with the latest system components.

Security Considerations

The upgrade has undergone thorough internal reviews and testing on internal devnets of Base and OP Labs, confirming expected network operations and functionality of new features. Specific security considerations are detailed in the Holocene derivation specification.

Implementation Plan

If approved, the Holocene upgrade is scheduled for execution on January 9, 2025, at 18:00:01 UTC. The upgrade will occur automatically for chains on the Granite mainnet release that have opted in via their superchain-registry configuration.

This upgrade represents a significant step forward in enhancing the Optimism network’s robustness and adaptability.

Grants Council Season 6 Ends

Season 6 of the Grants Council has concluded, marking significant progress across its intents with a total allocation of over 16.3M OP tokens. The Council approved 122 grants out of 344 applications, showcasing a rigorous and inclusive selection process.

Achievements

  • Intent #1: Supported governance and decentralization with tools like cross-chain voting, allocating ~290k OP tokens, with 90% locked for one year. Expected to increase votable supply by 5% in the next 12 months.
  • Intent #3A: Funded 122 projects to grow developer activity on the OP Mainnet, aiming for 150 new active developers, supported by 4M OP tokens.
  • Intent #3B: Empowered 15+ OP Chain grant programs with nearly 12M OP tokens, fostering tailored ecosystem growth.

Learnings and Improvements

Challenges included tight timelines, narrowly scoped mission requests, and limited developer awareness. Proposed solutions for Season 7 include a task force for earlier preparation, broader grant scopes, reallocation of inactive funds, and targeted outreach to developers.

The season underscored Optimism’s commitment to decentralization, innovation, and ecosystem diversity, laying a robust foundation for continued progress.

Committee Retrospectives

With the conclusion of the Grants Council Season 6, multiple committees and councils involved in the process have shared their Retrospective thoughts on the Fourm, we have listed these here

Code of Conduct Council

The Code of Conduct Council’s Season 6 retrospective reports:

  • Response Time: Adhered to a maximum of 5 business days for case resolution, with quicker responses for severe violations.
  • Conflict Resolution: Out of 4 reports, 3 were de-escalated without enforcement actions, 1 required enforcement, and 1 was referred to mediation.
  • Community Engagement: Conducted 4 public office hours and regular meetings to maintain transparency and accessibility.
  • Operational Updates: Revised the council charter to clarify sanction boundaries and scopes.

Overall, the council effectively managed conflicts, maintained community engagement, and upheld the Rules of Engagement.

AntiCapture Commission

The Anticapture Commission (ACC) fulfilled its Season 6 mandate by voting on all proposals subject to a Citizens’ House veto, utilizing its 10M OP delegation. No instances of governance capture were identified. The votable supply increased by 18.5%, from 89.4M to 106M OP. The ACC also advocated for decentralization by suggesting additional voting interfaces beyond Agora. Challenges included technical concerns during the Granite Network Upgrade and issues with the Agora voting portal, both addressed through community discussions and recommendations. Future solutions involve the ACC evaluating decentralization progress and assisting in Phase II and III of the Accelerating Decentralization Proposal.

Developer Advisor Board (DAB)

The Developer Advisory Board (DAB) matured significantly in Season 6, evolving into a structured entity with established processes that positively impacted the Optimism Collective. Key achievements include:

  • Protocol Upgrade Summaries: Provided non-technical summaries for all protocol upgrades within 72 hours, enhancing community understanding.
  • Grants Council Support: Evaluated 179 Mission Request applications, earning a perfect Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 10/10 from the Grants Council.
  • Community Engagement: Hosted calls to gather feedback and explore additional support avenues, with plans to expand impact in future seasons.

Challenges involved logistical coordination and identifying areas for greater contribution. Proposed solutions include closer collaboration with OP Labs to align with the technical roadmap and proactively identify opportunities for involvement. The DAB aims to assume greater responsibilities in Season 7, such as assessing audit requests and selecting teams for Foundation Mission Requests.

Security Council

The Security Council (SC) achieved key milestones in Season 6, including the successful election of Cohort A and consistent quorum attainment for protocol upgrade signings. These efforts advanced both technical and governance decentralization within the Optimism Collective. Challenges such as reliance on OP Labs for support and operational inefficiencies in compensation processing were identified. Proposed solutions include granting the SC budget autonomy and enhancing technical resources to bolster independence. As the Superchain governance framework evolves, the SC’s mandate should adapt to manage expanded responsibilities, including Blockspace Charters and the Superchain Registry.

Community Overview

  • Main Account:714K Followers (+14K)
  • Governance X Account: 30.2K Followers (+200)
  • Discord: 162K Members (~ -1000)

Community Trends

  • Continuous Upgrades:

    Core contributors and developer teams including OP labs are continously shipping upgrades to the OP Network, ensuring security, relevance and efficiency of the OP network remains progressing.

  • Standardisation of processes

    The OP collective has evolved as a prime example of a self governing community. Moreover with time, most of the processes are standardised which ensure a basic minimum performance expectation within the collective at the same time making sure that malicious hijacking of the activities is not a straightforward process. Notable is the Grants council and all the commissions related to the smooth functioning of the Grants council.

  • Experimentation with Grants

    Over the time with multiple formats of Grants running concurrently including retroPGF and grants councils, the community is getting better with time in distributing and allocating incentives in a fair fashion. No process is perfect and there are still learnings along the way, but the transparent nature of the Collective ensures that any critical feedback can be easily implemented.

Closing Statement

November 2024 was a pivotal month for the Optimism Collective, characterized by forward momentum in governance, innovation, and community engagement. While no on-chain proposals were submitted, preparations for Special Voting Cycle #31a demonstrate an active governance pipeline. Key updates such as the Holocene Network Upgrade proposal and the conclusion of Grants Council Season 6 highlight the Collective’s commitment to decentralization, security, and ecosystem growth.

Committee retrospectives showcased the evolving maturity of governance structures, with significant achievements across various councils and commissions. These reflections not only provide transparency but also pave the way for meaningful improvements in future seasons.

Community metrics and trends further underscore the sustained growth and adaptability of the Optimism ecosystem. With continued experimentation, standardization, and innovation, the Collective solidifies its role as a model for decentralized governance.

As we transition into December, the stage is set for impactful governance initiatives, advancing Optimism’s mission of scaling Ethereum sustainably and equitably.