Liquid Staking RFP

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Introduction

The Optimism Collective currently holds ~21.5K ETH in its treasury. ETH is not just a reserve asset; it is a strategic tool for strengthening Optimism and the broader Collective. This RFP sets out a framework for how ETH may be allocated and invites proposals from the community.

This process is experimental, and the treasury management framework may be refined as we learn.

Goals

We want to put ETH to work across the OP Mainnet ecosystem. Our objectives are to:

  • Generate sustainable yield for the Optimism Collective.

  • Deepen liquidity and improve capital efficiency on Optimism Mainnet.

  • Strengthen on-chain activity on OP Mainnet.

  • Ensure benefits accrue back to the Optimism Collective and its mission.

Proposal

The Optimism Collective currently holds approximately 21.5K ETH in its treasury. Of this, 5.4K ETH will remain in reserves. We propose allocating the remaining 16.1K ETH as follows.

  • Institutional Staking - 60% native staking on ETH Mainnet - already approved by governance

  • Liquid Staking - 40% liquid staking on OP Mainnet. - the subject of this RFP.

We invite proposals that enable and/or improve liquid ETH staking on OP Mainnet.

Submission Requirements

Proposals must answer the following question:

  • Overview – What is your proposal and what benefit does it bring to the Optimism Ecosystem?

  • Design – Provide an overview of your system architecture and security.

  • Risks & Mitigation – Provide an overview of the following.

    • Smart Contract Audit

    • Governance

    • Collateral & Financial Performance

      • What is the amount of assets secured by your protocol on Optimism Mainnet?

      • What is the amount of assets secured by your protocol overall across EVM blockchains?

      • Have there been any significant de-pegging events in the past 12 months?

    • Process for technical upgrades

    • Liquidity risks - how do you recommend mitigating liquidity risks? (i.e. slippage)

    • Regulatory risks

  • Yield / Fees

    • What is your historical yield? What yield do you project, if any?

    • What are your fees / commissions?

  • Strategic Benefits

    • In addition to the Collective ETH (6.4K) in this proposal, how do you plan to grow OP Mainnet ecosystem around your LST (e.g., DEX liquidity, DeFi use cases)

    • What other economic benefits are there for OP Mainnet and the Superchain ecosystem?

  • Security: Provide an overview of your security posture including:

    • Summarize results of all third-party security audits, including auditor names, dates, scope and keyfindings / remediation status. Provide links to public reports where available.

    • Outline your bug bounty program, including historical data on reported issues or paid bounties.

    • Describe your system’s upgrade process, including who can propose and execute upgrades, how decisions are made, and any existing veto or emergency powers.

    • Detail the client software implementations that support your system, including the number of independent clients, and measures taken to ensure resilience.

  • Transparency & Reporting

    • How do you plan to provide reporting on staking performance and general success criteria?

    • What dashboards and tools can the community use to monitor performance?

  • Roadmap

    • What timeline will it take to deploy your proposal?

    • What are the major milestones?

    • What treasury operations approach for deploying the Collective ETH to your LST?

    • What are the success metrics?

  • Team

    • Who are the founders of this project?

    • What experience and track record does your team bring?

Evaluation Criteria

Proposals will be assessed based on, among other things:

  • Strategic Impact – ecosystem benefit, yield, partner alignment.

  • Risk Profile – principal, technical, counterparty, legal, reputational.

  • Transparency & Reporting – clarity of monitoring and oversight (emphasis for on chain activity & reporting)

Risk Adjusted Return Score = Benefit / Risk

The Risk-Adjusted Score provides a simple measure of how effectively each proposal balances potential benefit against associated risk. It is calculated as the ratio of Benefit to Risk. The Benefit component captures tangible and qualitative upside — including Liquidity, Yield, and Ecosystem Benefits (0-5) reflecting strategic alignment and expected ecosystem impact. The Risk component reflects downside exposure through a Risk Score (0–5), which evaluates the likelihood of capital loss or adverse outcomes.

A higher Risk-Adjusted Score indicates a more favorable balance between return and risk, helping prioritize proposals that offer strong net value to the Collective.

Table
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Risk Adjusted Score = (Liquidity + Net Yield + Ecosystem Benefit) / Risk

Technical Requirements

Priority will be given to projects that demonstrate a robust and proven security posture, including (but not limited to) the following characteristics:

  • Formally Verified Code

  • Multiple high-quality security audits from reputable third-party firms, with all critical findings remediated.

  • A live bug bounty program with a documented history of reported vulnerabilities and payouts.

  • Clear, transparent slashing and missed-reward criteria, with no recorded slashing incidents to date.

  • At least 12 months of continuous mainnet operation without major security incidents or core code exploits.

Submission Process

  • Submission Window: Nov 7, 2025

  • Review & Feedback Nov 21, 2025

  • Final Approval: Dec 5, 2025

Decision Making & Communication

  • Budget Board to review & approve Risk Thresholds & Evaluation Framework

  • Foundation & Labs teams to evaluate submissions and put forward recommendation

  • Budget Board to approve final recommendation.

  • How results are communicated: Decisions will be published publicly, with rationale and expected outcomes.

  • Monitoring: ETH allocations reviewed against milestones; yield/incentives flow back to the treasury.

Note: Submission does not guarantee selection. Foundation, Labs & Budget Board may choose or reject any submission for any reason in their sole discretion

Important Note on ETH Deployment

  • Foundation will custody the ETH, which will be administered by a 3rd party.

  • Protocols are custodians/operators, not recipients of grants.

  • ETH can be withdrawn, reallocated, or redeployed by Foundation with notification to the community.

  • Any yield, incentives, or fees must accrue back to the Collective treasury.

6 Likes
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Confirming that this is the draft proposal from the budget board.

6 Likes
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As a quick introduction, while I am unable to directly comment from the perspective or as a representative any of the major lending protocols, I am a mid-size (~8 figures) lender/staker across a number of lending and staking protocols. With this in mind, I apologize if this may not be the correct venue and if this proposal is strictly to consider deployment through liquid staking.

As stated, the goal of the RFP is to strengthen the Optimism ecosystem rather than ETH’s consensus, and that said I would propose to widen the scope of the RFP to include a significant simple lending portion through Optimism’s major lending protocols.

Doing so addresses the goals mentioned in a more appropriate way than simple liquid staking in the following ways:

  • Generate sustainable yield for the Optimism Collective.

    • Liquid Staking: Average yield of 2.66% across major OP staking protocols (weETH, rETH, cbETH)
    • Lending: Average yield of 2.62% across major lending protocols (Aave) (-0.04% annually when compared to staking)

  • Deepen liquidity and improve capital efficiency on Optimism Mainnet.

    • Liquid Staking: Does little to nothing to improve capital efficiency
    • Lending: Lending ETH leads to more competitive borrowing rates that deepen liquidity in a number of ways (e.g. lowered leverage trading costs, more at market ETH liquidity, significantly more attractive looped staking opportunities)

  • Strengthen on-chain activity on OP Mainnet.

    • Liquid Staking: Liquid staking would serve to strengthen the staking protocols that have chosen to align with Optimism and expended their own resources to do so (though usually exclusively through committing liquidity for their own products)
    • Lending: Lending ETH not only does the above (likely at a .94:1 rate) through attracting looped stakers, but also strengthens the number of other products that rely on lending/borrowing – whether through borrowing the ETH directly, or borrowing collateral that is attracted by low ETH yields.

  • Ensure benefits accrue back to the Optimism Collective and its mission.

    • Liquid Staking: The primary benefit is a highly sustainable yield and “number go up” for TVL metrics.
    • Lending: The benefits includes the above, however at the cost of minimal (~.04%-.4% APY) the ecosystem receives real (potentially sticky) users that interact with the liquidity provided, while deepening core asset liquidity and in a best case scenario feeding a small feedback loop.

Again, apologies if this is not the correct venue, and to conclude, my proposal would be to widen the scope of the RFP to include lending protocols (Aave) and invite their RFP (though it may not cleanly fit in all the RFP submission requirements)