Welcome to the inaugural Optimism Gov Update! These periodic posts will recap the latest in OP Governance: what’s up for a vote, what’s in discussion, and what’s next.
This week’s TLDR:
- Governance Fund Phase 1 is open for applications. Read more here.
- Voting Cycle 1 runs June 9 — June 22 and will vote on the GovFund Phase 0 proposals. Read more here.
- Voting Cycle 2 runs June 23 — July 6 and will vote on any GovFund Phase 1 proposals marked as “ready” by the start of the Voting Cycle.
- 35mm OP of voting power has been delegated to dozens of community members; delegate comms and coordination will evolve with feedback.
Governance Fund
The OP Governance Fund is a grants program of 230mm OP dedicated to funding projects in the Optimism ecosystem. With last week’s Airdrop #1, the GovFund is in full swing 
The fund has two parts:
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Phase 0 projects were nominated ahead of token launch for their traction on OP already. Most of these projects have submitted funding proposals in the governance forum here. These Phase 0 proposals will be voted on by the Token House (OP holders and their delegates) in the first voting cycle, which runs from June 9 - June 22.
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Phase 1 is now open for proposals! Any OP token holder is eligible to submit a proposal for Phase 1 funding. Proposals are reviewed and voted on by the Token House (OP holders and their delegates).
While any project or individual may submit a proposal for GovFund Phase 1 funding, we expect that projects with an observable track record and existing deployment — on Optimism or elsewhere — will be most successful in securing funding through governance.
If your project is looking for funding to bootstrap new development, we recommend that you either
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(a) reach out to the Optimism Foundation here to inquire about partnership funding, or
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(b) structure your grant proposal to earn tokens for your project after hitting specific milestones, deliverables, or on-chain metrics.
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Builders gonna build, and we can’t wait to see what you get up to. Drop in to #gov-general in Discord with any questions.
Voting Process
This week marks the start of Token House v0.1 governance. The current voting and proposal process is described in detail in the Operating Manual. The current process aims to strike a balance between on-chain governance minimization and helpful social structures that give necessary support to the Collective, in the spirit of the Collective’s Working Constitution.
In short, the v0.1 process is as follows:
- Governance proposals will be voted on in Snapshot in thirteen-day Voting Cycles that run Thursday to Wednesday.
- Voting Cycle 1 runs June 9 - June 22 and will vote on GovFund Phase 0 proposals.
- Voting Cycle 2 runs June 23 - July 6 and will vote on any GovFund Phase 1 proposals marked
[READY]by June 23. - Voting Cycle 3 runs July 7 - July 20, and so on.
- Proposals must fit one of the categories outlined in the Operating Manual.
- Community members make and discuss proposals. Optimism Foundation submits final proposals to Snapshot for voting.
To shepherd a proposal through the v0.1 process, authors should:
- Draft a proposal.
- Post the proposal in #gov-temp-check on Discord for feedback.
- Once the temp check is warm, post on Gov Forum (gov.optimism.io) as
[DRAFT]for more feedback in the “Proposal Discussion” category. - Update your Forum post to
[READY]when it’s ready to be included in the next voting cycle. - The Optimism Foundation will roundup proposals and post on Snapshot for a thirteen-day voting cycle.
- Once the voting cycle ends, the Foundation will execute any proposal that has passed.
For any questions not covered in the Operating Manual, drop in to #gov-general on Discord.
Upcoming Voting Cycle 1
Voting Cycle 1 (June 9 — June 22) will focus on Phase 0 Governance Fund proposals.
The Optimism Foundation nominated a set of projects for Phase 0 funding due to their track records on Optimism so far. Phase 0 included guidelines for maximum proposal amounts, ranging from 300k to 9mm OP. See the GovFund Overview for more details.
Every Phase 0 proposal without critical feedback or objection so far will be combined in a single batch proposal for the Token House to vote on together. For details on Voting Cycle #1, see the Voting Cycle #1 Roundup thread.
Voting Cycle 2 (June 23 — July 6) will include every valid proposal marked READY. We expect these will be entirely GovFund Phase 1 proposals for net-new grants and incentives.
Delegates
OP Token Holders have delegated the voting power of 35mm OP to various community members who have explicitly volunteered to play an active role in Token House governance. These volunteers are called delegates.
You can see a list of delegates sorted by delegations or total voting weight in a dashboard here.
As a reminder, any token holder may choose to re-delegate the voting power of their own tokens at any time. To do so, head to Optimism Gateway. Or check out this lightweight tool by salatti.eth.
To facilitate our very first round of voting, we’ve added all delegates with more than 0.5% of current voting power to #gov-voting-cycle-1 in Discord. This is a temporary channel, and we’ll set up firmer guidelines in advance of Voting Cycle 2 as delegations continue to stabilize.
Organization and coordination of delegates is a rich design space. We expect the way Token House delegates work together will evolve over time — feedback from our community is welcome, as always.
Thanks for reading. Plenty more updates to come — watch this space 
If you want to get involved:
- Jump in to #gov-temp-check on Discord to help review proposals
- Submit a GovFund Phase 1 proposal for your project
- Find fellow builders in #show-and-tell or #l2-jobs on Discord
- Follow @OptimismGov for future governance updates
