OP grants through Season 2: where has the OP gone?

[jackanorak]

1inch

[GF: Phase 0 Proposal] 1inch Network

Project Name: 1inch NETWORK Author Name: 1inch Labs Defillama TVL (at snapshot): N/A Transactions/day (at snapshot): 275+ Tier: N/A Optimism native: Yes Revisions to metrics used: N/A Number of OP tokens to claim: 300,000 L2 Recipient Address: 0x1bd315E3F029083DA8731a6b1c6F2959A0d15376 Background: 1inch has been part of the Optimism chain since the initial launch of the network and was one of the first dapps deployed. 1inch is best described as a network of decentralized protocols des…

Proposal

@1inch

Goals:

1inch Network plans to accelerate the development of Optimism native features and expand R&D for L2.

Benefits:

• As a market leader in the growing DEX aggregation field, 1inch Network has the capacity to bootstrap further adoption of Optimism network.
• Attract more developers and builders to the Optimism ecosystem and help them bring their vision to the market.

How will the OP tokens be distributed?

$300,000OP tokens would be used to incentivise usage and growth of Optimism on 1inch Network thought the 1inch Wallet App.

With the amount for incentives, the team would:

• Launch an AirDrop Campaign for top wallets that are funded in 1inch Wallet App for iOS and Android in Ethereum or Optimism. The 1inch Labs will conduct an airdrop on Optimism network.

Announcement and Intention

From https://blog.1inch.io/1inch-wallet-users-to-be-rewarded-with-op-tokens-eb6595192999, dated 9/6 at the start of the program. From what I can gather, there was no previous announcement; that is, this is a true retro airdrop, not one as implied by the proposal.

The 1inch Network is thrilled to announce that a total of 300,000 OP tokens will be distributed among the 1inch Wallet’s users in a move to incentivize their activity on the Optimism network.

The distribution will be made in a retrospective Merkle drop. The OP tokens will be equally distributed between 3,782 selected wallets of the 1inch Wallet’s most active and regular users, and are already available for claiming. For a detailed instruction on how to claim OP tokens on Optimism, please, head to the 1inch Help Center.

Distribution

9/5 Governance distributes 300k OP to 0x1bd315E3F029083DA8731a6b1c6F2959A0d15376

Wallet transfers all OP to 0xea1e11e3d448f31c565d685115899a11fd98e40e, which programmatically distributes 79 OP to designated wallets.

In 72 days, 253 of the 3,782 wallets have claimed their share of the airdrop, with the current rate being roughly 1 claim per day.

There are 280k OP remaining; at the current rate of claims, it will take just under 10 years for these 3,782 wallets to have gotten their money.

After scanning a few of the recipient wallets to determine evidence of increased use, I eventually stopped my analysis at this point, given this grant’s application as a retro airdrop and the low, flat rate of OP distributed.

Observation and Recommendation

1. This was a retroactive airdrop, which was not detailed in the governance proposal.
2. There is little if any evidence of benefit to Optimism as a result of this grant; the total number of potential wallets is relatively low, and very few wallets have been involved to date. Even if the pace were somehow to increase, the total number of potential wallets is limited due to the retro airdrop, and it’s not clear what the catalyst for such an increase would be.
3. 1inch should thus consider returning the remaining 280k OP, as it seems that nobody is really going to benefit here going forward; we could use this OP for other purposes. EDIT: It’s in an immutable merkle distributor contract, so the OP is effectively bricked.

Caveat

If 1inch did in fact heavily promote this airdrop ahead of time, this could be considered in scope, if not evidently successful. I invite any corrections on this point.