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

[jackanorak]

Idle Phase 0 grants: update

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

Cycle 1: Projects that haven’t yet gotten or used their OP These are the Phase 0 proposals that were voted in as a batch on June 22. The full slate is below. Asterisks denote proposals that have not yet gotten or used their granted OP. These proposals amount to a total of 4.1mm OP in grant funds that have not been deployed as of this writing (11/19). Uniswap V3 1inch Celer Aave* Chainlink* Polynomial Protocol 0x* Aelin Slingshot Wepiggy Thales Pika Protocol Layer2dao Synthetix …

In a post from this time last year, I looked at projects that hadn’t done anything with their grants, issued the previous August. I thought it’d be a good moment to revisit these.

At a glance

Among these projects that hadn’t touched their grant by November 2022…

• 3.2mm OP initially allocated for the start of August 2022
• 2.2mm OP still hasn’t been used
• Two projects still have done nothing with their OP
• One project deposited a majority of its grant to Binance
• Most projects haven’t given updates of their own

It is probably worth asking 1) what we can do to coordinate with these projects—and possibly 2) ask for some OP back in some cases.

Although this is Phase 0 (and in several respects not bound to standards for newer grants), these are still OP resources—an enormous amount!—and it’s worth following up on them.

Aave

300k OP

Plan

[GF: Phase 0 Proposal] Aave

Project Name: Aave Author Name: Llama (@dydymoon, @HelloShreyas) DefiLlama TVL at snapshot: $1,790,756 Transactions/Day at snapshot: 38 Tiers: 3 Optimism native: No Number of OP tokens to claim: 300,000 OP L2 Recipient Address: 0xcd150D9CFDb39D287D69B9b1bb7111E58414aCA8 Proposal for token distribution: Distribute OP tokens to Aave Grants DAO to help grow Aave and Optimism. Rationale: Aave is a decentralized non-custodial liquidity market protocol where users can participate as deposito…

Builders rewards - 200,000 OP (2/3rd of total)

Aave Grants DAO will allocate 200k OP to involve the community by distributing grants to build on top of Aave V3 Optimism and grow the OP ecosystem.

Events (focused on Optimism ecosystem) - 100,000 OP (1/3rd of total)

Aave Grants DAO represents the Aave protocol in many DeFi events, which could be sponsored and receive hackathon prizes.

• Aave Grants sponsored events
  • Tokens will be used to either sponsor DeFi events and highlight Optimism or help fund Optimism focused events.
• Hackathon prizes
  • Tokens will be distributed to builders as prizes for building on Optimism for the next hackathons.

Distribution

8/3/22 - Foundation sends to receiver multisig 0xcd150d9cfdb39d287d69b9b1bb7111e58414aca8

6/8/23 - Multisig sends to another multisig, 0xe50c8c619d05ff98b22adf991f17602c774f785c

9/7/23 0xe50 sends to multisig 0x24db24abc762a6ef8a5c5b770ca62684e13b1b9c

9/10 0x24 multisends to 0x04fa (1153 OP) and 0xb00 (1153 OP), appear to be personal wallets, unclear what for

11/7 0x24 sends ~8k OP to Polynomial multisig 0x596 – presumably a builder reward

Wallet still has 290k of the 300k OP allocated

Observation

AAVE appears to be distributing its grant in accordance with expectation, albeit extremely slowly. It is probably worth checking in with them to see what their plans are from here.

Chainlink

1mm OP

Plan

[GF: Phase 0 Proposal] Aave

Project Name: Aave Author Name: Llama (@dydymoon, @HelloShreyas) DefiLlama TVL at snapshot: $1,790,756 Transactions/Day at snapshot: 38 Tiers: 3 Optimism native: No Number of OP tokens to claim: 300,000 OP L2 Recipient Address: 0xcd150D9CFDb39D287D69B9b1bb7111E58414aCA8 Proposal for token distribution: Distribute OP tokens to Aave Grants DAO to help grow Aave and Optimism. Rationale: Aave is a decentralized non-custodial liquidity market protocol where users can participate as deposito…

• The OP tokens will be rewarded to NOPs and other ecosystem participants over time in order to support and encourage building on Optimism. Given Chainlink’s integral role as the industry-leading oracle solution, the dynamics and appropriate incentives to supercharge user growth on Optimism are different from the ones of projects building exclusively on-chain (dApps). With this proposal, we aim to broadly align the interests of the Chainlink ecosystem with the Optimism ecosystem and, in turn, attract more developers/users to Optimism.

Distribution & Observation

8/3/22 Foundation wallet sends to chainlink multisig

…and that’s it. Nothing’s been done in almost 18 months.

0x

Plan

300k OP

[GF: Phase 0 Proposal] 0x (Zeroex)

Project Name: 0x (Zeroex) Author Name: @0xDAOnikita @theo_0x Defillama TVL (at snapshot): 0 Transactions/day (at snapshot): 316 Tier: 3 Optimism native: No Revisions to metrics used: N/A Number of OP tokens to claim: 300,000 L2 Recipient Address: 0xba9493f97BEF07a272998139A268398b80AB9Dd5 Proposal for token distribution: (below) Background Functioning as a credibly neutral public good, 0x Protocol is the open-source, global backbone for decentralized exchange. Developers use 0x to add…

• To accelerate distribution, 0x Grants will award grants <$10k, similar to our current grant initiative supporting Polygon 2. If larger grants are requested, an onchain, community vote will be held. Over the past year, the 0x community has awarded more than $1.2M in builder-focused grants 3, with ~$300k awarded directly by 0x Grants. For this initiative, we intend to allocate at least 50% of the total distribution to NFT/gaming projects building on Optimism (grant application 10).
• In addition to grants for teams developing applications, we can also foresee some of the allocation being used to fund the R&D of tools that expand governance capabilities and reach, with the goal of reducing gas costs incurred with onchain proposal voting and enabling other use cases that may benefit from multichain presence and coordination.

Distribution

7/8/22 Foundation sends to 0x multisig

8/12/22 0x Multisig sends to multisig 0x1d

2/8/23 0x1d sends 451 OP to another multisig, 0x536. I’m not sure but I think this might be related to this grant https://x.com/0xCommunityDAO/status/1623382357888626689?s=20 , as 0xsha2, who is on this multisig, retweeted it.

5/1/23 0x1d sends 233k ZRX and 27k OP to another multisig, 0xe1c. This doesn’t appear to have any information associated with it. The OP eventually ends up in an EOA, which sells for USDT. This EOA is a signer on a multisig that gets the ZRX, so this appears to have the structure of another grant.

268k OP left.

Discussion

Again, this appears to be consistent with expectation, but the distribution of this is remarkably slow. Would definitely want to hear more about their plans there - and what the deal was with that 5/1 transfer.

Synapse

Plan

1mm OP

150k OP to developers

450k OP for liq mining on major coins and stables on Synapse

• We currently incentivize each pool with close to 12k SYN (around $36k) per week, or roughly 624,000 SYN (around $2m) per year and have close to $30m of TVL across both pools. Given our stablecoin pool was launched more recently, it only represents 20% of our Optimism TVL.

400k OP for liq mining on SYN,

• In an effort to make it more affordable for users to acquire and trade SYN, we propose creating a new SYN/Stablecoin pool on Curve’s Optimism instance. As the Synapse network continues to decentralize, it will be imperative for there to be affordable venues to acquire SYN and participate in the cross-chain message validation process.

Distribution

3/26/23 - sends 850k to 0x450, which next day sends to 0xad6, a Cumberland DRW marketmaking address, which promptly deposits these in Binance.

This one’s more concerning - the 850k was intended to remain within Optimism DeFi. Sending to Cumberland, a large CEX market maker, makes this outcome unlikely.

150k OP remains.

Observation

I suggest we contact Synapse to determine what has happened with this OP.

Connext

[GF: Phase 0 Proposal] Connext

Project Name: Connext Author Name: Max Lomuscio Defillama TVL (at snapshot on Optimism): $9.8M Transactons/day (at snapshot): 92 Tier: 3 Optimism native: No Number of OP tokens to claim: 300,000 L2 Recipient Address: 0x3576aafaffe4c07f894447265b391856377157db Proposal for token distribution Background: Connext (connext.network) is a cross chain protocol that allows users to quickly and inexpensively transfer tokens and data across chains, and builders to create secure cross chain appli…

300k OP

• LM rewards for stable swap LPs (AMM) on Optimism: 250,000 OP
• Sponsor Vaults: these subsidize gas fees for transfers to Optimism, making them cheap for users and protocols. 50,000 OP

Distribution

Still hasn’t claimed its OP

Gelato

300k OP

[GF: Phase 0 Proposal] Gelato🍦

Project Name: Gelato Network Author Name: Hilmar Maximilian Orth Defillama TVL (at snapshot): $0.0 M Transactions/day (at snapshot): 183 Transactions/lifetime on Optimism: 23,000 Tier: 3 Optimism native: No Revisions to metrics used: N/A Number of OP tokens to claim: 300k L2 Recipient Address: 0x01ea687Be2937D4Bfd9e302b8dbD3be8d9bDb14e Proposal for token distribution: Background Gelato is web3’s leading smart contract automation protocol. We provide a decentralised network of bots us…

250k OP - subsidies

• We will be subsidising usage of Gelato’s infrastructure network by having the network charge 0% fees on transactions that are automated by Gelato.

50k OP - builder bounties

Distribution

Gelato Phase 0 Grant Update

Initial Phase 0 cycle-1 Proposal Gelato (passed): https://gov.optimism.io/t/gf-phase-0-proposal-gelato/873 We would like to share an update with the community since receiving the OP tokens as part of the Phase 0 proposal. In the following section, we will provide a short summary on the progress made, the impact that the grant has had on our network, and our plans for the future. Summary: Gelato is on a mission to become the decentralized backend of web3 with the aim to help projects outsour…

Gelato gave an update here, easily verified onchain.

5/12 - 50k OP to https://debank.com/profile/0x6a0a93cd6d6fb7a36bf6234ef4650bf9474e7682, which sells for ETH and sends 10e to each of four different wallets. Although it’s in a more roundabout fashion, it appears to be a similar structure to the previously disclosed bounties.

202k OP remaining.

Observations

Gelato’s been relatively great in providing updates; would love to see how it plans to carry out the remainder of its bounties.