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

[jackanorak]

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
Clipper
Zipswap*
Kwenta
Hop Protocol
Synapse*
Connext*
Rubicon
Gelato*
Stargate Finance
Lyra V1
Perpetual Protocol

Aave

[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…

Proposal

200k OP for builder grants
100k OP for Optimism-focused events:

@helloshreyas

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 Foundation sends 300k OP to multisig 0xcd150D9CFDb39D287D69B9b1bb7111E58414aCA8

---

Chainlink

[GF: Phase 0 Proposal] Chainlink

Project Name: Chainlink Author Name: Chainlink Team Defillama TVL (at snapshot): $0M Transactions/day (at snapshot): 2,593 Tier: 2 Optimism Native: No Number of OP tokens to claim: 1,000,000 L2 Recipient Address: 0x7EE753e87f20eb3262967c2Fc54762b0B4Ff4D75 Token distribution proposal The Chainlink Network is a protocol that supports the creation of decentralized oracle networks that enable data feeds, off-chain computation, and cross-chain messaging on and between blockchain networks. Th…

Proposal

1mm OP for “NOPs and other ecosystem participants over time in order to support and encourage building on Optimism”

Distribution

8/3 Foundation sends 1mm OP to multisig 0x7EE753e87f20eb3262967c2Fc54762b0B4Ff4D75

---

0x

[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…

Proposal

300k OP to the 0x Grants program for ecosystem builders

Distribution

7/8 Foundation sends 300k OP to multisig 0xba9493f97BEF07a272998139A268398b80AB9Dd5
8/12 0xba9 sends to another multisig, 0x1d702651ed22736eEb261aC9E2B72E7F79Ed9EA9

---

Zipswap

[GF: Phase 0 Proposal] Zipswap

Project Name: Zipswap Author Name: Canti Defillama TVL (at snapshot): $9.5M Transactions/day (at snapshot): 74 Tier: 3 Optimism native: Yes Revisions to metrics used: N/A Number of OP tokens to claim: 900,000 L2 Recipient Address: 0x8602EE2f8AaEb671E409b26d48E36DD8Cc3B7ED7 Proposal for Token Distribution: Background: Zipswap is a DEX designed to reduce gas fees on optimistic rollups by compressing calldata. Development and incentives are currently active only on the Optimism chain. W…

Proposal

• 630k OP for gas fee rebates
• 270k OP liquidity incentivization around planned tokenomics overhaul

Distribution

OP never distributed from Foundation; information and directions were never provided by team.

It appears that this grant won’t be distributed; Zipswap recently announced plans to cease operations as a team.

ZipSwap

---

Synapse

[GF: Phase 0 Proposal] Synapse Protocol

Project Name: Synapse Protocol Author Name: Max Bronstein Defilama TVL (at snapshot): $38.9M Transactions/day (at snapshot) 23 Tier: 2 Optimism Native: No Revisions to metrics used: N/A Number of OP tokens to claim: 1,000,000 L2 Recipient Address: 0x2e07DA88586C442aDE6A442106A04eDc7378265d Proposal for token distribution: Background Synapse Protocol is a cross-chain communications network used to seamlessly interconnect all blockchains. The Synapse Protocol is comprised of a messaging…

Proposal

• 150k OP for builder grants
• 450k OP for liquidity mining, particularly on stablecoin pool (USDC,DAI,USDT,nUSD)
• 400k OP for liquidity mining on proposed SYN/Stable Curve pool

Distribution

No distribution has been made by the Foundation to the planned multisig 0x2431CBdc0792F5485c4cb0a9bEf06C4f21541D52.

---

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…

Proposal

• 250k OP for liquidity mining on stable pools
• 50k OP for gas rebates

Distribution

No distribution has been made by the Foundation to the planned multisig 0x3576aafaffe4c07f894447265b391856377157db.

---

Gelato

[GF: Phase 0 Proposal] Gelato🍦

Gelato such great project for optimism grown support this proposal

Proposal

250k OP for fee rebates

@hilmarx

Subsidising infrastructure costs for web3 developers is the cleanest and least subjective way Gelato can help projects go live and bootstrap on new networks such as Optimism. 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 for builder bounties

@hilmarx

We will use 50k of the OP incentives to help more of these developers figure out how to automate certain functionalities that they are looking to build for their dApps on Optimism. Example ideas would be e.g. building Resolver smart contracts which help automate Synthetix reward claimings on Optimism using Gelato. We will post certain ideas which anyone can start implementing as well as being open for anyone to propose interesting use cases for Optimism themselves!

Distribution

7/8 Foundation sends 300k OP to multisig 0x01ea687Be2937D4Bfd9e302b8dbD3be8d9bDb14e.

---

Observations

1. This is a lot of undeployed OP (and this is only for one phase), and it’s worth checking in with these projects to see what has held them up, whether it’s operational issues, market conditions, changes in plans, lack of demand for builder grants, etc.
2. It could be worth coordinating the release of these lingering incentives at a planned date.
3. It could also be interesting to see whether these projects’ outlooks or strategies have changed in any way and explore potential changes in scope.
4. Past a point there’s got to be something like a deadline to start these grants; are we going to honor them if projects don’t claim funds by a year from now, for example?