As promised, this will be a continuously updated thread loosely tracking where the granted OP has gone. My goal is to cover all of the grants, tracking how OP flowed to likely user or team wallets, and to what ends. Among other things Iāll be paying attention to distribution (e.g., how many OP paid out per user connected, share of top 5 wallets, etc) and to whether the OP was used for intended ends.
This is a really time-consuming thing that requires some double-checking, and even then I might get things wrong. So I invite people to join me on this, especially the project teams that will be referenced. Iāll generally try to do outreach to those teams privately to get more clarity before posting publicly, though.
The 1inch Network is thrilled to announce that a total of 300,000 OP tokens will be distributed among the 1inch Walletās 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 Walletās 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 grantās application as a retro airdrop and the low, flat rate of OP distributed.
Observation and Recommendation
This was a retroactive airdrop, which was not detailed in the governance proposal.
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 itās not clear what the catalyst for such an increase would be.
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: Itās 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.
Other context: Celer had already been running incentives with its native token, so the largest wallets had already been farming. What was strange was that the largest wallets were repeatedly depositing and withdrawing their liquidity, which might indicate the intention was to game some sort of reward.
Celer rewarding USDC, USDT, and ETH
150K OP: gas rebates for bridging
cBridge can facilitate that structure by covering a portion of the gas fee that the user needs to pay. For example, if a user bridges 10 USDC from Avalanche, instead of getting $9.5 with the $0.5 covering the gas costs on Optimism, she would now get $9.8 with $0.3 covered by cBridge through $OP token distribution to Celerās validator networks.
200K OP: builder grant
Duration
6ā12 months expected
Announcement and intention
Fee rebate to start 11/15
The fee rebate proportion is 80%, however the total rebate amount per user is capped to the āPer-User Rebate Maximumā (5,000 OP) mentioned above.
Distribution
Liquidity Mining - 650k allocated
8/4 - Foundation sends 1mm OP to 0xf5e9d550c3c50364d630edb4753be404cd109121, which immediately sends to EOA 0xf5e9d550c3c50364d630edb4753be404cd109121 then sends ā to EOA 0x20f3880a281092dbc6699e5d5a0ff5feb3d3db1a.
8/11- 0x20f sends 10k OP to farming reward contract 0x06292de88adb3b1557b034ebb1c367e65ab93e4c
9/21- 0x20f sends 100k OP to farming reward contract 0x062
Liquidity mining here is likely linear so the rewards will follow a preset schedule. Of note is that the 0x062 contract has a function drainToken which lets the dev wallet retrieve the OP. OP is manually transferred in to the contract in batches.
Of the 650k allocated for distribution, only ~50k has been claimed. However, the rate of rewards distribution is unclear; weād have to check with the Celer team to see how theyāve programmed it.
Address
OP
Share
Cumulative Share
0x2ddbd93427608f5ff3a7f83f46f293aa410ddea9
8624
15%
15%
0x089a2c44131b1eb30cc4fc226560163fcef2c288
6101
11%
26%
0x21d9c1d2cdcb44b04e6ded64dd89bcf5fcb09ce5
4395
8%
34%
0x4fc126b084fd491cf417c306717019e9c0d6d087
2754
5%
38%
0xa2ada734d1d76e3d689fdb0c676ceb95bfd6cacf
2705
5%
43%
0x10bf1dcb5ab7860bab1c3320163c6dddf8dcc0e4
2240
4%
47%
0xf0eabe8052643d080df6cffcc637b2b3bc0e6ad2
1954
3%
51%
0xf0bbfb6b0d222e0d065538546d20302298752446
1854
3%
54%
0xdb38e01ba0d515ef152c79155f19e338cd823a56
1776
3%
57%
0x8604c23ac29342c1bed458cee6be460054cda8c9
1617
3%
60%
0x9a25d79ab755718e0b12bd3c927a010a543c2b31
1511
3%
62%
The first and third wallets are related, so the top three entities are getting 38% of all rewards claimed to date. However, of the top four wallets, only #2, 0x089, is still farming.1 This could mean that much of the distribution has yet to be claimed by large providers still farming.
We thus wonāt know the largest beneficiaries without directly investigating the pool itself.
Fee Rebate - 150k allocated
Just started. 11/15 0x20f sends 10k OP to āIncentiveEventsRewardā contract 0xf6C5d7DA1654d9BbDe0D25A5fd6776B37a2aD881
drainToken also exists in this contract.
Will revisit in a month or so to get a sense of spend rate.
Unused
880k OP remains in EOA
Brief performance analysis
TVL
Overall, across chains, Celerās TVL has decreased ~30% since 8/42
On Optimism, Celerās TVL has roughly tracked that decrease, but some recent deposits have brought it almost back up to the start of the period.3 From my view, taking out the recent deposit, this suggests that the grant hasnāt had a meaningful impact on liquidity.
More transaction volume (particularly inbound) is an intended second-order effect of the grant. The data suggest that the grant hasnāt noticeably facilitated bridge activity.
On Optimism, Celer has decreased 1 percentage point in transaction share since August. from ~3.4% to 2.3%4
Across crypto, Celerās 1m volume is roughly 20% the amount of the leader, Multichain. On Optimism, it is only 4% of the leader, the Optimism Gateway, and 5% of the #2 bridge, Multichain.5 Again, there doesnāt appear to have been a meaningful increase in share, which is what one would expect to occur as a result of this grant.
Distribution to date seems properly managed and not obviously to related parties, though any related parties are likely to still have their liquidity in and thus likely not to have claimed rewards yet. A more thorough analysis would identify the largest liquidity providers to this bridge.
This grant doesnāt appear to have been deployed to any real effect. It could be worth revisiting the length of time used on this grant or the timing (maybe the moment isnāt right). Or, if the Grants Council has the authority, they could even revisit the scope of the grant in collaboration with Celer.
It might be interesting to evaluate the grant distribution on bridges relative to activity.
Cycle 1: Projects that havenāt 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).
200k OP for builder grants 100k OP for Optimism-focused events:
Distribution
8/3 Foundation sends 300k OP to multisig 0xcd150D9CFDb39D287D69B9b1bb7111E58414aCA8
Chainlink
Proposal
1mm OP for āNOPs and other ecosystem participants over time in order to support and encourage building on Optimismā
Distribution
8/3 Foundation sends 1mm OP to multisig 0x7EE753e87f20eb3262967c2Fc54762b0B4Ff4D75
0x
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
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 wonāt be distributed; Zipswap recently announced plans to cease operations as a team.
Synapse
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
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
Proposal
250k OP for fee rebates
50k OP for builder bounties
Distribution
7/8 Foundation sends 300k OP to multisig 0x01ea687Be2937D4Bfd9e302b8dbD3be8d9bDb14e.
Observations
This is a lot of undeployed OP (and this is only for one phase), and itās worth checking in with these projects to see what has held them up, whether itās operational issues, market conditions, changes in plans, lack of demand for builder grants, etc.
It could be worth coordinating the release of these lingering incentives at a planned date.
It could also be interesting to see whether these projectsā outlooks or strategies have changed in any way and explore potential changes in scope.
Past a point thereās got to be something like a deadline to start these grants; are we going to honor them if projects donāt claim funds by a year from now, for example?
Back from hiatus. Thanks for bearing with me.
Polynomialās still pending some data from the team so skipped ahead to Aelin.
I wonāt spend too much time on Aelin because it is already known to governance that they went off spec in managing their grant.
Proposal
900k OP
360k OP to LP stakers / liq mining
540k OP to a pool incentive program
Distribution
7/14 Fdn transfers 900k to Aelin multisig 0x17990cb7fbe68b7c2a31a9976970466cd1e7fed9
7/19 - 9/06 Aelin multisig sends 30,270 OP for liq mining
9/7 - 2,766 OP multisent to 29 wallets, reason unclear but appear to be pool incentives per proposal spec
9/16 - Multisig sends remaining 866,963 OP to 127 wallets as private sale for AELIN, following https://aelips.aelin.xyz/aelips/aelip-35/. This move was done unilaterally.
Observation
Although there may have been a fine reason for Aelinās move to use OP as deal incentives, it was undoubtedly out of scope for the team to make a unilateral decision and a bad precedent overall.
If a project is in distress, it could be worth Optimismās while to find a way to support it, but determining whether and how best to support should be a cooperative effort between governance and a grantee. Otherwise, the OP ought to be returned.
7/8 foundation sends 300kOP to Slingshot multisig 0x9D439E524F214Fb0cb5fA42030E578F60E64D98C
8/26 Slingshot multisig sends 25,653 OP to merkle distributor 0x307c3487e0165a6cfc384165d2d914a034ac8c90
The distributor sends 2608 txs to unique addresses of amts of 1,3,6, and 12 OP. 3,313 OP remaining.
8/27 Slingshot msig sends 13,942 OP to merkle distributor 0x3dea6da7cdad789e6d947c3e983ab4f996a7bbc1
Same but to 1,215 addresses, 2,275 OP remaining.
9/1 sends 3,738 OP to merkle distributor 0xa46fd59672434d1917972f1469565baeb57ed204
Same but 933 addresses 1,081 OP remaining.
9/30 sends 81,480 OP to unverified distributor 0x407da3E66095e28852774D5B88A575D75FDc6af4
same as above but for 3,855 addresses and now at values of 25, 5, and 1 OP 4,717 OP remaining here.
10/12 sends 9,522 OP to unverified distributor 0x6053cbeb363A0b4a07b1EBCC7C8c3863ff546F7C
Same as above but amounts of 2 OP, 6 OP, and 12 OP to 1359 wallets. 5,740 OP remaining here.
There are 165,665 OP remaining in the main multisig, which after roughly 3 months puts this grant more or less on track timewise.
There are three wallets that participated in each of these but they appear to be test wallets, and in any case the compensations were for tiny amounts.
Observations
This program appears to have been more or less followed to the letter.
The next step of analysis for this (and, really, any other grant) would be to assess the efficacy of these handouts. I believe that it ought to be feasible to do some basic statistics given the final addresses distributed to: is there sibyl risk, were these wallets activated, did they participate in other incentives as well.
Been some time since the last update ā had some personal developments as well as the start of grants council. I figured it was fine because so many projects hadnāt started yet.
Soon Iāll pick this back up - will start with Polynomial Protocolās grant.
122,767 OP | A few builder grants, and plans for a second distribution in q2 or q3
@jackanorak You are right, it would be time consuming for yourself to go through and cover all of the grants. Hope others from Season-1/Season-2 can contribute
ācan you report how the retro airdrop has gone? and whereās the liquidity mining component?ā
Retro Airdrop:
Claim Statistics:
125,100 OP has been claimed out of the 148,600 OP (84%)
22,180 out of 26,888 addresses have claimed so far (82%)
Criteria:
Rewarding those that Provided Liquidity and kept it in there
Claimed the OP Quest (deposit and swap once)
traded on Clipper more than other dexes combined
December 15th being the cutoff which goes hand in hand with our Adventure series which also concluded December 15th (One month prior to the retro drop) where depending on number of swaps or providing liquidity you received NFTs, so those that participated in these Liquidity Mining/Trading like activities were the ones that were likely to receive more from the past behavour distribution. This first drop is kind of an amalgamation of a few of the points in the proposal.
