Optimism Gov Summary

Updates and Announcements 📢 Governance Updates
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Optimism Gov Summary | August 15th – September 22th

We’ll share the latest activity in the Collective. You’ll find:

  • Voting updates

  • Commissions & Councils updates

  • Forum highlights

  • What’s New in the Collective?

  • Upcoming Calls

Voting Updates

There’s an active vote on Agora, running until September 25th and part of Voting Cycle#42:

  • Maintenance Upgrade Proposal: U16a: This upgrade is a maintenance release that replaces U16, removes inactive interop withdrawal-proving code and introduces SystemConfig-based feature toggles for chain-specific configuration. It is optimistically approved and will proceed unless vetoed. Token House delegates, Citizens’ House members and chain operators have until September 25, 2025 to exercise their veto rights before execution.

Commissions & Councils Updates

:classical_building: Grants Council

  • Cycle 41 Grants Council Report: Cycle 41 closed the first Growth round of Season 8 with one approval: 40acres.finance was approved for 200,000 OP, seventeen other applications are still in review waiting for applicant feedback, and only one was declined. Almost 3M OP was requested this round, so there’s still plenty of budget left for future approvals. This was also the first time the Council ran the first fully continuous review process, introduced opgrants.io through the Karma GAP migration, and confirmed that the AI filter worked as intended.

Developer Advisory Board

:thread: Forum Highlights

  • An important update from the S8 Governance Fund Missions post is that “To widen the aperture and better align with the updated interop development timelines, the Foundation has decided to slightly adjust the success metrics for the second objective (”Grow TVL on the Superchain”). The two existing success metrics will remain but without the interop-specific focus. Instead of only prioritizing interop-ready TVL and interop transaction fees, progress towards this objective will now be evaluated based on generic TVL and total transaction fees. This shift aims to create optimal ecosystem conditions that will help interop thrive once it goes live. The proposed impact measurement methodology for S8 is detailed in this post. You can track timelines for upgrades 17 and 18 on the public roadmap.”
  • S7 ROI Summary & Learnings: Season 7 united the Collective around growing Superchain TVL and this post reviews how that goal played out: it summarizes the impact analyses on grants, Retro Funding, Futarchy, and Superstacks, surfaces challenges like attribution and cost tracking, and explains how these findings are shaping Season 8 through adjusted budgets, improved program design and transparency.
  • Season 7 Impact Analyses and Season 8 Budgeting: Grants, retro funding for developer tooling and onchain builders, and Futarchy v1 helped show how the ecosystem is evolving, with more insight into Foundation growth through Superstacks. These lessons carry into Season 8 with updated council budgets, the Developer Advisory Board and Security Council, and a new Collective Reward Framework to guide incentives.
  • Season 8: Budget Transparency Report: This report provides transparency into the Season 8 operating budget distribution. Season 8 allocated 4.44M OP across four councils with proportional reductions totaling 17,840 OP to stay within budget, using continuous Superfluid streaming payments through December 2025 while transferring more operational responsibility from Foundation to community members. Check the Operating Budget Dashboard.
  • Introducing improvements to the Protocol Upgrade process: since August 1, protocol upgrades are approved by the elected Developer Advisory Board and proceed automatically unless stakeholders veto them during a 1-week window. This gives delegates and Citizens meaningful oversight without requiring constant voting.

:magnifying_glass_tilted_right: What’s New in the Collective?

  • Season 8 kicks off with 182 builders rewarded through Retro Funding :clap:: 109 onchain apps and 79 dev tools. Read more here.
  • :sparkles: Superchain in August saw $21.8B in assets secured across 33 chains, 17 million daily transactions, and a median cost of just $0.0014: https://x.com/Optimism/status/1968352499192209749
  • :red_circle: Optimism is partnering with Flashbots to bring fast, configurable and verifiable sequencing to every OP Stack chain. This collaboration means near-instant confirmations with Flashblocks, more customizable block building and responsible MEV capture that keeps value in the ecosystem, all rolling out to OP Mainnet and the Superchain in the coming months. More details at Optimism Partners with Flashbots to Accelerate Sequencing for Every OP Stack Chain - Optimism
  • @Ronin_Network is coming home to Ethereum, choosing Optimism’s OP Stack to build Ethereum’s gamification engine :sparkles:

:date: Upcoming Calls

  • DAB Office Hours will be on Tuesday, September 23rd at 14:00 UTC.
  • Grants Council Office Hours will be on Wednesday, October 8th at 17:00 UTC.

Stay tuned in the Optimism Calendar for updates.

Are we missing something? Feedback and suggestions are always welcome.

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