Optimism Working Models for Decentralization
In the recent weeks, the community has started an important conversation about the Collective’s path towards full decentralization. The Foundation remains fully committed to this transition over the course of multiple years, as originally outlined in our Working Constitution. We’ve realized that the context gap between the Foundation and the community about this path is too wide. Below, we introduce several working models intended to narrow this gap:
- Decentralization Milestone Working Model
- Decision Diagram Working Model (+ Decision Design Framework)
These working models are not intended to be roadmaps. There is an inherent trade-off between flexibility and specification. These working models are intended to preserve flexibility, and allow the community to collaborate with us in testing, adapting, and evolving these working models as we learn together. In order to provide more specificity, the Foundation will also publish governance roadmaps at the start of each Season, as part of the Intent setting process. These roadmaps will inform the portions of these working models that are prioritized in the coming Season, and these working models can help contextualize each Season’s roadmaps within the broader system and path towards decentralization.
You can expect a Season 7 governance roadmap to be published alongside Season 7 Intents during the Reflection Period. This roadmap will inform the specific portions of the below working models prioritized in Season 7.
Decentralization Milestone Working Model
See this loom for a brief overview.
Goal: Create a working model that demonstrates the Foundation’s thinking about the major decentralization milestones, their dependencies, and the work necessary to be done to move from one phase to the next. We hope this working model facilitates ongoing conversations about dependencies and better enables the community to contribute to decentralization efforts. It can also serve as a tool to hold the Foundation publicly accountable to making progress towards these milestones.
Taking inspiration from L2BEAT’s “stages of decentralization” framework for technical decentralization, this working model outlines the Optimism specific milestones required to achieve full decentralization (protocol, economic, and social). This model also outlines the dependencies and interdependencies preventing progression to the next phase.
This is meant to be a working model for understanding the progression of decentralization within the Collective and it should evolve over time with regular discussion.
We are about to complete Phase A. Phase C represents the level of maturity in which the Collective is a self-managing system that represents all 4 principles outlined in our Working Constitution:
- Governance minimization
- Forkability
- Anti-plutocracy
- Impact = Profit
Milestones will be updated as they are accomplished and we recommend re-evaluating progress towards this framework at the end of each Season. We suggest piloting this process at the end of Season 6 and updating milestones as part of the Season 7 Intent setting process.
Please see the model notes and legend for additional information about this working model.
Governance Decision Diagram Working Model
See this loom for a brief overview.
Goal: Create a working model of the full decision making surface area of Optimism governance, demonstrate how these decisions interrelate, and provide a framework for how these decisions might be designed. This diagram represents the full self-managing system described in Phase C of the decentralization milestone model. It can serve as a tool for governance participants to orient their work within the system and understand the decision making infrastructure required to bring additional responsibilities online.
This working model outlines the Foundation’s view of the full governance decision space to be established by Phase C. The ultimate goal of the Foundation is not to make these decisions directly. The goal of the Foundation is to bootstrap the infrastructure and policies required to allow governance participants to effectively make these decisions. We’ve open sourced our Decision Design Framework, to inform how we approach the design of each decision module within this diagram. At a future date, we may also publish the hypothesis to be tested in the development of each decision module. With this information, we hope that contributors can better aid the Foundation in the metagovernance design of each decision module.
This diagram is advisory in nature: it provides guidance to the community on how the Foundation considers various decision pathways across the Collective, and is intended to inform - but not define - the governance community’s decision-making processes.
Please see the model notes and legend for additional information about this working model.
Navigating the path towards decentralization requires navigating ambiguity, uncertainty, and dynamic conditions. We hope these working models serve as a tool for the community to understand the Foundation’s approach while allowing for enough flexibility and adaptability to build a system that reflects current realities and that can withstand the test of time.
As always, we’re open to your feedback on any and all of the above!
