Good to see some numbers from a neutral source. I think this is more evidence that liquidity mining programs are beneficial to boostrap some initial liquidity, but after the initial couple of weeks it’s best to let the protocols organically find their equilibrium. As such, we should focus more on user onboarding and diverse activity, rather than liquidity mining and chasing TVLs repeatedly - particularly given other factors like the high risk of Optimism’s current centralized state.
Earlier, I had written my personal guidelines for what would qualify a project for a repeat grant: Polynya - Delegate Communication Thread - 
Governance / Delegate Updates - Optimism Collective
Having mulled over it, Velodrome does not meet my criteria. a) Rises in liquidity and adoption was largely frontloaded in July & August and growth has flatlined over time. Even if it had continued growing linearly, I would expect a gradual wind-down of incentives over time. b) Time has not passed yet without incentives to assess the effects. And c) there’s no new approaches - it’s still mostly about liquidity irrespective of adjacent narratives.
As such, I have now voted Against. I’ll be following along the conversation, and I’ll be open to changing my vote to Abstain if more compelling arguments emerge.
My hope would be to assess the effects of Velodrome without incentives, and to see a more compelling proposal in the future based on a) what’s learned from that and b) new strategies to onboard users beyond focusing on liquidity - already been there, done that with the first grant. If the vote passes, I would expect significant increase in activity on Velodrome & the wider Optimism community versus what has come before. If all I see is status quo or mild growth, it’s not good enough for a repeat grant.