This is a difficult one for me. I read the entire thread and I can see both pros and cons.
But ultimately I am leaning towards a NO.
PROS
CONS
For suggestions for the future if this does not pass (though it seems it will), I will simply echo @OPUser as I agree with them.
I’m going to very reluctantly vote yes, I tend to agree with @lefterisjp that the amount is too high, but @linda has some good points about the reward structure and length of distribution. Perhaps most importantly, as noted, feedback was taken into consideration which is always important to see.
Still, I think we should be very careful about setting precedent around such large amounts for initial grants moving forward.
I’ve said my piece about this particular proposal though am continuing to want to hear more about the breakdown of these projects’ TVLs and previous funding to date. If it passes, I’m sure liquidity on that pool will increase, which is a good thing.
As a general matter I’d like to point out that increasing the token ask along with the duration of the distribution does not make a proposal better – it increases the stakes of the grant and decreases the ability for governance to lend ongoing oversight and course-correct if necessary. This was the original issue I had with this proposal (I had no major objection before, to be clear), and I’d like to encourage delegates to look past the high-level features in making their final determinations.
For instance, I commend Byte Masons for lowering their ask along with decreasing the duration. This allows for more thoughtful review and staging of distributions.
Thanks for your feedback Jack! I really appreciate the ongoing constructive criticism here. However, I do think it is worth mentioning that risk assessment was a key factor in structuring the proposal the way that we did.
We had originally intended on each service provider creating their own separate proposals. However, we realized that having multiple sources of liquidity was important without any single point of failure. So we wanted to avoid the outcome where it was just one provider distributing all the rewards according to their own strategy. I think having two managers and the community via the Uni v3 Staker adds to decentralization and security of the OP liquidity, while also ensuring good active management around the current price.
Proposing a means of splitting up the management of the distribution is fantastic and, frankly, something I’d love to see more of from other proposals.
But then give the community the opportunity to review and propose adjustments over time rather than asking for more money and more time without oversight.
I’d still love to hear more about funding to date of these protocols and how much organic TVL is coming from venture investors. This would have gone a long way toward enabling the community to do its own risk assessment.
In the future, for instance, I’d love to see how much money xToken raised from these investors, when this fundraising occurred
and how much of xToken’s TVL is coming from them. This would enable us to know how sticky new TVL is likely to be.
Similarly, Gamma Strategies have gotten some remarkably high-profile investors, some of whom have a high likelihood of adding value through beefing up TVL metrics. Would love some more information on this.
OP distributions are for the funding of public goods; for some people these refer to benefits that otherwise go unfunded by the private sector.
Again, this is not a knock on the current proposal, but I think all those voters who held their nose at the size of the ask - @polynya , @linda , @ceresstation - ought to take these issues into account going forward. I’ll be recommending for Season 2 that protocols be asked to disclose up front their funding and liquidity sources.
Hi Jack,
To my knowledge, our investors have not been contributing to our TVL. If they have, it’s not coming from any of their official ENS accounts or wallet addresses, and it would have been without our knowledge. However, I don’t think that’s a likely scenario.
More than half of our TVL to date have been sourced via partnerships with DAOs and protocols that we manage liquidity on behalf of. These include Liquity, Ribbon Finance, Index Coop, Friends with Benefits DAO, etc. We have made countless announcements on our Twitter page. The other portion has come from public LPs, mostly on Ethereum Mainnet and Polygon thus far; however, we are focused in growing Optimism at the moment, both from a partnership standpoint and public LP standpoint.
The TVL that has been incentivized on our end came from partnering protocols such as H2OData. But that makes up a minor portion of our overall TVL, and we do plan to keep partnering with protocols on Optimism that will incentivize pairs on Optimism. This should work in favor of the Optimism ecosystem as liquidity incentives not from $OP are driving liquidity to Optimism.
Hope that answers your questions.
Thanks!
Brian
To clarify, this governance fund is not for funding public goods, it is for growing the Optimism ecosystem. @vonnie610 clarified in Discord:
"The governance fund is actually NOT FOR FUNDING PUBLIC GOODS. It is for growing the ecosystem. The Citizen house (which is not live yet) is for public goods funding.
The token house is for fostering and growing the ecosystem."
Why wait? Ask now before we find out about another “Perp” cash grab.
it absolutely does - thank you!
i’d like to see more of this kind of breakdown from protocols going forward
I appreciate the clarification and would like to rephrase. We are currently in a bootstrapping stage, and the priority is growth rather than aid – which certainly doesn’t put privately funded protocols out of scope.
That doesn’t mean we don’t consider opportunity costs when considering well-resourced projects; we want to make sure OP goes toward proposals that offer outsized growth potential, and my belief is that, all else equal, less funded projects with traction have more to offer from active support, whereas better funded projects have a higher bar to demonstrate additional growth potential from even more funding.
That we’re still in growth mode lends all the more reason to ensure that the protocols seeking resourcing have demonstrated some clear ability to add value and grow the ecosystem, particularly if we are offering large sums with little followup. If they haven’t shown traction, even with a lot of funding (which is a reason people cited in voting down Dope Wars), that weakens confidence in their growth potential.
Voting Yes as the proposal adds quality projects, professional & passive users to Optimism.
Value-add: Good
Amount: Okay
Op distribution: Okay
Co-incentives: None
It’s great to see projects collaborate on Optimism ecosystem building proposals.
Co-incentives are a nice-to-have but not a must-have in our opinion. If smaller projects add real value, cannot match incentives but distribute the Op funds in a meaningful way (not only internal development, own token liquidity, but for Optimism growth), this is a better use of Op funds than throwing match funding at large projects with their undifferentiated, short-term LM campaigns.
That said, we haven’t seen a top top Uni v3 liquidity management protocol and we would rather/also like to see funding for multiple cycles of 4-6 weeks to try different liquidity mining incentives (see early Balancer liquidity experiments); potentially even liquidity mining competitions and accompanying analytics of best user behavior - instead of 1, 2 bulk liquidity mining campaigns.
We voted yes on this proposal. With the total amount being distributed across three providers, we believe that this proposal offers a good range of incentives for increased usage and liquidity on OP.
This is good feedback and information I generally look for, but ultimately where else they have raised funding for doesn’t really matter - the goal of Gov Fund is to incentivize usage on Optimism.
[Final]
Voting: No
In consultation with our community, this proposal the requested amount looks too much.
Suggestions: proposals seem reasonable if the amount were reduced by 50% for example, although always willing to see other forms of distribution or a greater diversity of proposed pools, focused on the ecosystem.
I support this proposal 
Yes. Even though amount is high, it will be distributed to 3 different protocols. Liquidity is important for OP token.
Project quality: Mid - 10M in joint TVL
Team quality: Mid
Amount requested: Mid - 300k per project for 6 months
OP distribution: Reasonable - It’s gonna be farmed to the ground but liqudity for OP token is important so I think it’s acceptable. Furthermore, the LM program benefits Uniswap LPs not xToken or Gamma users, so again, I think it’s fine.
@ben_xtoken can you provide a Telegram handle or other contact method so the Optimism team can get in touch about paying out this grant! Feel free to comment on this thread, DM, or email justine@optimism.io