Season 6 Nominations: Grants Council

[system]

Season 6 Nominations: Grants Council

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Please post your self-nominations for the Season 6 Grants Council here, according to the template and process outlined here. There are 17 open positions on this Council in Season 6, according to the approved Charter.

Nominations must have been posted on this thread by 19:00 GMT on Wednesday, June 5th.

[Derbygold.eth]

Grants Council Self-Nomination Template

Please keep your answers as concise as possible while conveying all relevant information.

Council sub-committee:
Optimism Mission Reviewer

If you are a delegate, please provide the link to your delegate profile:

0x11...61F0 on Agora

If you are a delegate, please indicate what % of votable supply is delegated to you: (voting power can be referenced here)

N/A

If you are a delegate, please indicate your voting participation rate in OP governance to date: (You may link to your profile on Karma 7, if applicable.)

It’s 100% on both Snapshot and Agora right from day 1 (initially i delegated to @olimpio, which does not reflect in the data. )

Active delegates of Optimism

Please link to your voting history and any voting rationale you’ve shared: (You may link to your Snapshot and/or Agora profile for voting history. You may link to your delegate communication thread, or any other medium you use to communicate with your delegators, to share your voting rationale.)

My voting rationale is shared on each individual proposal voted on Agora.
My opinions are also scattered across social media.

https://snapshot.org/#/profile/0x110B8b6717C4Da32d86A8D3ef78964d44f9D61F0

Derbygold.eth- DELEGATE COMMUNICATION THREAD

[Delegate Suspension: (https://www.tally.xyz/gov/eip155:10:0xcDF27F107725988f2261Ce2256bDfCdE8B382B10/proposal/27878184270712708211495755831534918916136653803154031118511283847257927730426) : Vote YES, The rules of the community and the delegation process is a responsibility that is acquired and must be respected at all times, that is why I agree to suspend your participation in this process. Upgrade Proposal: Bedrock : Vote YES, It’s a small step for Optimism but a big step for Ethereum scalab…

0x11...61F0 on Agora

Do you have a technical background?: If so, please elaborate

I’m a non-coder. I was a Senior Grants Reviewer for Polygon for over a year (from scratch to sunsetting) having reviewed over 500+ applications including 200+ applications of gaming dApp. My understanding on technical background with respect to reviewing grants is the knowledge of understanding the entire spectrum of crypto space. I am not a developer or a coder but I understand the dynamic structure of web3 that helps me in evaluating project’s needs. My reviews were highly valued from ecosystem and business perspectives for impact, leverage and ecosystem growth for public goods as well since I hail from financial markets with 16+ years of expertise. I understand Defi and gamefi at expert level since I am a market maker(manual), arbitrageur, hedger and delta trader.

Please demonstrate any non-Optimism experience you believe is relevant to this role and/or your sub-committee:

I was a Senior Grants Reviewer for Polygon for over a year (from scratch to sunsetting) and had an opportunity to review in total of 500+ proposals (average of 35-50 proposals a month) which also includes 200+ gaming dApps disbursing cash grants to the tune of >1 million $ along with triple the value in non-cash components.

Reviewing applications to determine whether they meet the stated criteria for the grants program.

Mentoring and hand-holding Junior Grants Reviewers.

Understanding the needs of applicants to determine eligibility and need for services.

Evaluating each applicant’s proposal against the stated criteria and scoring it accordingly.

Reviewing an applicant’s financial records to determine whether they are able to support themselves.

Making recommendations to the Dao on which applications should be funded.

Communicating with applicants to provide additional information on their applications or to answer questions about the application process.

Recommend the range of financial grant that can be provided after careful scrutiny.

Recommend the range of non-financial support along with monetary grant (if applicable) that is useful for the grantee and ecosystem.

Being a senior grant reviewer and my skills of risk management, risk mitigation, quantum, applicability, impact, sustainability and beyond. These skills worked as a great combination to evaluate projects keeping in mind the goal and purpose. My background being 16+ years as Professional Market Marker, Arbitrageur in stock markets and 8+ years in web3.

My expertise of attention to details, risk management, applicability, market reach and sustainability, impact evaluation with minutest details.

Have you previously served in a representative (appointed or elected) role in the Collective? If so, please specify which: NO

Please outline your contributions, and their impact, to the Optimism ecosystem to date:

I conducted a meetup which was attended by 186 High-Networth Individuals (HNI’s) out of which 118 HNI’s bridged live to Optimism mainnet. Since, I hail from financial markets with 16+ years of experience, I am able to leverage my network of high volume traders and investors to Optimism. These are first time Optimism users. These traders & investors are still active even during last year’s bear market which is evident from their unique wallet activities. My team created a mini ecosystem for Optimism here in India.

My onchain identity is of sterling quality. Here are the details:-
1.) Regen score :- 2620
(https://regenscore.vercel.app/share/0x110B8b6717C4Da32d86A8D3ef78964d44f9D61F0 )
2.) EAS Attestation :-
(Address 0x110B8b6717C4Da32d86A8D3ef78964d44f9D61F0 - Ethereum Attestation Service)
3.) Gitcoin Passport score:- 56
4) Forum interactions: Profile - Derbygold.eth - Optimism Collective

Multiple praises on “PRAISE BOT” testifies my relentless hardwork for Optimism.

I have done thousands of transactions along with providing huge liquidity which is verifiable on-chain which includes OP mainnet as well as various superchains like Rari, Base, Pgn, Zora, Mode etc…

I have supported the Optimism ecosystem as co-grant donor and have donated to more than 125 projects building on Optimism ecosystem through OP Co-grant, Gitcoin, Octant and Giveth.

Active and diligent participation to OP governance through 100% voting till date both on Agora onchain and snapshot offchain.

Spreading the word about Optimism in Investor community and creating interest to explore globally through perpetual trading, governance participation and protocol use.

Please describe your philosophy on what makes a good Mission Application:

On good Mission Application :-

1. Clear Milestones with specific achievements
2. CCT (Clear, Comprehensive and target based) token distribution plan incentivization.
3. Retention and encouragement of old and new applicants within the ecosystem.

I believe in these 5 principles out of my experience as a Senior Grant Reviewer : -

1. Evaluating and assessing your grant recipients vulnerabilities during initial stages(MVP).

2. Enumerating short-term commitments (or long-term ones in short segments).

3. Formalization of a suitably detailed grant arrangement.

4. Recommendations of an intermediary organization for expert services.

5. Realizing the limitations of grant compliance.

What types of Mission Requests do you think will help achieve the Season 6 Intents?:

My years of experience in crypto since 2012, entrepreneurial experience in building successful business, I would like to see Mission Requests that make the following segments more easier, relevant and attractive for users through Optimism and Superchain:

1. Gaming
2. Speculation Markets
3. DeFi especially focusing on restaking markets

Please disclose any anticipated conflicts of interest: If you are a top 25 delegate in another ecosystem, hold an elected position in another DAO, and/or are a multisig signer in another community please disclose here.

None

Please verify that you understand you may be removed from this role via the Representative Removal proposal type in the Operating Manual:

Yes, I do understand.

Please verify that you understand KYC will be required to receive Council rewards at the end of Season 6:

Yes, I understand.

Please verify that you are able to commit ~20 hours / week to reviewing grant applications and other Council operations :

Yes, I will be able to commit 20 hours/week.

[katie]

Hello Community! I have been a top delegate with a 100% voting rate since the inception of OP governance. This would be my 4th season on the Grants Council and I would love the opportunity to serve again! Thank you for your consideration

Council sub-committee:

Optimism Mission Reviewer

If you are a delegate, please provide the link to your delegate profile:

Delegate Commitments [OLD]

Name: Katie Address or ENS: 0x75536CF4f01c2bFa528F5c74DdC1232Db3aF3Ee5 Discord username: katiegarcia#4914 Verification (Tally profile): Tally Profile I have read and understood the Delegate Commitment Process: Yes I understand that becoming a delegate is a significant commitment: Yes My reasons for wanting to be a delegate: As a long time member of MakerDAO and former employee of the Maker Foundation, I have extensive interest and experience in governance. I thoroughly enjoy participating …

If you are a delegate, please indicate what % of votable supply is delegated to you:

1.27%

If you are a delegate, please indicate your voting participation rate in OP governance to date:

100%

Please link to your voting history and any voting rationale you’ve shared:

My voting rationale is shared on each individual forum post.

Do you have a technical background?: If so, please elaborate

I don’t have technical expertise but extensive defi knowledge and experience.

Please demonstrate any non-Optimism experience you believe is relevant to this role and/or your sub-committee:

I worked at the Maker Foundation for 3 years and am now a partner at an investment firm where we invest in early stage defi projects.

Have you previously served in a representative (appointed or elected) role in the Collective? If so, please specify which:

Season 2 Lead on the Defi Committee

Season 3 Grants Council member

Season 4 Grants Council member and Communications Manager

Season 5 Grants Council member, Communications Manager, member of Anti Capture Commission

Member of the Citizens House and badgeholder for RPGF rounds 2 and 3

Please outline your contributions, and their impact, to the Optimism ecosystem to date:

My contributions are listed above and have helped grow the community, ecosystem and governance framework to where it is today.

Please describe your philosophy on what makes a good Mission Application:

The things I like to see the most in a proposal are very clear milestones that will hold the project accountable and a comprehensive token distribution plan that incentives long term use and brings new users to Optimism that will stick around long term.

What types of Mission Requests do you think will help achieve the Season 6 Intents?:

I am hoping to see more defi projects come to Optimism as well as RWAs, institutional investors and anything that brings in new users and improves user experience.

Please disclose any anticipated conflicts of interest: If you are a top 25 delegate in another ecosystem, hold an elected position in another DAO, and/or are a multisig signer in another community please disclose here.

Any of the projects within the UDHC portfolio would be a conflict of interest for me, which can be found here.

Please verify that you understand you may be removed from this role via the Representative Removal proposal type in the Operating Manual:

Yes

Please verify that you understand KYC will be required to receive Council rewards at the end of Season 6:

Yes

Please verify that you are able to commit ~20 hours / week to reviewing grant applications and other Council operations:

Yes, although it ends up being more than 20 a hour/week commitment

[Jrocki]

What up Optimism Collective fam! For the last year I have be working at the Optimism Foundation as a contribution manager, mostly leading the Ambassador program.

I have since left the Foundation and I am excited to begin participating in governance again! You will notice that there is a gap in my governance participation over the last year due to the fact that Optimism Foundation employees are restricted from participating in governance.

Previous to joining the Foundation I was a delegate as well as the lead of the NFT and Gaming Committee during Season 2 of Optimism governance.

Council sub-committee:
Optimism Mission Reviewer

If you are a delegate, please provide the link to your delegate profile:

Delegate Commitments [OLD]

Name: jrocki Address or ENS: jrocki.eth Discord username: Reformed_Normie#2580 Verification (Tally profile or tweet): Tally I have read and understood the Delegate Commitment Process: Yes I understand that becoming a delegate is a significant commitment: Yes My reasons for wanting to be a delegate: I believe that if we are able to create a sustainable retroactive public goods funding model on Optimism this approach will become the gold standard for all digital communities. As an advocate f…

If you are a delegate, please indicate what % of votable supply is delegated to you:

0.17%

If you are a delegate, please indicate your voting participation rate in OP governance to date:

N/A - I was previously an employee of the Optimism Foundation and therefore restricted from participation in governance for the last year. You can however see my snapshot voting history here

Please link to your voting history and any voting rationale you’ve shared:

N/A - I was previously an employee of the Optimism Foundation and therefore restricted from participation in governance for the last year. You can however see my snapshot voting history here.

Do you have a technical background?: If so, please elaborate

My technical skills are data science focused - SQL, Python, some machine learning. Here is a smol FIFA 2017 (video game) analytics suite I built using player data to help you draft your team in FIFA 2017 the video game.

Please demonstrate any non-Optimism experience you believe is relevant to this role and/or your sub-committee:

Before working at Optimism I spent 7 years as a data analyst and analytics product manager. As an example of the type of analysis I can bring to the Grants Council here is a smol FIFA 2017 (video game) analytics suite I built which includes a Player Comparison Tool and a Draft Pick Alternative tool (in case the player you want gets drafted before your turn)

Have you previously served in a representative (appointed or elected) role in the Collective? If so, please specify which:

Season 2: Lead for the NFT & Gaming Committee
Season 4: Alliance Lead - Thank Optimism Mission Proposal

Please outline your contributions, and their impact, to the Optimism ecosystem to date:

Optimism Foundation - Contribution Manager & Lead of the Ambassador program

RetroPGF2 recipient: Optimism Quest Tutorial Video Series (40k+ views)

Please describe your philosophy on what makes a good Mission Application:

I like an application that incorporates a data backed argument for why their token distribution plan incentivizes sticky behavior for users new to Optimism long after incentives have dried up.

What types of Mission Requests do you think will help achieve the Season 6 Intents?:

I would like to see Mission Requests that make it easier for gaming teams to onboard into the Superchain and quickly iterate on what they build as developing a “sticky” game with a good user retention rate requires a lot of trial and error.

Please disclose any anticipated conflicts of interest: If you are a top 25 delegate in another ecosystem, hold an elected position in another DAO, and/or are a multisig signer in another community please disclose here.

No conflicts of interest to disclose

Please verify that you understand you may be removed from this role via the Representative Removal proposal type in the Operating Manual :

Yes

Please verify that you understand KYC will be required to receive Council rewards at the end of Season 6:

Yes

Please verify that you are able to commit ~20 hours / week to reviewing grant applications and other Council operations:

Yes

[Michael]

Michael Vander Meiden Self-Nomination

Hey Everyone! It’s Michael, excited to nominate myself for grants council S6.

Council sub-committee: Mission Reviewer

If you are a delegate, please provide the link to your delegate profile: https://vote.optimism.io/delegates/opmichael.eth

If you are a delegate, please indicate what % of votable supply is delegated to you: 1.40%

If you are a delegate, please indicate your voting participation rate in OP governance to date: 100% participation since becoming active July 7, 2022

Please link to your voting history and any voting rationale you’ve shared: https://vote.optimism.io/delegates/opmichael.eth

Do you have a technical background?: Yes.

• Masters of Science degree in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University
• I worked as a machine learning engineer and have been coding smart contracts for 4 years.
• I’ve placed in multiple web3 hackathons, including 1st out of 27+ teams (this was the Arbitrum hackathon at Devcon Bogota, lol)
• Code contributor to Optimism (link to pull request)

I think this is important, as my technical background has allowed me to dive into the smart contracts of projects applying for grants, and in Season 5 this allowed me to discover a scam LST project that otherwise seemed legitimate.

Please demonstrate any non-Optimism experience you believe is relevant to this role and/or your sub-committee:

• I believe the technical experience above is very relevant
• I served as a product manager at a venture-funded consumer-facing startup for 2 years
• In my machine learning role, I led the data collection efforts, which involved designing non-gameable incentive systems for accurate labeling (which is surprisingly very similar to non-gameable grant incentives for DeFi protocols)
• I have a crypto-focused YouTube channel with 375,000+ views where I did deep technical explanations on a variety of different protocols

Have you previously served in a representative (appointed or elected) role in the Collective? Yes, in the grants council as a Growth Experiments reviewer, S3, S4 & S5. Also in the NFT committee in Season 2.

Please outline your contributions, and their impact, to the Optimism ecosystem to date:

• Host of Token House & Joint House community calls, providing a synchronous place for delegates and governance members to discuss relevant events in governance
• Organized and hosted a variety of other events, including networking for badgeholders & delegates, Mission Proposal showcases, and Governance AMAs
• Created guide videos for Optimism Governance (Season 5 Guide)
• Consistent evangelist for Optimism and Optimism Grants, participating in Twitter spaces, creating tweet threads, and personally onboarding a number of people to the Optimism ecosystem.

Please describe your philosophy on what makes a good Mission Application: Guiding Principle: Grants should be an efficient use of funds to drive us closer to the Optimistic Vision and the S6 intents

• Good Applications:
  • Accomplishes something that would be difficult to accomplish without the grant
    • Positive-feedback loop on a user base
    • Bootstrapping new ecosystem primitives
  • Traction-based milestones (the grant should be working before more is distributed)
  • Teams committed to Optimism
  • Detailed distribution plans
• Bad Applications:
  • Completion-based milestones
  • Teams extracting grants from every ecosystem they can
  • Vague distribution plans
  • Mercenary-focused incentives

What types of Mission Requests do you think will help achieve the Season 6 Intents?:

• One specific mission request I will introduce if elected to the grants council is a “micro-grants” mission request specifically for smaller and first-time applicants. The goal of this would be to encourage a wide variety of more experimental projects to apply and to make sure that the budget is not completely eaten up by large protocols that have already received multiple grants in the past.
• I am excited by the opportunity to help other Superchain chains develop their own grants programs and help them take the best practices that we have developed at Optimism over the last few seasons.
• Mission requests that encourage the best-in-class DeFi protocols to deploy and focus on Optimism and to make Optimism the premiere place for liquidity from the mainnet.
• Mission requests that encourage novel use cases to develop on Optimism (Social, Gaming, Identity, AI/ML, onramps, user-friendly wallets, and RWAs).

Please disclose any anticipated conflicts of interest: I am not associated with any other protocols or DAOs. The success of Optimism is my one and only interest.

Please verify that you understand you may be removed from this role via the Representative Removal proposal type in the Operating Manual: Yes.

Please verify that you understand KYC will be required to receive Council rewards at the end of Season 6: Yes.

Please verify that you are able to commit ~20 hours / week to reviewing grant applications and other Council operations: Yes, and willing to commit much more if needed.

[Gonna.eth]

Please read the budget carefully and pick the subcommittee you like.

Season 6 Grants Council Operating Budget Proposal

Proposed Council Lead: Gonna.eth Proposed Council Operating Budget: 610.000 OP (+ 170.000 OP relative to the previous Season) Contact Info: gdhannte@gmail.com Please link to any previous work or qualifications to be Council Lead: Link to community contributions: Forum posts Voting History Link to relevant work experience: Delegate since OP governance inception Member of the first committee Grants Council Reviewer on Season 3 Grants Council Reviewer and Ops manager on Season 4 Grants Cou…

[mastermojo]

Council sub-committee: Optimism Mission Reviewer

If you are a delegate, please provide the link to your delegate profile: Delegate Commitments [OLD] - #65 by mastermojo

If you are a delegate, please indicate what % of votable supply is delegated to you: 3.18%

If you are a delegate, please indicate your voting participation rate in OP governance to date: 100%
*The original SNX Ambassador wallet faced multisig issues from the start, and the new OPSNXAmbassador wallet was created after a few rounds of voting. In my opinion, it wouldn’t be helpful to judge participation based on this. Between both wallets, voting participation is 100%, and since the new wallet no votes have been missed.

Please link to your voting history and any voting rationale you’ve shared:
OPSNXAmbassador Snapshot + SNXAmbassador Snapshot + Voting Rational for Shadow Committee 1

Do you have a technical background?: While I don’t have direct technical experience, I have a robust network of individuals I’ve collaborated with in various Grants Councils (Including the previous Optimism Builders Grant council) I served on and fellow SNX Ambassadors, as well as counterparts from different protocols like Synthetix, Lyra, Kwenta, and Infinex who possess significant development skills. Therefore, I believe I can effectively contribute, even in the absence of direct technical expertise.

Please demonstrate any non-Optimism experience you believe is relevant to this role and/or your sub-committee:

• Optimism Builders Grant Council for Round 5; I was scored a 94.1% (Grant Council - Retrospective Season 5)
• Lyra Grants Council for three epochs (almost a year) https://grants.lyra.finance/
• Kwenta Grants Council (1 epoch) x.com
• Shadow DeFi Committee Member (recognized by Optimism)
• Optimism Badgeholder for Citizens House
• Elected member of the Synthetix Ambassadors (for 2 years) x.com
• Elected member of the Infinex Council

Have you previously served in a representative (appointed or elected) role in the Collective? If so, please specify which: Season 5 Optimism Builders Grant Council, Shadow DeFi Committee Member (recognized by Optimism), and current Optimism Badgeholder.

Please outline your contributions, and their impact, to the Optimism ecosystem to date: My contributions are listed above.

Please describe your philosophy on what makes a good Mission Application: What I value most in a proposal are clearly defined milestones to ensure project accountability, and a thorough token distribution plan that encourages long-term engagement and attracts new, loyal users to Optimism.

What types of Mission Requests do you think will help achieve the Season 6 Intents?: * I’m particularly interested in observing mission requests that actively promote increased decentralization.

• DEFI derivatives/option products
• Missions to simplify the onboarding process for new users onto Optimism
• Social Products on Optimism
• Gaming

Please disclose any anticipated conflicts of interest: I am an elected member of the SNX Ambassadors, I am an elected member of the Infinex Council, and I am a Optimism Badgeholder,

Please verify that you understand you may be removed from this role via the Representative Removal proposal type in the Operating Manual : Yes

Please verify that you understand KYC will be required to receive Council rewards at the end of Season 6: Yes

Please verify that you are able to commit ~20 hours / week to reviewing grant applications and other Council operations: Yes

[Bubli.eth]

Grants Council Self-Nomination Template

Please keep your answers as concise as possible while conveying all relevant information.

Council sub-committee: (if applicable)
Milestones & Metrics Reviewer

If you are a delegate, please provide the link to your delegate profile:

(Delegates of Optimism DAO)**

If you are a delegate, please indicate what % of votable supply is delegated to you: (voting power can be referenced here) NA

If you are a delegate, please indicate your voting participation rate in OP governance to date: (You may link to your profile on Karma 7, if applicable.)
Karma - Optimism delegate dashboard

Please link to your voting history and any voting rationale you’ve shared: (You may link to your Snapshot and/or Agora profile for voting history. You may link to your delegate communication thread, or any other medium you use to communicate with your delegators, to share your voting rationale.)
Snapshot votes were delegated but was 100% participation.
I have contributed to governance from day 1, earlier it was delegated but currently I am self delegate for a long period of time.

Do you have a technical background?: If so, please elaborate

Though I dont have direct technical expertise in coding but I can effectively contribute as I was leading marketing for Polygon and also part of the grants team of Polygon for over a year. Did AMA’s with 300+ recipient of grants and also aware of the entire grant process.

In crypto currency for past 4.5 years, involvement in DAOs, marketing, trading and investment.

This overall grinding experience has given me knowledge, experience and expertise in various components involving protocols, projects usage, mindset and user experience.

Please demonstrate any non-Optimism experience you believe is relevant to this role and/or your sub-committee:

• Marketing Lead @ POLYGON

• Head of Asia Team @ Index Co-op.

• I was a Co-lead in “Conflict Management Resolution” at Index Co-op Dao.

• Experience in Marketing, Grants, Community Management, Partnerships an Operations.

• Prior to web3, I was Human Resource Professional with 12+ years’ experience working at
Leadership level focusing on strategic, transformational and operational HR which leaned
heavily on metrics, strategic involvement, cost management and culture management.

Have you previously served in a representative (appointed or elected) role in the Collective? If so, please specify which: NA

Please outline your contributions, and their impact, to the Optimism ecosystem to date:

I am conducting workshops and meetups on Crypto for women folks in India for past 3 years with an objective to provide education and information. In developing economy, one effort to make women aware of opportunities to be financial independence.

Impact for Optimism is that with its low cost of transaction. easy and user friendly interface of dApps, active and participative governance has got atleast 50% of women piqued and have explored, invested, participated in governance.

Active and diligent participation to OP governance through 100% voting till date both onchain and offchain which portrays my unconditional support to Iterative governance of Optimism.

Ranked as a top tier delegate on GovScore.

My Regen Score - 2910
(here is the link: https://regenscore.vercel.app/share/0x2935771e6cf78431Fd50Cc4badf3aADCd73b8B1C)

Forum Post Activities link : Profile - Bubli.eth - Optimism Collective.

Active on Superchain exploring dApps on Optimism, Base, Zora, Mode.

Active participation in forum on topics especially Code of Conduct and governance.

Supporting the Optimism ecosystem as a co-grant donor and also donated to Gitcoin’s Optimism treasury apart from regular Gitcoin donations to over 100+ projects from Optimism ecosystem.

Please describe your philosophy on what makes a good Mission Application:

Efficient and effective use of funds in line with Optimism Vision and Goals set for Season 6.

• Building use cases relevant for the user and industry. Need not be innovative in the
  blockchain, financial or any other segment but caters to making it useable, simple and
  relevant.
• Milestones are well defined with metrics and timelines.
• Bootstrapping relevant ecosystem primitives
• Feedback loop between Superchain/ Optimism and grantees
• Deep and well thought research to be provided to the committee on relevance and need
  allowing reviewing to be focused and relevant.
• Well thought distribution plans
• Committed team to Optimism and the space we are in.

What types of Mission Requests do you think will help achieve the Season 6 Intents?:

• Optimism along with Superchain has shown great focus on developing, supporting the builder
  folks but also Season 5 was focused on bigger projects. I would like to see some % allocation
  to smaller projects and also encourage first time applications. As the combination will bring in a
  positive wave with the entire ecosystem.

• If researches are to be believed and my understanding DeFi especially staking and restaking
  will have high relevance building projects around this will support the overall ecosystem.

• Entering new avenues like gaming, RWAs and the user wallet space has great potential.

Please disclose any anticipated conflicts of interest: If you are a top 25 delegate in another ecosystem, hold an elected position in another DAO, and/or are a multisig signer in another community please disclose here. NA

Please verify that you understand you may be removed from this role via the Representative Removal proposal type in the Operating Manual : Yes

Please verify that you understand KYC will be required to receive Council rewards at the end of Season 6: Yes

Please verify that you are able to commit ~20 hours / week to reviewing grant applications and other Council operations: Yes

[GFXlabs]

Grants Council Self-Nomination Template

Please keep your answers as concise as possible while conveying all relevant information.

Council sub-committee:
Optimism Missions Reviewer

If you are a delegate, please provide the link to your delegate profile:
Delegate Profile on Agora
Delegate Communication Thread

If you are a delegate, please indicate what % of votable supply is delegated to you: (voting power can be referenced here)
2.75%

If you are a delegate, please indicate your voting participation rate in OP governance to date: (You may link to your profile on Karma 7, if applicable.)
Onchain votes 88%, but some early votes were with services that did not support all Safes, and are documented in our Delegate Communication Thread, where we provided how we would have voted and the rationale.

Please link to your voting history and any voting rationale you’ve shared:
This Delegate Communication Thread documents every vote we’ve made on Optimism, as well as a brief summary of each vote and why we voted the way we did.

Do you have a technical background?: GFX Labs is a developer company, so our governance staff have access to multiple technical advisors.

Please demonstrate any non-Optimism experience you believe is relevant to this role and/or your sub-committee:
GFX Labs has experience as a past or present delegate on:
Uniswap
MakerDAO
Optimism
Arbitrum
Compound
Hop
0x
Wormhole

GFX Labs has experience in grants and procurement with:
Optimism
Arbitrum
MakerDAO
DyDx
zkEVM

Have you previously served in a representative (appointed or elected) role in the Collective?
Yes. GFX Labs has been elected to the Grants Council three times. We were also elected to serve on the DeFi Committee, which was an advisory body that predated the Grants Council. GFX also sits on the Anticapture Commission and provides feedback to the Foundation on various initiatives.

Please outline your contributions, and their impact, to the Optimism ecosystem to date:
Please see our previous answer.

Please describe your philosophy on what makes a good Mission Application:
Successful, strong grants are those that aim to migrate some combination of users, assets, and developers to Optimism that were not previously on Optimism. Alternatively, a successful grant or mission could increase the intensity with which a user or asset interacts with Optimism. One way to further strengthen a grant plan is for the applicant to have identified some mechanism that previously led to a desirable outcome, and the grant plan is designed to allow for scaling or repetition of that previous success.

What types of Mission Requests do you think will help achieve the Season 6 Intents?:
Without excluding other approaches, we firmly believe the importation of yield-bearing assets and tighter economic integration with the real world and other chains’ economies should be prioritized.

Please disclose any anticipated conflicts of interest:
GFX Labs is active in governance and development of multiple protocols. Current and recent relationships include Uniswap, MakerDAO, Optimism, Arbitrum, Wormhole, and Interest Protocol.

Please verify that you understand you may be removed from this role via the Representative Removal proposal type in the Operating Manual :
We understand.

Please verify that you understand KYC will be required to receive Council rewards at the end of Season 6:
We understand.

Please verify that you are able to commit ~20 hours / week to reviewing grant applications and other Council operations:
We verify we can make this commitment.

[MattL]

Council sub-committee: Primarily interested in Superchain mission reviewing, but happy to be an OP Mission Reviewer.

If you are a delegate, please provide the link to your delegate profile: Commitment & https://vote.optimism.io/delegates/0x1f4BA000D042cA0045eF094691615f3912DebEa8

If you are a delegate, please indicate what % of votable supply is delegated to you: SNX Ambassadors + Personal Matt Delegations = 5.05%

If you are a delegate, please indicate your voting participation rate in OP governance to date: 100% participation since becoming active, with a few issues around multisig voting.

Please link to your voting history and any voting rationale you’ve shared: OPSNXAmbassador Snapshot + SNXAmbassador Snapshot + Voting Rational for Shadow Committee + various comments directly on Agora from Matt delegations.

Do you have a technical background?: I do not have direct technical experience, though I rely on the expertise of members of the SNXAmbassadors who have solidity, sql, and other development experience.

In my role as a Synthetix Core Contributor, I explain complex technical matters and core mechanisms of the protocol. So even without ‘technical experience’ I feel I’m still able to hold my own.

Please demonstrate any non-Optimism experience you believe is relevant to this role and/or your sub-committee:

• CC at Synthetix - Primarily support comms, but also growth, bd, and so on.
• Ambassador Councillor for Synthetix
• Long-time DeFi/Crypto User - been in the space since before DeFi Summer

Have you previously served in a representative (appointed or elected) role in the Collective? If so, please specify which: Yes, I’ve served in the grants council as a Growth Experiments reviewer S3, S4, S5. As well as the Shadow Committee (lore) in Season 2.

Please outline your contributions, and their impact, to the Optimism ecosystem to date:

• Constant supporter and cheerleader of Optimism & Superchain
• Personally and from Synthetix, I’ve supported various devs and teams coming to Optimism, applying for grants, and building here for the long term.
• Created mission requests & provided feedback on missions to drive DeFi to Optimism, and support the overall growth of OP related DeFi.

Please describe your philosophy on what makes a good Mission Application:

This response is relatively similar to my prior response on good grants, but I’ve tailored it a bit.

• Missing piece on OP/Superchain, which can grow the greater DeFi / other vertical ecosystem (Social, gaming, etc) - though personally my focus is on all things DeFi, as that’s where most capital & users flood into.

• A clear path to non-incentivized growth - We should not incentivize projects for the sake of incentivization, this should always be a temporary measure.

• Clear KPI’s

• Milestones tied to token amounts to release grants.

• Quality team (on all facets - devs, community, marketing, etc)

• Healthy Treasury which reduces the chance of OP token misuse

• Potential contingency plan / alternate path to distributing governance fund grant

• Path to protocol decentralization / Governance structure

What types of Mission Requests do you think will help achieve the Season 6 Intents?:

• While Michael has already stolen the show a little bit here, I also think that “micro-grants” or a dedicated grant program for more experimental and first-time applicants to ensure that we provide grants to those that may create great projects, but struggle under the current rubric problems of favoring long-time low-risk grants that lack experimentation outside of typical DeFi LM structure.

• Grants that bring DeFi to OP & Superchain should be a focus. We must ensure that we are the place for capital, users, and developers to find home. We’ve lost on various verticals in the past - LRTs, real yield, composability, and so on - and I think we can make a proper splash going into the next round.

• With the Superchain grants programs spinning up, we will have much more expertise in achieving on #2, which I am very excited for. I’ve done research on various verticals and projects we should be courting to apply to these grants, and see these as long-term alignment programs which we can find great success on.

Please disclose any anticipated conflicts of interest: I am an elected member of the SNX Ambassadors and a Core Contributor at Synthetix - Synthetix specific grants & ecosystem grants driving volume through Synthetix will be a conflict of interest.

Please verify that you understand you may be removed from this role via the Representative Removal proposal type in the Operating Manual : Verified.

Please verify that you understand KYC will be required to receive Council rewards at the end of Season 6: Verified.

Please verify that you are able to commit ~20 hours / week to reviewing grant applications and other Council operations: Verified.

[alexsotodigital]

Grants Council Self-Nomination

Alex Soto / @alexsotodigital

Council sub-committee:
Optimism Mission Reviewer

If you are a delegate, please provide the link to your delegate profile: N/A
If you are a delegate, please indicate what % of votable supply is delegated to you: N/A
If you are a delegate, please indicate your voting participation rate in OP governance to date: N/A

Please link to your voting history and any voting rationale you’ve shared: I have no history of voting on OP, but my rationale would be to pay attention to the opposing opinions and dig deeper to understand which of the criticisms can be integrated into the proposal to make it even better. I also think it is important to analyze which initiatives need a grant and which would benefit but can still happen without it.

Do you have a technical background?: I do not have a technical background but rather a more human approach (social sciences, communication, governance, etc.).

Please demonstrate any non-Optimism experience you believe is relevant to this role and/or your sub-committee:

• I worked at Socialab, a social innovation incubator where I analyzed the impact potential of early stage projects.
• I worked as a facilitator in organizational development, with a focus on dynamic governance in DAOs.
• I worked as a consultant in impact measurement and social entrepreneurship.
• I co-founded a consulting unit at RnDAO where we offer support to DAOs in processing tensions, solving growth problems and building a culture of well-being.
• My experience leads me to look for common points, and win-win-win scenarios, that contribute to systemic changes and address the needs of stakeholders.

Have you previously served in a representative (appointed or elected) role in the Collective? No, I haven’t.

Please outline your contributions, and their impact, to the Optimism ecosystem to date:

• My contributions to the ecosystem have been indirect, but come from:
• Generating content in Spanish about governance.
• Designing induction processes for DAOs.
• Co-creating collaboration tools.
• Promoting care work in the community.

Please describe your philosophy on what makes a good Mission Application:
I believe that a good mission application requires to:

• Understand the context of those who apply for the grant
• List the underlying needs that are required for the initiative to be successful.
• Define metrics that can be used to keep the project on track.
• Promote team accountability during and at the end of the process.

What types of Mission Requests do you think will help achieve the Season 6 Intents?:
I think that the mission requests will be those that:

• Understand decentralization as both a social and technological process.
• That they seek to strengthen relationships with a long-term perspective rather than achieving superficial and short-term numbers.
• That promote the induction of users, developers and allies from a perspective of diversity and inclusion.
• That they exemplify the vision of the collective, inspiring people outside the ecosystem.

Please disclose any anticipated conflicts of interest: I don’t think there is

Please verify that you understand you may be removed from this role via the Representative Removal proposal type in the Operating Manual : Yes, I understand.

Please verify that you understand KYC will be required to receive Council rewards at the end of Season 6: Yes, I understand.

Please verify that you are able to commit ~20 hours / week to reviewing grant applications and other Council operations: Yes, I am able.

[Juanbug_PGov]

Juanbug Self-Nomination

Hello everyone! It’s been a pleasure leading the milestones and metrics team last season and would love the honor of serving again! Thanks in advance for your consideration.

Council sub-committee: Milestones and Metrics

If you are a delegate, please provide the link to your delegate profile: PGov Delegate Committment
If you are a delegate, please indicate what % of votable supply is delegated to you: 1.14% (Here)
If you are a delegate, please indicate your voting participation rate in OP governance to date: Karma Link: 100%
Please link to your voting history and any voting rationale you’ve shared: PGov Delegate Thread

Please outline your contributions, and their impact, to the Optimism ecosystem to date:

• S5 Milestones and Metrics Sub-Committee: Was the lead for the first iteration of the milestones and metrics team with @mmurthy and @v3naru_Curia.
• S5 Code of Conduct Council: Was a member of the trial run for the Code of Conduct council.
• Spearheaded the deployment of Compound III onto Optimism
• Took part on initial Velodrome airdrop to MakerDAO multisig
• Set up and ran FranklinDAO’s (Penn Blockchain) delegation when Optimism governance was first created over a year ago.
• Active user for 2+ years, helping submit mission requests, submitting proposals for approvals, and partaking in other governance initiatives and activities (RPGF, Missions, etc.)

Do you have a technical background?:
I helped review many technical milestones as a part of the S5 grants council; I also helped review, analyze, and follow up with teams that applied for grants from Near and Aurora ecosystems. I have a BS in Economics focusing on Business Analytics and Finance with 2+ years of experience in blockchain data analytics as well as basic programming skills.

Please demonstrate any non-Optimism experience you believe is relevant to this role and/or your sub-committee:
As part of the Uniswap Accountability Committee, our team has helped oversee and hold teams that are looking to deploy Uniswap v3 onto their chain accountable. Particularly, many chains promise x rewards for deployments and it’s our job to follow up and ensure those are delivered, directly parallel to the milestone and metrics role of this job. I was also a grant reviewer and milestone analyst for the Near and Aurora ecosystems for over a year. An emphasis and focus for me was checking in with the grantees’ milestones on a constant basis, very similar to the experience I had on the last season of the council.

Some other relevant experience includes:

• UADP (Uni/Arb delegate program): Responsibly managing delegate relations and interests for Arbitrum on behalf of Uniswap
• Contributing to a fair and decentralized framework for Ichi
• Delegate across projects such as: Uniswap, Compound, Arbitrum, Starknet

Have you previously served in a representative (appointed or elected) role in the Collective? If so, please specify which: S5 Milestones and Metrics, S5 Code of Conduct, Anticapture Commission

Please describe your philosophy on what makes a good Mission Application:
A good Mission should align first with the general Optimism vision and foundational goals. There should be net positives for the entire ecosystem as well as include impactful and logical milestones for funds.

What types of Mission Requests do you think will help achieve the Season 6 Intents?:
Requests that emphasize Optimism native projects first and foremost. In favor of add-on grants for teams and ideas that have already found a niche in Optimism and have shown product market fit. More emphasis for visibility and novel ideas.

Please disclose any anticipated conflicts of interest: If you are a top 25 delegate in another ecosystem, hold an elected position in another DAO, and/or are a multisig signer in another community please disclose here: Delegate in Uniswap, Compound, Arbitrum, Starknet; Committee member in Uniswap

Please verify that you understand KYC will be required to receive Council rewards at the end of Season 6: I understand that KYC will be required to receive council rewards.

Please verify that you are able to commit ~20 hours / week to reviewing grant applications and other Council operations: I am able to commit 20+ hours/week to the duties of this role.

[jackanorak]

Hello, I am running to keep my place on the Grant Council, which recieved an NPS of 9.3 last season. I am proud of the work I’ve done there – and of the directions I’ve helped guide it in – and would like to continue this work.

Council sub-committee: Optimism mission reviewer

If you are a delegate, please provide the link to your delegate commitment:
https://vote.optimism.io/jackanorak.eth

If you are a delegate, please indicate what % of votable supply is delegated to you: (voting power can be referenced here ) 1.94%

If you are a delegate, please indicate your voting participation rate in OP governance to date: (You may link to your profile on Karma , if applicable. If not, you can divide the number of Optimism votes under your Snapshot profile by 87, which is the number of Token House votes through Season 2, and add a possible 2 votes from Agora.)
85% (100% since posting a delegate commitment)

Please link to your voting history and any voting rationale you’ve shared: (You may link to your Snapshot profile for voting history. You may link to your delegate communication thread, or any other medium you use to communicate with your delegators, to share your voting rationale.)

[Jack anorak - delegate communication thread ](https://Communication thread)

Do you have a technical background? If so, please elaborate:

I’m technical right up to the point of the actual software engineering of protocols. Conversant in code and design. Deeply involved in quantitative protocol construction and am credibly ‘technical’ in defi. Regularly code to extract insights and perform actions onchain.

Have you previously served in a representative role in the Collective? If so, please specify which:
I was on the shadow committee, which was an unofficial committee that I believe made valuable contributions.

I was then on the Builder Grants subcommittee of the Grant Council, which I’m currently rerunning for.

Please outline your contributions, and their impact, to the Optimism ecosystem to date:

• Integral contributor to Velodrome’s design and launch, with coordination of OP Labs
  High level of contributions to OP governance as delegate, commenter, grant council member
  Aided in the onboarding of some 70-odd protocols to Optimism, made introductions, advised on optimal product and liquidity strategy
  Advised several OP protocols as they applied for governance grants
  Published Optimism’s first review of passed grants, which was directly responsible for making builder grants in scope for Governance.
  Leading most comprehensive retrospective of OP grants to date, which has already surfaced major insights and revelations of protocols’ handling of OP: Received RPGF for this
  Was voice influencing major changes in direction of grants, including the implementation of the Grants Council itself, requests for grants, increased focus on builder grants, and the developer advisory board

Please describe your philosophy on what makes a good Mission Application:

I believe in a structured approach, where the council articulates where OP is and where it wants it to go. It should outline what sorts of people, teams, and activities are needed to get to this desired future, and it should shape and approve grants that get Optimism those people, teams, and activities.

Grants should be designed with justifiable, measurable, and achievable objectives, and they should be reviewable periodically so that the Grants Council can guide them and retain the ability to withhold future grants. They should be scaled appropriately to the objectives (and the objectives’ value to the ecosystem), not to the projects’ size or perceived importance.

Although there is room to take a slight shotgun approach, grants should go to the projects that are most promising in their domains. This requires the Grants Council to have an informed opinion about the likely winning teams in each space.

Just like the best tools are multifunction tools, the best grants will have second-order benefits affecting the largest number of builders. That is, you fund the project that makes other projects more achievable. This is how you accelerate ecosystems.

In the course of a grants program, major things might change. This is crypto. So the grants council should also allow for some opportunism in approving grants.

Please demonstrate any experience you believe is relevant to this role:

I am a builder and have gone through the process of going from zero to a major ecosystem player, building something while facing a threadbare budget, maximum skepticism, and vocal detractors. My team has gotten an OP Labs Grant and an OP governance grant and I believe raised the bar on applying for and reporting on grants of this nature.

As a delegate, I’ve voted on grants, and as a member of the Shadow Committee, I’ve helped to push people’s thinking on what grants ought to be used for.

As a Grant Council member, I pushed for a more proactive stance on what sorts of grants we want to give out and introduced a new level of rigor to our selection process.

As an individual, I’ve proposed ecosystem-wide initiatives rethinking how Optimism manages its resources, and I’ve staked much of my career in crypto on making Optimism succeed.

In short, I’ve experienced virtually all tasks and perspectives that could go into the construction of grants, and there’s little in the way of subject matter that I haven’t personally worked with, from crosschain messaging to staking to security to NFTs.

I’ve now also been on the Grant Council and have an intimate understanding of how it works and how processes will improve next round.

Please demonstrate expertise relevant to your Council sub-committee: (if applicable)

I chose to apply for builder grants instead of growth experiments for three reasons.

• I already have a track record of independent voting and have advised my delegators that I would always vote and argue against Velodrome’s immediate interest if it was in conflict with what I thought was best for Optimism. That said, it seems that perceived conflicts of interests are less pronounced in this group; more growth experiments are likely to touch velodrome than builder grants.
• This vertical also plays well into my day job, which has me doing a lot of outreach to builders. In this capacity, hopefully it’s not a stretch to say I’ve likely spoken with more active and prospective builders on Optimism than anyone outside of the OP Foundation. In this way I can help guide builders to the program and get the initiatives we’re looking for.
• I think builder grants at this stage are more critical for the long-term viability of the Optimism project; there’s a lot of exciting stuff that OP is going to roll out that the builder community needs to be prepared to exploit.

What types of Mission Requests do you think will help achieve the Season 6 Intents?

Please refer to a thread I wrote some time ago on what sorts of grants I"d like to see.

Top of mind remain a generalized price oracle, audits/bug bounties to support innovative applications, and proofs of concept highlighting the OP stack, Account Abstraction, and new forms of lending (especially with staked ETH).

That is, we want to fund the things that let builders know that we can offer the best ecosystem to work in, the best tools to work with, and the best funding to derisk experimentation.

Please disclose any anticipated conflicts of interest:

If I am elected, I will review grants that could have a material impact on Velodrome. As I did last season, I will make clear to my subcommittee when a grant seems to be in Velodrome’s area.

They will attest that, as before, I’ve consistently voted in Optimism’s interest, even when doing so would be against Velodrome’s immediate interests. I do so because I want Optimism to win, and in any case I see Optimism’s success as more necessary for Velodrome’s success than any individual grant.

Please verify that you understand you may be removed from this role via the Representative Removal proposal type in the Operating Manual : Yes

Please verify that you understand KYC will be required to receive Council rewards at the end of Season 6: Yes

Please verify that you are able to commit ~20 hours / week to reviewing grant applications and other Council operations: Yes. To date, this role has required more than 20 hours/week.

[MoneyManDoug]

Hey all Doug here happy to be applying for another season!

Council sub-committee: (if applicable)

Mission Reviewer

In Season 6, per the approved Grants Council operating budget, there will be 18 spots in the council - 12 reviewers, 3 Milestones and Metrics subcommittee members, 2 Audits reviewers and the Grants Council Lead. The Lead was already elected via the operating budget passing, so there are 17 spots remaining to be elected.

If you are a delegate, please provide the link to your delegate profile:

sugma.eth on Agora

If you are a delegate, please indicate what % of votable supply is delegated to you: (voting power can be referenced here )

.27%

If you are a delegate, please indicate your voting participation rate in OP governance to date: (You may link to your profile on Karma 7, if applicable.)

99% https://optimism.karmahq.xyz/profile/sugma.eth#overview

Please link to your voting history and any voting rationale you’ve shared: (You may link to your Snapshot and/or Agora profile for voting history. You may link to your delegate communication thread, or any other medium you use to communicate with your delegators, to share your voting rationale.)

Doug Sugma.eth Delegate communication thread

Hey all, in the future i will be posting my thoughts and voting rational here, i took the time to roundup my previous votes/rationals as well Proposal A: Governance Fund Phase 0 - Batch Vote - yes - Was necessary to approve to kickstart OP summer Proposal B: Governance Fund Phase 0 - Uniswap - yes - Uniswap missed the initial batched vote and the proposal was fine Proposal C: Governance Fund Phase 0 - 0x - yes - 0x also missed the initial batched vote and i also thought the proposal was bene…

Do you have a technical background?: If so, please elaborate

Solidity, Security “contract monitoring”, Professional background in aerospace.

Please demonstrate any non-Optimism experience you believe is relevant to this role and/or your sub-committee: My work pre crypto involved working on highly complex systems with large teams and even more complex organizational structures, certainly gives an edge as chaos is room temp for me.

Have you previously served in a representative (appointed or elected) role in the Collective? If so, please specify which:

Yes i have served on the Grants council seasons 3, 4 and 5 as well as the Anti-capture commission

Please outline your contributions, and their impact, to the Optimism ecosystem to date:

Supported Optimism early on through governance, Helped build and form the current grants program from the ground up with my fellow council members.

Please describe your philosophy on what makes a good Mission Application:

A good grant returns value in the form of users/engagement and capital inflow, team/culture is also a major factor and our grantees should be held to highest level of standards and ethical practices.
Additionally projects seeking grants should have an organic interest in furthering the reach/impact of Optimism.

What types of Mission Requests do you think will help achieve the Season 6 Intents?:

Eager to see protocols that bring experimental ideas and primitives forward, overall useful/innovative products win the user.

Please disclose any anticipated conflicts of interest: If you are a top 25 delegate in another ecosystem, hold an elected position in another DAO, and/or are a multisig signer in another community please disclose here.

Please verify that you understand you may be removed from this role via the Representative Removal proposal type in the Operating Manual : Yes

Please verify that you understand KYC will be required to receive Council rewards at the end of Season 6:

Yes
Please verify that you are able to commit ~20 hours / week to reviewing grant applications and other Council operations: Yes

[Sov]

Hello,

I am submitting my application for the Grants Council per the template that was provided. My details are below and I welcome any comments, questions or concerns.

Council sub-committee:

I would be open to exploring a role as an Optimism Mission Reviewer

If you are a delegate, please provide the link to your delegate profile:

sovereignsignal.eth on Agora

I am set to become the delegate for Gitcoin’s ~164K OP tokens. As Gitcoin receives more OP tokens via RPGF, we intend to delegate those for governance or strategic allocations with partner-aligned ecosystems (examples here for Aave and libp2p).

Once allocated tokens are delegated, I will actively participate in Optimism governance.

If you are a delegate, please indicate what % of votable supply is delegated to you:

N/A: This will be updated once the delegation is formalized.

If you are a delegate, please indicate your voting participation rate in OP governance to date:

N/A

Please link to your voting history and any voting rationale you’ve shared:

Although I don’t have a voting history on Optimism yet, I am active in the Gitcoin Governance and Octant Governance forums, where I regularly contribute to discussions and share my perspectives.

Additionally, Gitcoin has allocated our ENS holdings (approximately 46K ENS Tokens), and we will do the same with our Radicle holdings.

Do you have a technical background?

While I don’t have a developer background, I have been actively involved in crypto since 2017 and deeply understand the technical frameworks and infrastructure. I have managed technical teams working on infrastructure and application layers.

Please demonstrate any non-Optimism experience you believe is relevant to this role and/or your sub-committee:

As the Head of Grants at Gitcoin, I lead our efforts to design, implement, and manage grant programs, both for Gitcoin and our partners. Gitcoin Grants is one of crypto’s longest-running and most recognized grant programs, allocating millions of dollars annually to hundreds of projects. In 2024 alone, across all our Gitcoin rounds and the rounds we run for partner ecosystems, we expect to allocate over $20M+ in grants.

My proven track record in the Web3 grants space, dating back to 2021, positions me as a strong candidate for the Optimism Grants Council. With this, I bring a unique perspective and a deep network to the program, ensuring we can effectively navigate the challenges and opportunities. Outside of my current role at Gitcoin, my experience in Web3 Grants includes:

• Researching various grant programs and writing extensively on the topic (you can find all of my work at sov.mirror.xyz).
• Creating curated lists of grant programs (The Common Good, LlamaoGrants, Granfarm)
• Being a grantee (Uniswap, Aave, Polygon)
• Assisting Projects with Grantmatching Support
• Working with Questbook (BD, Content Creation, Program Management)

Have you previously served in a representative (appointed or elected) role in the Collective?

I have not previously served in a representative role within the Optimism Collective.

Please outline your contributions and their impact to the Optimism ecosystem to date:

I have led internal initiatives at Gitcoin to strategically allocate our OP distributions to work with value-aligned partners like Aave and libp2p. Additionally, I have supported internal initiatives at Gitcoin related to the OP ecosystem and am actively working on projects with OP through my role at Gitcoin.

As an incoming delegate for Gitcoin’s OP tokens, I am committed to actively contributing to the Optimism ecosystem through governance participation and strategic initiatives.

Please describe your philosophy on what makes a good Mission Application:

A strong Mission Application should clearly articulate the project’s alignment with the Optimism Collective’s vision and goals, demonstrate the team’s ability to execute, and present a compelling case for how the funding will be leveraged to create sustainable value for the ecosystem. It should include well-defined milestones, measurable outcomes, and a plan for long-term viability beyond the initial grant support.

What types of Mission Requests do you think will help achieve the Season 6 Intents?:

Mission requests that focus on building critical infrastructure, fostering community engagement, and driving adoption of the Optimism ecosystem will be crucial for achieving the Season 6 Intents. This could include initiatives around developer tooling, user onboarding, liquidity provisioning, and cross-chain interoperability. Missions that promote collaboration and knowledge sharing across different projects and networks will also be valuable in creating a more resilient and interconnected ecosystem.

Please disclose any anticipated conflicts of interest:

I am currently the Head of Grants at Gitcoin, a delegate for ENS, and will soon be a delegate for Optimism and Radicle. I also contribute to Karma and build an onchain registry of grant programs along with the Cartographer Syndicate, a group supporting its development and maintenance.

I am committed to transparency and will recuse myself from any decisions that present a direct conflict of interest.

Please verify that you understand you may be removed from this role via the Representative Removal proposal type in the Operating Manual:

I understand and acknowledge that I may be removed from this role via the Representative Removal proposal type in the Operating Manual.

Please verify that you understand KYC will be required to receive Council rewards at the end of Season 6:

I understand and acknowledge that KYC will be required to receive Council rewards at the end of Season 6.

Please verify that you are able to commit ~20 hours / week to reviewing grant applications and other Council operations:

I am confident that I can commit the necessary time, at least 20 hours per week, to diligently review grant applications and actively participate in other Council operations.

The Optimism Collective’s vision of creating a sustainable ecosystem that funds and supports public goods aligns perfectly with my mission and values. As someone deeply involved in the Web3 grants space, I believe in the power of strategic funding to drive innovation, foster community growth, and ultimately create a more open, transparent, and equitable world.

I see the Grants Council as a crucial component in realizing this vision. By carefully stewarding the Collective’s resources and allocating funding to high-impact projects, the Council can catalyze the development of key infrastructure, tools, and applications to form the foundation of a thriving Optimism ecosystem.

Drawing from my experience at Gitcoin, where we’ve successfully funded and nurtured hundreds of projects across the Web3 landscape, I can bring valuable insights and best practices to the Council. This includes leveraging my network to attract top talent, collaborating with the community to identify strategic priorities, and implementing robust processes for evaluating and supporting grantees.

Moreover, my work on the onchain grant registry and the Cartographer Syndicate aligns with Optimism’s goals of promoting transparency, accountability, and collaboration within the ecosystem. By contributing to these initiatives and sharing knowledge across different networks, we can create a rising tide that lifts all boats and accelerates the growth of the Web3 economy.

Ultimately, I’m excited about the opportunity to work with the talented individuals on the Grants Council and the broader Optimism community to shape the future of this transformative ecosystem. Thanks for your consideration.

Best,
Sov

[lavande]

Great to see all these nominations! Please note that you should nominate yourself for only one sub-committee and the options for subcommittes are:

• Mission Reviewer
• Milestones and Metrics Reviewer
• Audit Reviewer

You may not nominate yourself to be a Superchain Mission Reviewer, as the approved Operating Budget stipulates the Superchain Mission Reviewers will simply be determined as “the top three ranked Mission Reviewers.”

That means the open positions are as follows:

• 12 Mission Reviewers (the top 3 of which will be considered Superchain Mission Reviewers)
• 3 Milestone and Metrics Reviewers
• 2 Audit Reviewers

[m4rio.eth]

Grants Council Self-Nomination

Council sub-committee: (if applicable)
Audit Reviewer

If you are a delegate, please provide the link to your delegate profile:
N/A

If you are a delegate, please indicate what % of votable supply is delegated to you:
N/A

If you are a delegate, please indicate your voting participation rate in OP governance to date:
N/A

Please link to your voting history and any voting rationale you’ve shared: (You may link to your Snapshot and/or Agora profile for voting history. You may link to your delegate communication thread, or any other medium you use to communicate with your delegators, to share your voting rationale.)
N/A

Do you have a technical background?: If so, please elaborate

I am in tech field for more than 10 years and in the blockchain for about 5 years.
Currently, I am a security researcher who has done over 100 security reviews.
Last few that I did in the last few months: Hyperdrive DELV, Maker DAO, Chateau Capital
And many, many more.
My cantina profile can be seen here

Please demonstrate any non-Optimism experience you believe is relevant to this role and/or your sub-committee:
I have over 8 years of experience building startups and have been a technical advisor for many products of mid-to-large sizes.

Have you previously served in a representative (appointed or elected) role in the Collective? If so, please specify which:
N/A

Please outline your contributions, and their impact, to the Optimism ecosystem to date:
I’ve been part of Ethernaut DAO council from the beginning.
I was part of the team that built one of the first NFT Marketplaces (currently closed) on Optimism.
I’ve been part of the community and engaging with the Optimism from when the chain was not fully EVM compatible.

Please describe your philosophy on what makes a good Mission Application:
A good mission application is a product that introduces new users to the blockchain field while meeting the needs of current users.

What types of Mission Requests do you think will help achieve the Season 6 Intents?:
I would love to see more products built around dev tooling and I’m eager to see as well more DeFi primitives moving to Optimism as their home chain.

Please disclose any anticipated conflicts of interest: If you are a top 25 delegate in another ecosystem, hold an elected position in another DAO, and/or are a multisig signer in another community please disclose here.
I’m a multi-signer in EthernautDAO

Please verify that you understand you may be removed from this role via the Representative Removal proposal type in the Operating Manual:
Verified.

Please verify that you understand KYC will be required to receive Council rewards at the end of Season 6:
Yes

Please verify that you are able to commit ~20 hours / week to reviewing grant applications and other Council operations:
Yes

[brichis]

GM! I’m glad you’re applying. According to Lavande’s comment, can you please modify your application? @Derbygold.eth @Bubli.eth @alexsotodigital

Season 6 Nominations: Grants Council

Great to see all these nominations! Please note that you should nominate yourself for only one sub-committee and the options for subcommittes are: Mission Reviewer Milestones and Metrics Reviewer Audit Reviewer You may not nominate yourself to be a Superchain Mission Reviewer, as the approved Operating Budget stipulates the Superchain Mission Reviewers will simply be determined as “the top three ranked Mission Reviewers.” That means the open positions are as follows: 12 Mission Reviewers (…