Hi @polynya, thank you for the thoughtful response.
I agree the Foundation has not distributed as many tokens as originally expected.
Our intention was not to mislead anyone, but rather to be a responsible steward of our existing budget for the benefit of Optimism. There are a couple factors that contribute to this:
- We want to be able to prove good ROI on token spend. We have been carefully following the analytics put out by OP Labs to understand incentives and grants’ effects on TVL, transaction volume, and gas fees. We’ve also applied similar analysis to Partner Fund distributions and Airdrops #1 and #2. We want to be able to prove that OP distributions are moving key ecosystem metrics, which has not always been the case, and this has affected the velocity with which we distribute tokens.
- Market conditions have affected the number of quality targets for OP. The graph linked above was shared as an indication of total possible spend, and the market reality has pushed us away from the max distributions displayed there. We acknowledge that this should have been communicated more clearly and proactively to the community. While farmers are persistent, the bear market means explorers and new-to-crypto users who may benefit most from incentive programs are also in shorter supply. The Foundation is instead focused on programs that target builders, through our Collective Intents, the recently launched Foundation Mission (RFP) program, our ideas list, and work on RetroPGF.
Going forward, we’re committed to sharing a clearer framework for how the Foundation evaluates OP spend based on ROI. Our goal is to be able to express target metrics for token spend across tx/OP, TVL/OP, gas/OP, addresses/OP, delegatedOP/OP, or a combination of those metrics, and to report back on how distributions measure up against these targets.
We’ve published an estimate of future annual token spend, but these numbers are just estimates, not commitments, and actual token distributions will be determined by the Foundation’s ability to develop distribution programs with good, measured ROI.
The Foundation will commit to providing a mid-year report in November 2023 to update the community on how we’re tracking against those estimates in advance of next year’s annual budget proposal. In the case that we are not tracking to hit the estimates above, the midyear report will be an opportunity for the Foundation to sync its decision-making algorithm with the broader community.
We continue to welcome tactical or strategic feedback on how token allocations could be used to help support the Collective and grow Optimism’s ecosystem. For example, your idea here on delegate bonding curves may make a great RFP and is a helpful suggestion to focus distributions on providing real value to the Collective.
Thank you, as always, for your feedback.