Welcoming Base to Optimism Governance

Updates and Announcements 📢
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Welcoming Base to Optimism Governance

The Optimism Foundation recently published Welcoming Base as a post on our Mirror blog. We’re reposting a link here, with additional context, to enable community discussion and feedback.

tl;dr

  • Base is an aligned and important stakeholder that is eager to participate in the governance of the Collective
  • Base has committed to contribute either 2.5% of Base’s total revenue from sequencing or, if it’s more, 15% of the profit Base makes from L2 transactions after subtracting the costs of submitting data to L1
  • Over the next six years, Base will have the opportunity to earn 2.75% of the initial OP token supply, based on their continued participation in the Superchain
  • Base commits to capping their voting power from this grant in any voting period to no more than 9% of the total votable supply
  • Optimism governance is designed to support the participation of a broad range of stakeholders while ensuring the sustainability of the Collective. We will discuss additional measures to ensure the continued representation of diverse stakeholders in the upcoming Reflection Period (beginning late September)
  • Jesse Pollak, creator of Base, will join the community for a Q&A on Thursday, August 24th at 20:00 GMT. You will find the full details on our public governance calendar or in Discord. Please submit your questions in the comments below this post
  • Please leave any additional, constructive feedback in the comments below this post

Base’s Contribution and Commitment:

  • Base is deeply involved in decentralizing and strengthening the OP Stack as the second core developer and through their commitment to the Optimism Law of Chains
  • They’ve also committed to dedicate a portion of the Base sequencer revenue to the Optimism Collective. This contribution will be either 2.5% of Base’s total revenue from sequencing or, if it’s more, 15% of the profit Base makes from L2 transactions after subtracting the costs of submitting data to L1

Base’s Active Participation in Governance:

  • Base is eager to participate in the governance of the Collective, which is an important step towards our Superchain future
  • Base is an aligned stakeholder, sharing common interests and goals with the community, and this grant presents them with an opportunity for deeper engagement with delegates
  • Over the next 6 years, Base will have the opportunity to earn up to 2.75% of the OP token supply, contingent on continued participation in the Superchain.
  • In the interest of promoting neutrality, Base will cap their voting power from this grant in any voting period to no more than 9% of the total votable supply
  • This arrangement is designed to enable Base to engage in governance as a responsible and value-aligned participant

Incentive Aligned Grant and Vesting Schedule:

  • As part of their early involvement in the Superchain, Base will receive an initial token grant from the Seed Fund of 10,737,418 OP, locked for one year, once delivered
  • An additional 107,374,177 OP will vest at a rate of 1/6 (1 year “cliff”, 6 year total vest) beginning on July 10, 2023 and in quarterly installments of 4,473,924 OP over the following five years
  • This grant is contingent upon Base’s continued participation in the Superchain. Its magnitude represents Base’s material and ongoing commitments to contribute part of sequencer profits back to the Collective, support the OP Stack as a core development team, and grow the overall Superchain ecosystem

Representation of Diverse Voices in Governance:

  • Token House decisions require input from a broad range of stakeholders. Protocols and OP Chains provide particularly relevant insight into Protocol Upgrades, a core responsibility of the Token House
  • However, Base’s participation doesn’t (and should not) equate to unilateral decision-making power
  • We will discuss different options to ensure the diverse perspectives of OP Chains remain represented in important governance decisions in the upcoming Reflection Period

Empowering Individual Delegates:

  • It is important to acknowledge the pivotal role that individual delegates have played in shaping the Collective to date
  • The empowerment of individual delegates is crucial to the success of the Token House, particularly as it pertains to making decisions driven by economic considerations
  • Recognizing and empowering our delegates is an active area of Season 5 design to be discussed during the upcoming Reflection Period

Bi-cameral Governance Design Further Balances Influence:

  • The bi-cameral structure of Optimism governance is designed to limit the impact of any one stakeholder
  • The Foundation has not granted Base any badges to participate in the Citizens’ House as part of this arrangement, although Jesse Pollak is currently a badgeholder and other members of Base may receive badges via the specified badgeholder expansion distribution. Ultimately, the criteria for Citizenship will be determined via governance

Base is an important contributor to the Collective and will set a strong precedent for active participation in governance as we move towards the Superchain. Optimism governance is designed to support the participation of a broad range of stakeholders while maintaining a well-rounded and resilient decision making structure to support the long term sustainability of the Collective.

Base is also dedicated to transparent communication regarding their participation in governance. As a first step, we have scheduled a delegate Q&A session on Thursday, 8/24 at 20:00 GMT with Jesse to address any questions and facilitate an initial dialogue as we welcome Base to the Collective :red_circle: :sparkles: :large_blue_circle:

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It’s interesting how the law of chains it’s getting traction and importance. But also could be great if the collective could help in the decision making of this proposal and create another entity of badge holders, because event that Base won’t have full boring power over decision making with this grant, it’s super pases the actual voting system.
Maybe it’s better to set a quadratic voting :ballot_box: for enterprises.
Just saying :slight_smile: it could be a new experiment

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The below response reflects the views of L2BEAT’s governance team, composed of @kaereste and @Sinkas, and it’s based on the combined research, fact-checking and ideation of the two.

First of all, we’d like to extend a warm welcome to Base in the Optimism Ecosystem :slight_smile:

Onboarding Base is the first step towards the transition from a single chain to a Superchain. While the news is certainly exciting and a step in the right direction, we must also be careful about how everything plays out as it will set a precedent for how the Collective onboards additional chains in the future.

There are some things we’d like to inquire about:

  1. Base has committed to contribute either 2.5% of Base’s total revenue from sequencing or, if it’s more, 15% of the profit Base makes from L2 transactions after subtracting the costs of submitting data to L1

    Is that commitment made solely on the social layer, or will it somehow be set into code? It’s important to clarify expectations both for Base, but also for future chains.

  2. Base commits to capping their voting power from this grant in any voting period to no more than 9% of the total votable supply

    Again, is that commitment enforceable by code in any way, or is it purely on the social layer?

  3. Base is an aligned stakeholder, sharing common interests and goals with the community, and this grant presents them with an opportunity for deeper engagement with delegates

    How will Base participate in Optimism governance and engage with delegates? Will it be done through a dedicated team or individual on their end?

Getting some clarity on the aforementioned questions would greatly help both us and the greater community establish clear expectations towards Base, and set some standards for future chains to be onboarded to the Superchain.

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Thanks for the questions @kaereste!

  1. The rev share will be encoded, and will become a standard governed by the Collective eventually
  2. The voting power limitation is currently enforced by legal contract, with the goal of transitioning to an on-chain enforcement mechanism in the future
  3. Will let Base speak for themselves here :slight_smile:
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I’m excited to see Base’s commitment to contributing to the sustainability of our ecosystem through revenue sharing.

This commitment from Base sets a positive precedent for strengthening the Collective and supporting public goods.

We should consider adding this revenue-sharing mechanism to the Law of Chains. Doing so would not only ensure the long-term sustainability of the Collective but also encourage continuous contributions to public goods. It might be better to incorporate this before others make the decision to opt into the Law of Chains or not.

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