15 min read • Published on 17 Jun 2024

Governance Review #21

Avatar of Anastassis Oikonomopoulos

Anastassis Oikonomopoulos

Governance Representative

Optimism announces fault proofs, Hop opens nominations for their Grants Council, and Polygon introduces a 1 BILLION grants program.

Governance Review #21 publication thumbnail

Optimism

Optimism delegates are called to vote, among other things, on the elections for the reviewer roles in the 3 grants councils and for the developer advisory board before their week off until June 27th, when Season 6 officially starts.

Active Votes

Upgrade Proposal #9: Fjord Network Upgrade – ends on June 19 at 20:09 UTC

Grants Council Reviewer Elections: Mission Reviewer – ends on June 19 at 20:09 UTC

Grants Council Reviewer Elections: Milestones and Metrics Reviewer – ends on June 19 at 20:09 UTC

Grants Council Reviewer Elections: Audit Reviewer – ends on June 19 at 20:09 UTC

Anticapture Commission Amendment – ends on June 19 at 20:09 UTC

Chain Delegation Program Amendment – ends on June 19 at 20:09 UTC

Developer Advisory Board Elections – Ends on June 19 at 21:22 UTC

Fault Proofs and Stage 1 Have Arrived

Optimism Foundation made a major step toward decentralization last week when they announced that open-source, permissionless fault proofs were live on OP mainnet. Permissionless fault proofs allow anyone to:

  • Withdraw ETH and ERC-20 tokens from an OP Stack Chain to L1 without the need to involve a trusted third-party
  • Contribute to Superchain security themselves by challenging invalid withdrawals

You can read more about Optimism’s fault proofs in their full blog post.

Foundation Year 3 Budget Update

The Optimism Foundation’s operating budget of OP, subject to governance approval by the Token House, maintains the original budget set into motion in both Year 1 and Year 2 proposals. For this year’s operating budget, The Foundation requests zero additional OP and will continue deploying existing allocations against key initiatives across the Collective.

Collaboration ground for the Superchain around ETHCC | July 8th & 9th

SuperchainEco, in collaboration with Optimism Foundation, announced Superchain Space, a two-day collaboration hub of the Superchain around ETHCC in Brussels on July 8th and July 9th!

You can learn more about the event and register here.

Discuss with L2BEAT

There are ongoing elections for the grants council reviewers and the developer advisory board (DAB), and we’d be happy to hear from applicants to any of the councils or the DAB and discuss their nomination. Given that the first vote was defeated, we’re also interested in hearing the community’s thoughts on the second iteration of the Code of Conduct renewal proposal.

When/where to catch us:

You can find us to discuss all of the above and more during our Optimism Office Hours every Tuesday at 3 pm UTC.

Upcoming Events (Times in UTC)

Arbitrum

Although this week is slower in terms of active votes, Arbitrum continues displaying heightened activity and interest from governance participants. Various proposals are at an RFC stage, and many other discussions are taking place, which will hopefully translate into actionable proposals soon.

Active Votes

On-Chain

Temp Check

[ARDC] Published Deliverables

Over the previous week, the Arbitrum Research and Development Collective (ARDC) published the following 2 deliverables in the forums:

You can follow the progress of the ARDC on our public Notion page and the DAO Advocate communication thread, where we share monthly updates.

[RFC] Reverse and revise the GCP for increased transparency and sustainability

Longshortleftight submitted an RFC that seeks to reverse the recent approval of the 225M ARB allocation for the Gaming Catalyst Program to return to the drawing board and focus on reviewing operational expenditures, implementing performance-based milestones, and establishing a transparent hiring process.

[RFC] Recruiting & Talent Solutions for the DAO

0xJulian submitted an RFC that proposes establishing in-house recruiting solutions within the Arbitrum DAO, enabling efficient talent acquisition and community growth. The proposal outlines a plan to establish an in-house recruiting team, which will be used to conduct talent need assessments, candidate sourcing, facilitate onboarding, and set up long-term partnerships with individuals on behalf of the DAO.

The estimated timeframe for the proposal is up to a year, with the first 25 weeks dedicated to the aforementioned tasks and the remaining to monitoring, evaluating, and refining the recruiting solutions. The estimated overall cost would be around 500,000 ARB.

Gaming Catalyst Program (GCP) Update Thread

Djinn created a thread to share regular updates regarding the GCP to keep relevant stakeholders, delegates, and other interested parties informed. The first update includes detailed information on what the GCP working group has focused on since the Tally vote successfully concluded.

On a high level, that includes:

  • Creation of an interim DAO committee for advice on governance, transparency, and oversight during this critical set-up process
  • Validation of budgeting and treasury management setups, controls, and oversight
  • Analysis of suggestions and feedback from the Tally vote process
  • Review of timeline and key details for the GCP Council nomination and election process

DAO-Owned liquidations using Collateralized Debt Positions

Sids2000 published an interesting read on the mechanics and strategic advantages of implementing CDPs, specifically tailored to Arbitrum DAO ecosystem growth programs, using ARB as the primary collateral. The post ends with a call to action for CDP providers and the DAO to collaborate and explore the potential of a DAO-owned and managed CDP.

Discuss with L2BEAT

We’ve been following the discussion around the GCP, and we’re keen to discuss it with anyone with feedback or concerns. We’re also following along with all the most prominent discussions and proposals. We are happy to discuss them or how they fit together in the broader context of the DAO. These days, we’re also interested in discussing the creation of a DAO Budget and how to approach Arbitrum’s fees and sequencer revenue. Last week, we held 2 community calls to discuss those topics, and you can find the recordings in their respective posts here and here.

When/where to catch us:

You can find us to discuss all of the above and more during our Arbitrum Office Hours every Thursday at 3 pm UTC.

Upcoming Events (Times in UTC)

Uniswap

In Uniswap, there’s a temp check to gauge interest in matching the funds received from Arbitrum’s LTIPP, and there’s also a discussion about the progress of the Uniswap-Arbitrum Grant Program and its performance so far.

Active Votes

Temp Check

Uniswap-Arbitrum Grant Program (UAGP) - Midway Learnings & Survey

Fin from Areta published a post on behalf of the Uniswap-Arbitrum Grant Program (UAGP), highlighting what they have learned from operating the UAGP over the past 5 months. The 3 main takeaways were:

  • Reporting bimonthly instead of monthly to reduce burnout and create a streamlined reporting flow
  • Cross-ecosystem collaboration and alignment to address eligibility and overlap issues between Uniswap and Arbitrum
  • Addressing concerns around the need for specific evaluation criteria, a clearer assessment rubric, and a more streamlined application form.

The post also reviews the data collected by a short survey—a mix of qualitative and quantitative questions— that allowed 9 UAGP grantees to describe their experience in the program thus far.

Discuss with L2BEAT

The feedback to UAGP’s post, which included a review of the data from their survey, was that the survey recipients were biased towards the program as they had received a grant from it and that it would be beneficial to include feedback from rejected people. We’d be interested in talking to people who have either accepted or rejected from UAGAP and listening to their thoughts.

When/where to catch us:

You can find us to discuss all the above and more during our Uniswap Office Hours every Friday at 3 pm UTC.

Upcoming Events (Times in UTC)

Hop

Hop inches forward toward the renewal of its Grants Program by opening up the nominations for the Grants Committee.

Grants Committee Election Nomination Thread

After a lengthy discussion about renewing and redesigning the Hop Grants Program, the nominations for the Grants Committee have opened. Prospective candidates can apply by responding to the forum thread and sharing:

  • Their background
  • Why they are a great candidate to join the Hop Grants Committee
  • Their description of a successful grants program
  • A short list of RFPs they would like for the grants program to target

Discuss with L2BEAT

We have participated in the discussion around the Hop Grants Program and have provided our thoughts and feedback on how it should be structured. As an extension to that effort, we’re interested in seeing the Grants Committee be comprised of members capable of delivering the best results. If that is you, we’d love to hear from you and learn why you’d be a good fit.

When/where to catch us:

You can find us to discuss the above and more during our Hop Office Hours every Friday at 3 pm UTC.

Upcoming Events (Times in UTC)

Polygon

Several interesting developments are happening in Polygon, the headline of which is the announcement of a 1,000,000,000 POL Community Grants Program that will distribute grants over the next 10 years and the introduction of the Polygon Governance Hub.

Polygon Announces 1 BILLION POL Community Grants Program

Polygon Labs announced the creation of a community grants program that will distribute up to 1,000,000,000 POL over the next 10 years. The program will begin immediately with 35,000,000 MATIC up for grabs, with the applications for Season 1 starting on June 11th and the deadline closing on August 31st.

Apply here.

Grant ranges are between 5,000 and 50,000+ MATIC, and the tracks for the first season are General Grants and Consumer Crypto. Expect an average four-week turnaround for grant allocation. You can read the full announcement here.

Polygon Governance Hub Introduction

Polygon Labs, in collaboration with Aragon, introduced the Polygon Governance Hub. The hub features a unified interface for two of the three Polygon governance pillars:

  • Protocol governance
  • System smart contract governance

The hub increases transparency and participation in the former case and introduces an upgraded governance framework in the latter. The full blog post about the Governance Hub is available here.

Call for Feature Requests - Polygon PoS: Pilani Upgrade

H_Rook, the Governance Lead at PolygonLabs, published a call for feature requests to announce that they’re looking for feature requests across all aspects of the Polygon PoS network. Some proposed areas where ideas can make a significant impact are:

  1. User Experience
  2. Scalability Improvements
  3. Decentralisations/Security Enhancements

You can find more information and submit your own feature request here.

Pre-PIP Discussion: zkPoS Phase 1, Connecting to the AggLayer

H_Rook, the Governance Lead at PolygonLabs, published a post that invites the community to discuss a proposal for securely connecting Polygon PoS to the AggLayer using a zero-knowledge (ZK) verifier to validate the network’s consensus mechanism, thereby establishing the network’s finality for settling to the AggLayer. This proof of consensus would be in addition to the pessimistic proof, which ensures the safety of all chains connected to the AggLayer.

PIP 39 - Validator Admissions into PoS Network

Vasanti01 from PolygonLabs’ Validators Support Team published PIP 39 regarding the validator’s admission into the PoS network. PIP 39 outlines an admissions framework that includes a set of objective parameters to determine a prospective validator’s eligibility to validate the PoS network.

The proposal includes a scoring system that will rank validator applicants, allowing only the highest-scoring candidates to be selected for onboarding to the network. The scoring is composed of the 3 following factors:

  1. Stake
  2. Experience
  3. Expertise

You can read more about the scoring and the validator onboarding process here.

Discuss with L2BEAT

Polygon’s recently announced 1 BILLION POL Community Grants Program is one of the biggest (if not _the _biggest) grants programs the space has seen. The 10-year timeframe hints that Polygon is here to grow sustainably in the long run. We’d be very interested in discussing how, especially as governance starts picking up the pace, we can best use this opportunity to foster growth for Polygon and provide feedback so we can iterate the grants program itself for the best possible impact.

When/where to catch us:

You can find us to discuss all the above and more during our Polygon Office Hours every Friday at 3 pm UTC.

Starknet

SNIP 13 - Index ‘Transfer’ and ‘Approval’ events in ERC20s

NatanSW submitted an SNIP that seeks to suggest updating StarkGate’s ERC20s (including ETH, STRK, USDC, and others) to index more fields in the Transfer and Approval events to allow filtration over the sender or receiver.

ZK Governance for Starknet

Mirror-Tang published a post that discusses the potential implementation of ZK Governance for Starknet DAO and the existing challenges it could solve, such as:

  • Lack of privacy
  • Fear of repercussions
  • Transparency vs confidentiality
  • Influence and bias
  • Low participation rates
  • Data sensitivity

Discuss with L2BEAT

We’re interested in discussing the concept of ZK Governance further, as the challenges it can potentially solve are present not only in Starknet but also in various other DAOs. We’ve already seen shielded voting implemented in some DAOs, and governance using zk-proofs could be the next iteration.

When/where to catch us:

You can find us to discuss the above and more during our Starknet Office Hours every Friday at 3 pm UTC.

Everclear

To streamline Everclear’s governance work, a ‘Governance Task Force’ is being assembled to remove friction between governance processes and delegates by ensuring all administrative tasks are taken care of.

Everclear Governance Task Force Application Thread

Following a successful vote to establish the Governance Task Force, applications have started, and the deadline to apply is June 17th at 8:00 pm UTC. The roles to apply for are ‘Program Manager,’ ‘Operations Officer,’ and ‘Treasury Officer’. You can find more information about the responsibilities of each role here.

Discuss with L2BEAT

As L2BEAT, we have applied to the Governance Task Force’s ‘Operations Officer’ role. We would be happy to discuss our application and respond to any questions or concerns you might have.

When/where to catch us:

You can find us to discuss all the above and more during our Everclear Office Hours every Friday at 3 pm UTC.