Hop DAO Ambassador Program Nominations

🐰Hop Ecosystem
1

Summary

As a follow-up to the Hop DAO Ambassador Program, this forum thread shall accept nominations from Hop DAO Community Members who wish to be Hop DAO Ambassadors in other communities. This forum thread will be open for one week, starting today, Monday, the 10th of April and closing on Monday, the 17th of April.

There is no limitation on the number of nominees applying to be an ambassador. However, only the top 4 Ambassadors with the most votes will be elected.

NB: Hop DAO Already has governance power in Optimism and Arbitrium due to the Hop Protocol’s role as an active stakeholder; qualified nominees are encouraged to nominate themselves to these two DAOs, and any other DAOs which they can make a reasonable case for.

Any nomination post submitted under this thread shall contain the following:

  1. Details about the DAO they wish to represent the Hop DAO in.
  2. The value that Hop DAO could derive from participating in the DAO
  3. What makes the prospective Ambassador the best fit for the role;

Upon the conclusion of the nomination process on Monday, the 17th of April, a Snapshot vote to elect the Ambassadors will begin on Wednesday, the 19th of April and end five days later.

Good luck to the nominees!

5 Likes
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hi there. i’d like to nominate myself to be an ambassador to the rocket pool community.

here is my rationale:

  1. Details:

Rocket Pool is a decentralized liquid ethereum staking protocol.

They allow for running validators with less than 32 ETH by leveraging a staking pool. Effectively, the protocol pairs people who want to run nodes with people who want to passively stake by purchasing liquid staking tokens (in this case, rETH).

The amalgam of 16 node operator ETH (nETH) and protocol ETH (pETH) forms a single validator (referred to as a minipool). Node operators must insure their “borrowed” pETH by staking a minimum 10% of the protocol’s token, RPL, which is used to protect against slashing events, etc. The Node operator also earns a 15% commission of pETH rewards.

By opening the gates to validation to those who don’t have 32 ETH at their disposable, Rocket Pool is fostering decentralization. They are inviting into consensus those participants who would otherwise be kept out by financial barriers. Soon (like within the next few weeks), Rocket Pool will launch their next big protocol upgrade, which will reduce nETH requirements to 8 ETH in exchange for slightly more RPL insurance to be staked. 8 ETH minipools will be a huge boon to the staking community writ large.

  1. Value

Rocket Pool is a known entity and industry leader in the field of decentralized staking. Associating with protocols who promote ethereum’s ethos would be wise and valuable in its own right.

Further, the Rocket Pool smartnode stack and mechanics echo what I believe to be in production with HOP V2 (decentralized bonding). In that case, nurturing a relationship with Rocket Pool now (and specifically with existing node operators) would give HOP immediate market presence.

Put another way, node operators who validate with Rocket Pool would be the easiest people to target for running decentralized bonders, because it’s effectively the same thing, and NOs already have the docker and smartnode understanding, confidence, and willingness to participate in such an endeavour.

  1. Best Fit

I have been a member of the Rocket Pool community since March 2021. I am heavily embedded in the community and have a direct line of access to those most important to fostering a relationship. I am a also a node operator and thought leader in the community.

9 Likes
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I nominate myself for Optimism and Arbitrum.

  1. Optimism and Arbitrum are the two leading optimistic rollups and the most used by TVL.

  2. Hop was created to “send tokens across rollups.” Its success is entirely dependent on its ability to grow with these L2s. They are in a state of constant development, regularly redefining their implementations, how they view themselves, and their roles in the ecosystem. Hop has the chance to become core Ethereum infrastructure by understanding these elements through depth of experience, alignment of values, and ability to identify strategic opportunities within this rapid growth.

  3. There are three reasons I am the best fit for the role for Optimism and Arbitrum. My experience, my values, and my background as a builder.

    • My experience with scaling predates both the Optimism and Arbitrum alpha releases, starting with the Polygon sidechain in 2021. Recognizing rollups as more secure and aligned with the Ethereum roadmap, I eagerly became an early adopter. As a developer, I started on Optimistic Kovan and Arbitrum Rinkeby before moving to mainnet Optimism and Arbitrum. In fact, I met Chris in the Optimism Discord before Hop supported sending ETH. The Optimism server is also where I participated in early discussions around retroactive public goods funding when the concept was first introduced. Having followed the development of all three protocols from the beginning, I have a deep understanding of how each operates, both technically and socially. I can relate the current state of development to the progress that has been made and make more informed decisions on what direction Optimism and Arbitrum should move and where Hop can position itself as a result.

    • I strongly believe in and advocate for Optimism and Arbitrum’s values of decentralization and equitable access. I spoke with Karl Floersch at ETH NYC last summer and was able to get an early understanding of Optimism’s concept of the Superchain. This is the idea that a group of rollups will be closely linked together by shared values and characteristics like integrated RPGF. As a user and developer, it is exciting to see this vision be recognized through the Base chain. As a delegate for Hop, I have been vocal in my support of funding public goods and even developing Hop into one. As a proponent of meaningfully decentralized governance, I consistently make the case for avoiding unnecessary layers of centralization and bureaucracy, like excessive power by committees and for including checks on such power through mechanisms like term limits, keeping governance as open and accessible as possible. These values will be welcomed by the communities of Optimism and Arbitrum, allowing Hop to build a stronger and more productive relationship with them.

    • Understanding the technical details of concepts like the Superchain will present critical opportunities to establish Hop as a core piece of infrastructure, being able to closely bind related chains and connect them with the broader ecosystem. These opportunities will need to be identified quickly and outlined flexibly in the context of a highly fluid space. In other words, Hop needs not just knowledgeable delegates, but also knowledgeable builders. At ETH NYC I launched a hackathon project on Optimism which won recognition from their core team and the Most Innovative Hack award from Uniswap. This project had previously launched on Arbitrum. The experience building on these chains provided me insight into the tooling around the chains, which will provide even more growth opportunities for Hop through deep integrations. This technical experience extends beyond Optimism and Arbitrum to Hop itself. I was recently awarded the first grant from the DAO to build a rebalancer that will make it easier to get the best yields from staking, building liquidity for the protocol. I look forward to the chance to scope and propose similar improvements that will mutually benefit Hop, Optimism, and Arbitrum.

    Taken together, my depth of experience developing on Optimism, Arbitrum, and Hop, as well as my history of value alignment and contribution to the protocols make me a perfect fit to be an ambassador for Optimism and Arbitrum.

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I nominate myself for Arbitrum.

I am an active delegate in the Arbitrum DAO with about 600k ARB in voting power. I am a power user of Arbitrum and I use Hop as my primary on and off-ramp into the ecosystem. I helped build the Arbitrum DAO in my role at Tally and have strong relationships with large delegates in the DAO, team members at Offchain Labs, and team members at the Arbitrum Foundation.

Today, Arbitrum represents about half of all Rollup TVL.
It is the most mature Rollup from a technical. perspective both in terms of scalability (Nitro) and decentralization (allowlisted fraud proofs, upgrades controlled by DAO, sequencer revenue controlled by DAO, etc.) I believe Hop should be heavily prioritizing bd within the Arbitrum ecosystem specifically. We should seek opportunities to apply for grants from the $5B Arbitrum DAO treasury to incentivize HOP usage and liquidity. We should also look to partner with major projects in the ecosystem to build cross-chain integrations.

One important note: I don’t want to accept any compensation for this role or any other role within the Hop DAO because it would present a conflict of interest with my full-time role at Tally. Nonetheless, I am excited to contribute!

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Sequel to the community call, we have decided to extend the deadline for submitting nominations. A poll will be run below to determine how long this extension will last; this poll will last for 24 hours.

  • 24 Hours
  • 48 Hours
  • 72 Hours
  • Do not extend deadline

0 voters

While this poll runs within the next 24 hours, nominees are free to submit applications.

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I think 72 hours is good to me, make sure we dont miss anyone

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Full disclosure, I nominated myself and not only do I think Franco would be an excellent candidate, I also plan on supporting him.

With that said, I think it’s a dangerous precedent to choose not to follow the Snapshot that clearly says: “After one week, the thread shall stop accepting nominations, and the nominees shall be posted on Snapshot for the community to elect three [Optimism] Ambassadors to represent the DAO”.

I think the appropriate path would be an additional election via Snapshot after this one. I know there was spirited discussion on the community call over this, but it’s because I think this “rule of law” is important.

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I would like to nominate myself as an ambassador to represent Hop within the Optimism and Arbitrum DAOs.

Both Arbitrum and Optimism protocols are designed to make dapps and transactions on Ethereum more accessible to a broader user base fostering further decentralization. The Arbitrum protocol has captured greater market share with exceptional chains (Arbitrum One and Arbitrum Nova), while Optimism is competing with its potent OP Stack and forming partnerships with strong players like Coinbase. Coinbase’s layer 2, Base and now Magi, a new layer 2 rollup, are being built on the OP Stack.

The Optimism DAO was founded over 11 months ago on the premise that public goods funding can be profitable. The Optimism DAO uniquely divided itself into two co-equal parts; the Token House and the Citizens’ House. The Token House determines protocol incentives and the Citizens’ House is responsible for funding public goods. I believe this innovative governance solution aims to balance the incentives of financial stakeholders and individual stakeholders who contribute to the DAO.

The Arbitrum DAO is newer having been live for a month and already going through a bit of a tumultuous path in establishing the relationship between the DAO and the Foundation.

I believe it is important for Hop to be up to date with boots on the ground in these DAOs to always have a pulse on new developments within two of Hop’s most important ecosystem partners and aim to strengthen these symbiotic relationships.

I have been an early user of both Arbitrum and Optimism and have stayed up to date on the evolution of their existing products, rollout of new products, and the progression of their DAOs. I was also fortunate enough to represent Hop in Arbitrum’s first ever hackathon in Devcon Bogota where I met several of Arbitrum’s community members and core team. If elected Ambassador I will attend community calls, report back to the community, seek business development opportunities for Hop, and participate in governance by voting and writing proposals on behalf of Hop.

2 Likes
11

I agree that this can be a dangerous precedent and respect if the community’s decision is to not extend the deadline. I submitted an application either way and am hoping more people apply because we need greater participation.

1 Like
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I really look forward to working with Franco and Frisson and have no doubt Dybsy will do a great job representing Hop at Rocket Pool.

1 Like
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Ambassador votes up on snapshot! Snapshot

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I voted for all of them. Since the candidates did not exceed 4, the vote seems to just be a formality if I understand correctly :slight_smile:

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15

I voted as follows:

HOP-Arbitrum Ambassador Nominees
max-andrew 33.3%
Frisson 33.3%
franco’s 33.3%

HOP-Optimism Ambassador Vote
max-andrew 50%
francom 50%

HOP-Rocket Pool Ambassador Vote
dybsy 100%

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Regarding Arbitrum: I voted 1/3 for each. As the top 3 options were going to be elected, and there were only 3 candidates, unless there was a reason against it, it was a symbolic vote. In favour of the three of them!

Regarding Optimism: Same case as Arbitrum, and I also voted for the both of them.

Regarding RocketPool: Voted for dybsy, he was the only candidate and I was in favour of his position as ambassador in RP.

1 Like