[RFC] Delegate community multisig OP to ambassador multisig

Summary:
This proposal would delegate the OP tokens Hop holds in its Optimism community multisig to the Hop Optimism ambassador multisig. This proposal does not prevent the community multisig from spending the tokens in the way the community sees fit, and would make use of the OP holdings by augmenting the ~200K OP already delegated to Hop with the community multisig’s ~800K OP.

Rationale:
Delegating these funds puts the holdings to better use before they can be spent by dramatically boosting Hop’s voice in Optimism’s decision-making.

Specification:
The community multisig signers delegate the holdings to the ambassador multisig address through Optimism Agora.

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How does this impact funds that the current community multisig needs to use for rewards programs?

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It wouldn’t. Delegation doesn’t lock funds so everything would continue as normal.

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Oh I misread this then, I see it is indeed just delegating the votes and definitely no impact! I’ll be voting yes.

And this RFC is now HIP-27 and up on snapshot for vote: Snapshot

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I voted For this proposal (HIP-27)

Delegating OP Tokens to the ambassador so they can participate in Optimism governance effectively is a no brainer. I voted in favor of this.

I will be voting abstain. A community member raised a concern about a policy prohibiting delegation of grant tokens based on a similar experience. The Optimism ambassadors will investigate it and reach out to the Optimism community for further guidance.

Still, I think the proposal should go through for two reasons. First, if it is determined that the tokens are eligible for participation in governance and a voter was in favor of this before, there should be no reason why they wouldn’t still be in favor of it. We don’t need to immediately delegate these specific tokens and if it is determined to be disallowed, we could pass a new Snapshot updating the decision.

Second, if these tokens do come with preconditions we will need to segregate them regardless and create a new community multisig address. We don’t want to commingle them with funds we can use freely. If Hop ever chooses to diversify its treasury or receives an airdrop from Optimism, we would still want to delegate those funds to the ambassador program if this vote were to previously succeed.

This vote gives the community multisig the authority to delegate their tokens to the ambassador program. If this vote doesn’t pass because of this new information, we’d essentially just have to redo the vote once we create a new community multisig. Given that the community has a strong understanding of what is meant by the term and the nature of addresses means that we likely don’t want to have to repass a vote every time a specific address is compromised or keys cycled, it seems unnecessary.

In short, I don’t think this new information should change how you vote and I encourage any delegates who switched their votes to reconsider. I am voting abstain out an an abundance of caution as one of the Optimism ambassadors, but it seems like an issue that would have quickly been caught, rectified, and understood to be a good faith oversight by myself as an ambassador and author of the proposal.

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With new information that phase 0 OP grants shouldn’t be used for self-delegation, we obviously shouldn’t use them for self-delegation.

No Self-Delegation of Grants
Token grants must not be self-delegated for use in governance. The primary purpose of these token grants is to incentivize sustainable usage and growth of the Optimism ecosystem. Accordingly, for partners interested in increasing their voting power, the preferred route is by encouraging users to delegate their rewards to your governance representatives.
Grant Policies - 📌 Policies and Templates - Optimism Collective

This definitely does change my vote. If the tokens are eligible for participation we’ll just do another vote with that new information. I see no reason to assume these tokens are eligible for participation.

So let’s redo the vote once you create a new community multisig, because the question of where tokens for delegation are going to come from will become important. This is still an open question for ambassadors w/ Rocket Pool.

In a similar vein, I think what is more relevant to focus on now that we’ve learned this information is what Optimism suggests themselves: “the preferred route is by encouraging users to delegate their rewards to your governance representatives.” How can we more clearly incentivize delegation of the distributed OP to Hop’s Ambassador multisig?

No one is arguing we should use these specific tokens if they are found to be disallowed. However, judging by the times posted (the policy about a year after the grant) I think it’s worth investigating if these tokens might be grandfathered in or if there are any other considerations. I’m currently speaking with an Optimism admin about our situation.

You’re saying in the event that the tokens are found to be eligible, it definitely does change your vote?

Assuming this address only holds tokens from this grant with a number of conditions, it should have never been considered a “community multisig” to start. The only error in this proposal, then, is a link pointing to this address for user convenience and it does not explicitly say the address in the text of the document. This address is importantly now known to not be the community multisig given it does not fall in line with the term’s use on mainnet or Arbitrum and was only ever known of by a small handful of high context participants.

Redoing the vote would be an exact duplicate changing or removing one link and would imply we also need to update any proposal that includes an address if that address ever needs to be updated, leaving only the most literal, address-based interpretation of policy possible.

The Optimism ambassadors have been and will continue to work on generating organic growth, but that wording also implies that it’s one of many possible routes and obviously as an advocate for Hop, I plan on exploring all of them.

I also just received confirmation from this admin that tokens received through means other than grants (donation, airdrop, purchasing) are eligible to be used in governance.

Not only this, they also confirmed this policy prohibiting grant tokens from being used was only formally established last month and would likely not have applied to these year-old tokens had they been delegated sooner. I think the implication in discussions that this has always been a bright red line misses the mark.

Here’s a good path forward as I see it, following the text of the document and in line with how the term “community multisig” is used not just within Hop, but also within the proposal where it mentions tokens being able to be spent “the way the community sees fit” which was clearly never the case for specifically earmarked tokens.

  1. Recognize Hop does not have a community multisig on Optimism

  2. Hop creates a new multisig using the existing multisig signers on Optimism as part of the upcoming Arbitrum proposal which plans to do the same thing

  3. Allow the multisig signers on our actual community multisig address to delegate to the ambassador program so if and when Hop receives OP from non-grant sources, those tokens will be used to help give a voice to Optimism ambassadors

This is not the only path forward, but I think it’s the path of least resistance by following the decision of the proposal, not going against Optimism’s policies, preventing Hop Labs from needing to make any adjustments to how onboarding rewards currently work, and preventing delegates from needing to duplicate this vote in the near future.

I like this approach.

Let’s just do anything that would not go against Optimism’s rules. Let’s first consult with the optimism people. I was not aware this OP comes from a grant that prohibits self-delegation. If I knew I would not have voted FOR.

But I think it makes sense to delegate OP that HOP has to our ambassador. At least the OP that has no strings attached.

Unfortunately I can’t change my vote even if I wanted to, since I am travelling and will be back only ~5 hours after the vote ends. I do not have access to sensitive keys when travelling.

But I don’t think it’s such a tragedy. We can still follow the idea that @max-andrew detailed above or in the worst case have a corrective re-vote.

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