Delegates have a primary job: direct Optimism’s capacity to support the ecosystem’s growth and health. As a founding core Velodrome team member and a long-term player in crypto, DeFi, and NFTs, I offer deep perspective in helping shape this direction. What’s good for Optimism is good for my protocol; what’s good for my protocol is good for Optimism. Velodrome can help to enact Optimism policy, and I intend to be one of hopefully many protocol liaisons to the Token House.
I see in Optimism an opportunity to play out my core belief that broadening stakeholder participation in a way that advantages growth is going to supplant legacy organizational models. Impact = Profit isn’t just about aligning incentives so that an entire community benefits from policy and private activity. It’s about reconsidering how we relate to one another, dropping zero-sum habits and aiming for growing overall bounties.
More generally, I want a front row seat with a genuine attempt to explore new forms of governance that can be applied well beyond the scope of DeFi, etc.
Becoming a delegate isn’t just about promoting core ideals, however: I’m also very competitive, and I want Optimism to win. Within Optimism we may aspire to be positive-sum, but in order to play this out completely, we need to demonstrate that we can also just work better than current alternatives in the market. So we need to win, and I want to help us get there.
My view on the Optimistic Vision
Reading through the other statements I’m struck by applicants’ enthusiasm about the possibilities of where correct digital democracy can take us: aligning stakeholders onchain and offchain; dodging the tragedy of the commons; provisioning and providing accessibility to underserved corners of societies; and so on.
I share this enthusiasm, and it’s what initially drove me to study and pursue alternative organizational models away from traditional corporate structures.
Less attended to, however, is, ironically, the defining phrase of the Collective:
a new model of digital democratic governance,
optimized,
to drive rapid and sustained growth of a decentralized ecosystem.
It’s not enough to be satisfied with calling ourselves a new model — to me this statement is one of obligation. We need deliberate but rapid iteration – the optimization — which requires serious debate and decisive, data-driven action to make sure that this decentralized ecosystem will grow quickly and sustainably. Delegates need to be putting in the work here; weekly up/down votes are simply not enough.
To do this work correctly, we need greater participation from protocols — which are extensions of our democratic model — to ensure our ideals are getting translated into action. This means that protocols should contribute to governance while being accountable.
I’ve written elsewhere that many questions about DAO governance are fundamental organizational questions that have been grappled with over ages. We can build on previous knowledge in many cases, and I think that’s in part what I can offer here, having been an economist by training and profession.
To summarize, we’re all here because we agree we want the things outlined in the Vision. That’s the given, and it’s not enough for a delegate just to want this. Optimism’s core work – the thing that delegates need to be laser-focused on – is how to use administrative, social, and market levers to make Optimism as a going concern last long enough and thrive well enough to even have a shot at achieving these things.
My view on the first three articles of the Working Constitution
Virtually all of the responses to this segment say something like “This is great and I like this.” I do think this is great, and I do like this. But in the spirit of working beyond the commonly understood, I’ll add some additional thoughts.
This is a “Working Constitution” - That the constitution ought to be reconsidered does **not mean that community members and delegates can arbitrarily present standards as given without inviting serious pushback. The Constitution is still a foundational framework, and deviation or elaboration on this framework needs, at minimum, a paper trail.
OP Citizens and OP Holders will equally coexist within the Collective - We’ve seen in history that bicameral governance structures allow a specialized minority Guardian class (here, Citizens) to hold disproportionate sway over broader policy. I think this frees up more space for the OP Holder class to allow for some more vote concentration, and ironically current fears about excessive concentration at the hands of protocols risk Optimism’s early direction being managed by a minority of incumbent Delegates. We shouldn’t be afraid of getting more OP tokens delegated.
The Optimism Foundation will be a steward of the Optimism Collective and its early governance model - Until the Citizens take hold, it’s probably acceptable to lean more on the Foundation for their guidance (where they’re able to provide it), and as a Delegate I’d work to incorporate more of their expertise into my own thinking. I’m not sure to what extent Delegates have access to Foundation members, but they’ve been thinking about these topics for as long as anybody in this thread.
My skills and areas of expertise: economics, finance, organizational strategy, prediction markets
My favorite Web3 projects: Velodrome, Gitcoin, Maker DAO
