Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin showed support for Optimism’s new governance structure, noting that proposals such as the use of the OP token for gas fees show “explicit representation of the interests of non-token holders”.
Ethereum’s Layer 2 scaling solution has rolled out the first round of its Airdrop of long-awaited OP tokens on Wednesday as part of its new governance project, the “Optimism Collective”.
Optimism’s new governance structure involves two parties dubbed the “Token House” and the “Citizens’ House”. The first is made up of OP governance token holders and the second is made up of “soul-bound” non-transferable non-fungible (NFT) citizenship token owners.
While it’s unclear whether Buterin fully agrees with a Thursday proposal to use the OP governance token for gas fees, or just happy that such a discussion took place, he said. he noted on Twitter on Friday:
It’s a great example of why I’m so proud of @optimismPBC to add non-symbolic governance (the Citizen House).
Optimism explicitly has goals *other* than just “raising OP”, and the only way to do that in the long term is with explicit representation of non-token holding interests. pic.twitter.com/vofVVx53mC
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) June 3, 2022
The two sides primarily oversee different purposes, with the Token House being responsible for project incentives, protocol upgrades, and treasury funds, while the Citizens’ House focuses on retroactive funding for public goods.
The duo also share governance decisions on network settings and granting new citizenships to the Citizens’ House, which Buterin seems to appreciate in this case.
According to Optimism, the number of citizens in the Citizens’ House will increase over time, and the “mechanism for distribution of citizenships will be determined by the Foundation with input from the Token House.”
On several occasions, Buterin has laid out his thoughts that the crypto sector needs to “go beyond coin-based voting” in decentralized finance (DeFi) or decentralized governance (DeGov) because it runs the risk that holders of Whale governance tokens dominate the voting process. Buterin argues that this can often lead to a short-term concentration of whales endorsing proposals that aim to pump the price of certain assets.
Such a method can prevent smallholders and platform users from having a voice in the DeGov process, or what Buterin describes as a lack of non-token interests.
Regarding the OP gas fee proposal, which itself was featured yesterday in the Optimism governance forum for ideas and feedback, sentiment within the community appears to be mixed.
While many offered short, pointed comments of agreement, generally noting that it would make the OP more useful, many others took the time to clearly explain why they were against the idea.
Related: Balancer launches on the Ethereum L2 network Optimism
One member, Kethic, said, “I don’t think it’s a good idea. Burning voting power on a governance structure seems counterproductive,” while user Vrede said:
“Optimism is the equivalent of EVM. Accepting OP tokens as gas means giving up the EVM equivalence. Additionally, Optimism has to pay fees to Ethereum Mainnet in ETH. How will the OPETH conversion be handled? »
User Massedai said that “this is a premature change to a system that has yet to begin working as Optimism intended”, suggesting that the project seeks to provide token value through “the profitability of the ecosystem and not quick moves to try and pump a token.”
