The Ethereum co-founder has often advocated for the projects to move away from coin voting in DeFi and DeGov, as it will allow smaller holders an opportunity to truly participate in governance.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has shown 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 deployed the first round of its long-awaited OP token on June 1 as part of its new governance project the “Optimism Collective.”
Optimism’s new governance structure involves two parties called “Token House” and “Citizen House”. The first is made up of OP governance token holders and the second is made up of non-transferable “soul-bound” citizenship NFT owners.
While it is unclear whether Buterin fully agrees with the June 2 proposal to use the OP governance token for gas fees, or is simply glad such discussion is taking place, he noted on Twitter today that, “Optimism explicitly has goals *other* than just “make OP go up”, and the only way to do that long-term is with explicit representation of non-token-holder interests.”
Token House and Citizen House
The two parties have mostly different goals: Token House handles project incentives, protocol enhancements, and treasury funds, while Citizen House focuses on retroactive funding of public goods.
The duo also share governance decisions on network parameters and the granting of new citizenships to Citizen House, something Buterin seems to appreciate in this case.
According to Optimism, the number of members in the Citizen House will grow over time, and the “mechanism of distribution of the citizenships will be determined by the foundation with the contribution of the Token House”.
On several occasions, Buterin has expressed his opinion that the cryptocurrency sector needs to “move beyond coin voting” into decentralized finance (DeFi) or decentralized governance (DeGov), as there is a risk that holders with large amounts of tokens dominate the voting process. Buterin argues that this can often lead to a short-term focus of whales approving proposals that seek to drive up the price of certain assets.
Such a method can result in small holders and platform users having no say in the governance process, or what Buterin describes as a lack of interest from non-token holders.
Community’s Mixed Feelings over OP’s Gas Proposal
As for OP’s gas commissions proposal, which was brought to the Optimism Governance forum yesterday for ideas and feedback, community sentiment seems mixed.
While many offered brief, sharp comments of agreement, generally noting that it would make the OP more useful, other comments clearly stated why they were against the idea.
One member, Kethic, stated that, “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Burning voting power into a governance structure seems counterproductive.”
Meanwhile, user Vrede stated that: “Optimism is EVM equivalency. Accepting OP tokens as gas means giving up EVM equivalence. Also, Optimism has to pay fees to the Ethereum mainnet in ETH. How will OPETH conversion be handled?”
User Massedai said that, “this is a premature change in a system that has not yet started to function in the way that Optimism intended”, further suggesting that the project seeks to provide value to the token through “the profitability of the ecosystem and not of quick moves to try to drive up the price of a token.”
By Audy Castaneda
