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Unlock Your Voting PowerOP token holders are able to vote on some of the most important decisions for the Optimism Collective. This empowers one of the Collective’s key stakeholders to have a say in the development of the system.You can either vote yourself with your OP tokens, or you can delegate the voting power of your OP tokens to someone else to make decisions on your behalf.Get started at vote.optimism.io/delegates
Governance proposals must fall within one of the proposal types defined in the Operating Manual.Most proposals have a two-week review period followed by a one-week voting period. Maintenance Upgrades and Protocol and Governor Upgrades move directly to a one-week veto period. All votes require a quorum of 30% of the votable OP supply. The full requirements for each type are set out in the Operating Manual.
Proposals are posted on the Governance Forum. Under the Operating Manual, a proposal moves through the following steps:
  1. Confirm the proposal type. The proposal must fall within one of the proposal types listed above.
  2. Post a draft. Create a new topic on the Governance Forum in the appropriate category. Use the standard proposal template and mark the title with [Draft].
  3. Respond to feedback. Summarize the feedback you incorporate in a comment on the topic, and link to any feedback gathered elsewhere.
  4. Obtain approvals. Four of the top 100 delegates must give explicit approval on the topic. Proposals initiated by the Foundation do not require delegate approvals, and delegates may not approve their own proposals.
  5. Finalize. Change the title from [Draft] to [Final] and tag a governance administrator.
  6. Vote. The proposal goes to a vote in the next voting cycle at vote.optimism.io.
Protocol and Governor Upgrades follow a separate process and may begin at any time. Once a valid draft is posted, a governance administrator adds a comment with the date the proposal moves to a vote. If a proposal is rejected, a revised proposal must be posted as a new topic that links to the original and identifies what changed.
Each year the Optimism Foundation publishes a budget update on the Governance Forum. The update reports the OP committed during the past year and sets out the expected budget and OP circulating supply for the next. For example, see Collective Year 4 Budget Update and Year 5 Budget Outlook.All budget reports are collected in the Foundation Budgets category of the Governance Forum. Treasury and Foundation wallet addresses are listed on the dashboards, trackers, and addresses page.
The Optimism Foundation is a Cayman Islands foundation company. It operates to support the establishment of the Optimism Collective, the development of the Optimism ecosystem, and the technology that powers it.Consistent with the Collective’s Working Constitution, the Foundation strives to:
  • Support the Collective with a formal legal entity, allowing the Foundation to:
    • Enter into contracts with third parties, such as service providers.
    • Administer intellectual property rights.
    • Make required governmental reports and filings.
How does the Foundation work?The Optimism Foundation is governed by a Board of Directors and a Supervisor.The Board of Directors currently consists of: Abbey Titcomb, Emily Furlong, Brian Avello, and Jing Wang. The Board’s role is to manage the business and affairs of the Foundation.The Supervisor is the Cayman Islands firm, DS Limited. Its role is to oversee the Foundation’s directors and ensure the observance of their legal obligations.The Foundation also employs officers, contractors and service providers to execute on its operational and administrative aims.How is the Foundation held accountable?As a Cayman Islands foundation company, the Foundation is legally accountable to its governing documentation, which sets up the Foundation to defer to the will of the Optimism Collective and its governance.There are two governance proposal types specifically targeted towards ensuring that the Foundation and its personnel are accountable to the will of the Collective:
  • Director removal - the ability of governance to have a member of the Foundation’s Board of Directors removed from service.
  • Rights protections - a blocking vote, which enables governance to veto any proposed change to the Foundation’s governing documents that would materially reduce the rights of OP token holders.
More information on each of the above proposal types is contained in the Operating Manual.