Following significant downward price pressure after its airdrop, the OP community is calling for airdrop restrictions.
Getting a new product out and receiving negative feedback from the market isn't fun.
But that may be how 0xJohn, a user on the Optimism governance forum, felt when he wrote a post titled Users who sold the initial OP airdrop should become ineligible for all future airdrops. In the post, he proposes to discuss excluding accounts that sold their OP token airdrop from future airdrops, as these "accounts are not playing a constructive role in Optimism governance." He points out several OP token holders receiving more than 32,000 OP and swapping them for stablecoins or ether. In the words of 0xJohn:
"Why should Optimism Collective continue rewarding these kind of mercenary actors who will dump their tokens on first sight? Why should any future airdrops reward these addresses?
Of course, it is their coins so they are free to do what they want, but at the same time it defeats the purpose of Optimism Collective and dilutes governance if negative sum participants keep getting rewarded airdrops that they are going to dump the very next transaction after claiming it."
The discussion proposal — it was not a governance proposal — predictably sparked an active discussion in the community.
Some users supported 0xJohn, pointing out that people who care about the ecosystem should be incentivized, with those who don't being shown the door. Others were less supportive, reminding the community that airdrop recipients may have personal circumstances or motivations to sell an airdrop. Furthermore, punishing people that have used Optimism could drive them to other layer-two solutions like Arbitrum.
Cobie, the co-host of the UpOnly crypto podcast and a well-respected figure in the crypto industry, chipped in with his very own take on the situation. His response called “Extended ineligibility for future airdrops” mockingly calls for going even further than the original proposal. Future sellers could be subjected to "physical violence" if they don't play according to the rules and those buying their tokens should also be excluded since the sold tokens are effectively "tainted."
Cobie later backed up his take with a more serious answer. He stresses that sellers may have many different reasons for dumping their airdrop, which may not mean that they do not believe in the ecosystem or do not want to participate in its governance.
The OP token is down 13% over the last 24 hours and trades at $1.22 at the time of writing.
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