First Draft Article. Written by Dan Singjoy.
After two years of pioneering fractal governance on the Superchain, Optimism Fractal is entering an indefinite strategic hiatus. This article explains why, what we accomplished, and how the work continues through Eden Fractal.
Along with this shift, the Optimystics team is transitioning focus to support the Eden ecosystem. The Optimystics events calendar has been rebranded to the Eden Creators events calendar, and while Optimystics educational materials and this blog remain available, our primary efforts going forward will be through Eden Creators. Everyone who has followed our work is warmly invited to continue the journey with us there.
Table of Contents
- How We Got Here
- Why Eden Fractal
- Alignment with Ecosystem Conditions
- What We Built
- Honest Reflections on Our Experience
- What Happens Now
- Join Eden Fractal
- Looking Forward
How We Got Here
Optimism Fractal was founded in late 2022 by the Optimystics team, which emerged from Eden Fractal to bring the innovations of fractal democracy to Ethereum and the Superchain. Over the past two years, we hosted 72 Optimism Fractal events and over 40 Optimism Town Hall discussions, welcomed over 100 participants, deployed the first production implementation of fractal governance smart contracts on OP Mainnet, and created comprehensive documentation and video archives.
It's been an amazing learning experience. In many ways, Optimism Fractal was extremely successful—it demonstrated that fractal governance works effectively on Ethereum, brought together collaborators from around the world, inspired the creation of several new fractal communities, and made significant progress toward our mission of fostering collaboration, recognizing public goods creators, and pioneering better governance on the Superchain.
In other ways, Optimism Fractal hasn't yet reached its full potential. But overall, it's been extremely productive and has played a pivotal role in the growth of the fractal ecosystem as a whole.
In mid-November 2025, Tadas—co-founder of the Optimystics team and architect of our governance infrastructure—suggested we consider pausing Optimism Fractal to consolidate resources. At first, it wasn't an easy decision. Optimism Fractal had been central to my work for two years, and I'd formed meaningful connections with so many people through these events.
But after careful deliberation, the logic became clear. We discussed it openly at Eden Town Hall on November 20th, and community members present—including Zal—agreed that focusing on Eden Fractal would strengthen the entire fractal ecosystem. We've spoken about this several more times since, and remain in complete agreement.
While we had previously planned to return for Optimism Fractal Season 7 on January 22nd, 2026, we ultimately decided that consolidating resources made more sense.
Why Eden Fractal
Eden Fractal is the foundational community from which Optimism Fractal emerged. It's been working to implement fractal decision-making processes throughout society since 2021—a mission broader than any single blockchain ecosystem.
Since Eden Fractal launched its Epoch 2 initiative last May, it has been building on Base—part of the Superchain—and is directly advancing Optimism Fractal's mission. We're still building on the same technical infrastructure, still creating value for the Optimism ecosystem, just through a different community structure.
The fractal ecosystem has been growing. New initiatives are sprouting up—ZAO Fractal, Fractal Nouns, and communities exploring fractals around the world. There's a lot of work to be done to support this growth, and Eden Fractal is the natural home for that support.
Meanwhile, it's been difficult to give both Eden Fractal and Optimism Fractal the attention they each deserve while splitting our focus. The fact that I was the only person at Optimism Fractal's last event became an interesting signal about where to direct our energy. At the same time, Eden Fractal has had considerable momentum that deserves more of our attention.
By consolidating resources, we can better serve all of these initiatives while building the foundational infrastructure needed for genuine scale. Eden Fractal's broader mission—implementing fractal decision-making throughout society—positions us to support fractal governance wherever it takes root: on the Superchain via Base, on EOS, on future implementations like Sybase, and anywhere else communities adopt these approaches.
Alignment with Ecosystem Conditions
The Optimism Foundation's Season 9 announcements reaffirmed our timing. The Foundation is shifting away from community-led capital allocation—pausing Retro Funding for at least 12 months, planning to dissolve the Grants Council, and explicitly prioritizing enterprise strategy.
Community-driven governance is precisely what Optimism Fractal was designed to demonstrate. With the broader ecosystem taking a different direction, this is a natural moment to step back and continue building through Eden Fractal until conditions align again.
The tools and research we've developed address the exact challenges the Foundation has identified—scalable consensus, fair capital allocation, resistance to capture and extraction. When the Optimism Collective is ready to revisit community-led coordination, these resources will be available, refined and ready for genuine scale.
What We Built
Over two years, Optimism Fractal developed infrastructure and research that will serve the Superchain long after this hiatus ends.
ORDAO: On-Chain Fractal Governance. The ORDAO smart contracts deployed on OP Mainnet represent the first production implementation of fractal governance on EVM networks. Before Optimism Fractal, Respect Games existed primarily on Antelope chains. We proved the mechanism translates effectively to Ethereum and Layer 2s. The contracts remain deployed at optimism.frapps.xyz and can be reactivated when the community chooses.
Comprehensive Documentation. Every one of our 72 events was recorded and published. The archive of Respect Games, town hall discussions, and written documentation creates a reference for anyone interested in fractal governance. Communities wanting to implement Respect Games can watch facilitation in practice and understand common challenges.
Research on Democratic Fund Distribution. Through an Optimism Mission, we documented approaches to community-driven capital allocation designed to address failure modes like capture and extraction. This research—available at optimystics.io—can complement Optimism's strategy when the Collective revisits funding public goods at scale.
Community. Perhaps most importantly, we brought together people from around the world who share a vision of better collective decision-making. These connections persist beyond any single event or season. Speaking personally, I met my wife Rosmari through the fractal community—we met at Eden Fractal about three years ago, and she became a co-founder of both Optimism Fractal and Optimystics. It's amazing how fractals can bring people together.
Honest Reflections on Our Experience
I want to share some honest reflections on our experience with the Optimism Collective's funding mechanisms.
The Optimystics team received some Retro Funding recognition in 2023 and 2024, and I completed a Mission on fund distribution research. We're grateful for this support. However, it was modest compared to the investment—over two years of work across dozens of events, comprehensive documentation, and pioneering new approaches to governance.
Outside of the core team, participants in Optimism Fractal's community couldn't receive direct recognition. We lacked the legal infrastructure to distribute funding to individual contributors, and Retro Funding wasn't designed to recognize this kind of distributed participation. This wasn't necessarily anyone's fault—it's simply how the systems were structured.
I documented some of our experiences with RetroFunding in my "Recognizing Impact" article and related Optimism Town Hall 28 video. The "Through a New Lens" article covers more details about our Mission research and its challenges. We also discussed our experience with the Grants Council process in several Optimism Town Hall videos
I share this as honest feedback, not criticism. The structural challenges we encountered in getting experimental governance work recognized likely affected other projects too. When the Optimism Collective revisits community-led funding approaches, these experiences may inform better designs.
What Happens Now
The ORDAO infrastructure remains active. The smart contracts at optimism.frapps.xyz continue to function. Respect token holders can still use their tokens to vote on proposals through ORDAO and Snapshot. The ORDAO branch of our governance can reactivate the Respect Game and Council when the community decides the time is right.
Documentation is preserved. All 72 Optimism Fractal event videos, over 40 Optimism Town Hall recordings, and all written documentation remain available. You can find these resources at optimismfractal.com and optimismtownhall.com, and watch all videos on the Eden Creators YouTube channel.
Community channels stay open. The Optimism Fractal Discord remains available. Updates about the fractal ecosystem will be shared in the Eden Fractal Telegram group.
Optimystics transitions. The Optimystics events calendar has been rebranded to the Eden Creators events calendar. The Optimystics team continues operating, but with resources focused on supporting the Eden ecosystem. This blog and our educational materials remain available, but our primary work going forward will be through Eden Creators.
Join Eden Fractal
Everyone who participated in Optimism Fractal is warmly invited to continue at Eden Fractal. Whether you've been deeply embedded in the fractal ecosystem or you're building on Optimism and curious about better governance, better coordination, and better capital allocation—you're welcome.
Eden Fractal hosts regular events where contributors share their work, build reputation through consensus, and engage in governance discussions. Contributions toward fractal governance on any chain—including the Superchain—are valued and respected.
Register for events at luma.com/edencreators and join the conversation at t.me/edenfractal. You can learn more about the community at edenfractal.com and watch past events on the Eden Creators YouTube channel.
Looking Forward
I believe Optimism Fractal will return. I don't know exactly when—probably not in 2026—but when both the fractal ecosystem and the Optimism Collective are more ready for this kind of collaboration, we can pick up where we left off through our existing consensus processes.
The Superchain will eventually need what fractal governance provides: scalable democratic coordination that maintains legitimacy at scale. Our research on fund distribution, our experience running over 100 events, our deployed ORDAO contracts—it's all preserved and waiting.
In the meantime, the work continues at Eden Fractal. We're building tools that can help actualize Optimism's vision of impact equals profit and make Ether's Phoenix truly rise. The mission remains the same. The community moves forward.
Thank you to everyone who believed in this vision and showed up to build it with us over the past two years. It's been a real pleasure and a very special time.
Go Optimism Fractal! Go Eden Fractal! 🔴✨🌳