Projects and Funding

Introduction

Welcome to the Optimystics Projects and Funding page. This page aims to provide comprehensive context about our team's projects supporting the Optimism Collective and clarify details about our grant applications for Retro Funding Round 6. We're committed to transparency and want to ensure reviewers and badgeholders have a clear understanding of our work, funding situation, and the unique contributions of each project.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Retro Funding Applications
• Prior Funding Received
• How Our Projects Relate and Differ
• Optimystics Tools
• Optimism Fractal Respect Game Events
• Optimism Town Hall + RetroPitches
• Eden Fractal Events
• Ecosystem Overview: Clarifying our Collaborative Impact
• Conclusion

Retro Funding Applications

For Retro Funding Round 6, our team submitted four applications for projects that have made an impact on Optimism governance in various ways over the past year:

1. Optimystics Tools (Governance Infrastructure & Tooling category)

2. Optimism Fractal Respect Game Events (Governance Leadership category)

3. Optimism Town Hall + RetroPitches (Governance Leadership category)

4. Eden Fractal Events (Governance Leadership category)

Prior Funding Received

It's crucial to provide clear context about our funding to avoid any misunderstandings:

• Our team received a total of 30,000 OP in RetroPGF Round 3. This is the only funding we've received from the Collective.

• This 30,000 OP grant supported work across multiple projects and teams in their early stages. For example, at that time, only one Optimism Fractal event had been hosted.

• Due to application structure constraints, we had to list the full 30,000 OP amount on each of our four current applications. As far as we were aware, there was no dedicated field to explain how previous funding was distributed across projects.

• The funding amount listed on each application reflects this total prior grant, not individual funding per project.

• In reality, the funding received specifically for each project is significantly less than 30,000 OP.

We're concerned that reviewers might misinterpret this as each project having received 30,000 OP (totaling 90,000 OP), which is not the case. Such a misunderstanding could significantly impact our funding allocation based on the axiom of impact=profit, potentially undervaluing the contributions of our team members who have largely been working on a volunteer basis.

We're in contact with the RetroFunding organizers to clarify if we can adjust how this prior funding is displayed on the applications to avoid confusion (as you can see in this message). Our goal is full transparency about our funding history and ensuring fair consideration of our projects' impact relative to received funding.

How Our Projects Relate and Differ

While our projects are interconnected and focus on related work, each plays a unique and independent role in supporting Optimism governance. To avoid any perception of overlap or duplication, we want to clarify the distinct purposes and impacts of each project:

Optimystics Tools

• Focuses on developing governance infrastructure and tooling
• Creates open-source software for onchain social games and governance protocols
• Develops and maintains code used by leaders in Optimism Governance

Here is the project application for Optimystics Tools. You can see more details demonstrating the

You can see the impact of Optimystics Tools at Optimystics.io/impact.

Optimism Fractal Respect Game Events

• Hosts weekly events featuring the Respect Game
• Facilitates events with peer evaluation of governance contributions
• Provides a practical testing ground for governance experiments

Here is the project application for Optimism Fractal Respect Game Events. You can see more details demonstrating the impact of Optimism Fractal Respect Game Events at OptimismFractal.com/impact.

Optimism Town Hall + RetroPitches

• Organizes open forum discussions on Optimism governance topics
• Features community-driven agenda setting with Cagendas and OPTOPICS
• Hosts RetroPitches events to showcase public goods projects

Here is the project application for Optimism Town Hall + RetroPitches. You can see more details demonstrating the impact of Optimism Town Hall + RetroPitches at OptimismTownHall.com/impact.

Eden Fractal Events

• Broader focus on optimizing collective decision-making beyond Optimism
• Serves as a research and development hub for governance innovations
• Connects governance leaders across multiple ecosystems

Here is the project application for Eden Fractal events. You can see more details demonstrating the impact of Eden Fractal Events at EdenFractal.com/impact.

While these projects share some common goals and concepts (like improving governance with fractal democracy and onchain decision-making protocols), they each serve distinct functions and audiences, and have created impact in different ways. They can operate independently, and the work done for each project does not overlap with the others.

Ecosystem Overview: Clarifying our Collaborative Impact

We've noticed that some RetroFunding interfaces may show only one team member for our applications. To prevent misinterpretation and provide crucial context, we want to clarify the broader ecosystem these applications aim to support. Our impact stems from a diverse network of contributors, far beyond what a single-member listing might suggest.

While our applications may only show one team member due to technical constraints and preferences, the work and impact represent a much larger collaborative effort. The Optimystics ecosystem comprises:

• Core Optimystics Team: A dedicated group of 4 full-time members who have been working across these projects for over a year. These individuals have played key roles in conceptualizing, developing, and maintaining our suite of tools and events.

• Part-time Developers: Several skilled developers contributing significant hours to specific projects. For example, two developers outside of our team have contributed over 4 months of work to developing key applications, while others have dedicated substantial time to refining our governance protocols.

• Community Participants: A broader community of many participants who have frequently joined our weekly events, contributing ideas, feedback, and onchain attestations to benefit Optimism. These individuals play a crucial role in testing our governance models and providing real-world data on their effectiveness.

• Volunteer Contributors: The majority of our impact has been achieved through extensive volunteer work. Multiple team members have been working full-time on a volunteer basis since receiving the initial grant, dedicating thousands of hours to advancing our projects.

This extensive network of contributors allows us to approach governance innovation from multiple angles, ensuring a robust and diverse set of solutions. The volunteer nature of much of this work underscores the community's belief in the potential of our projects. It also highlights the need for sustainable funding to maintain and expand these efforts, allowing us to fairly compensate our dedicated contributors and attract additional talent to further our mission of improving governance on the Optimism Superchain.

You can see many of these contributors presenting their work in our event videos and project demonstrations. We're actively curating each individual's achievements to showcase the breadth and depth of contributions. This RetroFunding round represents a significant step towards fairly compensating these dedicated individuals and establishing a sustainable system that can fund many more contributors going forward.

Conclusion

We're committed to transparency and welcome any questions about our projects or funding. If you need any clarification or additional information, please don't hesitate to reach out to the author of this page and Optimystics founder, Dan Singjoy. Thank you for your consideration and support of public goods in the Optimism ecosystem!