Optimism to Fuel Development and Growth with 10 Million OP Tokens

Optimism aims to make open-source software building profitable

Optimism has announced its second round of RetroPGF, an OP token airdrop to fuel the growth of their ecosystem. It’s a 10 million OP token drop to fund public goods and open-source tools, incentivizing builders to support the development and usage of the OP Stack, a core set of building blocks for the ecosystem. 

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Optimism ecosystem update

Optimism is one of the top Layer-2 (L2) networks by usage and marketcap. The L2 blockchain provides users with faster transactions at a low cost while inheriting the security of Ethereum. Thanks to these features, Optimism has already attracted many dapps, and its ecosystem is thriving.

According to DappRadar Ranking, the dapps with the user largest number on Optimism have all achieved positive growth in unique active wallets over the last 30 days. The DeFi segment is particularly impressive, with PoolTogether up by 113%, Perpetual Protocol by 140%, and Rubicon by 96.63%.

Recently, Optimism announced the second round of RetroPGF. The program will offer 10 million OP tokens as rewards to incentivize developers who contribute to its ecosystem.

Now let’s read on to learn what RetroPGF is and how developers can be part of it.

What is RetroPGF, and how does it work?

Retroactive public goods funding (or RetroPGF) is Optimism’s solution to fixing the problem with misaligned incentives in software development. It strives to continue to bring better developer tooling, widespread user education, safer infrastructure, and industry-leading research to the network by funding public goods.

The Citizens’ House, one of the decentralized governing bodies of Optimism, will facilitate the funding distribution. Its responsibilities include reviewing projects and voting on the impact against the declared funding scope. 

The RetroPGF 2 program leverages a set of scores to determine how much funding each project receives. Most importantly, unlike proactive grants, RetroPGF appreciates “what was useful” instead of “what might be useful”. This makes it much more straightforward to fund projects which have already demonstrated impact for the ecosystem.

RetroPGF’s funding resource comes in 2 parts. First, 20% of the initial OP token supply is allocated to funding public goods through the program. Additionally, when a user transacts on Optimism, the profits generated from network consumption can also be used to fund public goods. 

What’s the scope of RetroPGF 2, and how to participate?

In January 2023, the program will distribute 10 million OP tokens to projects that support the development and use of the OP Stack.

The OP Stack is a series of modules that work together to form coherent, reliable blockchains. Each of these components implements a specific layer of the stack.This architecture enables developers to build their own bespoke, custom blockchains to meet their specific needs. 

Bringing the OP Stack to a broader market is an important initiative for Optimism to drive Web3 mass adoption. And that’s why the funding focuses on OP Stack. Here’s a look at the three categories in which developers can participate.

• Infrastructure + Dependencies: software used to build or deploy the OP Stack; contribution to the protocols or standards on which the OP stack depends; experiments that support future development of the core OP Stack protocol.
• Tooling + Utilities: work that helps builders create applications on Optimism mainnet, build on the OP Stack, interact with the governance of the Collective, or use applications built on Optimism.
• Education: work to spread awareness and knowledge of how Optimism works, whether technically or socially.

For the program timeline, see the chart below. You can also find more information on the process by visiting the RetroPGF 2 documentation. And for announcements and updates, follow OptimismGov on Twitter.

How to vote

The voting committee comprises 90 community members who hold Voting Badges. Those who have participated in RetroPGF 1 will be issued a new badge, and the remaining members will be selected through different mechanisms according to various criteria.

People who are advocates for public goods values, help drive the RetroPGF funding process, or have expertise in the three categories mentioned above have a better chance of being selected for the voting committee.

Join Optimism in building Web3’s future

RetroPGF is a critical part of Optimism’s vision. It seeks to advance open-source software development and, ultimately, the decentralized internet through a funding mechanism that balances private profit with public good.

Anyone can be part of RetroPGF by nominating projects during the open nomination period from Jan 3 to 17, 2023. More information on how to make nominations will be shared on the Governance Forum and by OptimismGov on Twitter.

To follow along with RetroPGF 2, future iterations of the Citizens’ House, and happenings across Optimism Governance:

Other useful links