Eden Fractal 2025 Strategy: Nurturing Transformative Growth

Introduction

After years of dedicated development and recent momentum across the ecosystem, we're at a pivotal moment to scale fractal decision-making processes throughout society.

Our tools and infrastructure have matured significantly - from multiple full-stack applications enabling democratic coordination to comprehensive educational resources that make these processes accessible. Most importantly, we've cultivated an engaged community of builders and participants who consistently demonstrate the value of these approaches through their thoughtful feedback and enthusiastic implementation.

This strategy document outlines our next major steps as we fully transition into Eden Fractal's second epoch, with four key proposals for community feedback:

1. Core intents to focus our efforts in 2025
2. A new game prompt aligned with our evolving ecosystem
3. Potential schedule change to optimize community participation
4. ORDAO deployment on Base to expand our impact

Details about each proposal are provided in the sections below, along with key context and considerations. There are also four strategic framework documents intended to spark discussions and help guide our next steps.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Our Foundation and Future Direction
• Historical Context
• Our Vision
• Our Mission
• Next Steps
• Proposal 1: Set Core Intents
• Intent 1: Respect Game Implementation
• Intent 2: Respect Token Utilization
• Proposal 2: Set Respect Game Prompt
• Proposed New Prompt
• Details and Considerations
• Proposal 3: Potentially Change Schedule of Events
• Strategic Benefits
• Implementation Approach
• Proposal 4: Implement ORDAO on Base
• Why ORDAO
• Why Base and Ethereum
• Longer-Term Focus: Strategic Framework Documents
• Conclusion: Accelerating Toward Better Coordination
• The Opportunity Before Us
• Building Together
• Next Steps

Our Foundation and Future Direction

To understand where we're going, it's essential to recognize the journey that brought us here and the vision that drives us forward. Our history of experimentation and refinement has led to clear principles for better coordination, while our future direction builds on this foundation to create lasting impact.

Historical Context

The Eden community's journey began in 2021, emerging from experiments in democratic coordination based on principles from "More Equal Animals." Hundreds of participants helped test and refine these new approaches to collective decision-making. Through 2022, we developed the core mechanism for the Respect Game on Antelope networks and established Eden Fractal's regular community events. This period also saw the formation of Fractally and the Genesis Fractal, creating crucial proving grounds for our coordination processes.

2023 marked significant expansion with the launch of Optimism Fractal and adaptation of our tools for EVM networks. Through consistent testing and refinement, we established our vision of better decision-making for all communities. In 2024, we crystallized our mission while building sophisticated governance frameworks and expanding our educational resources to make these processes more accessible.

Our Vision

All communities and organizations should have the tools and methods for the best decision-making possible - fair, fast, and fun.

Our Mission

Implementing fractal decision-making processes throughout society via collaborative research, development, education, gamification, and community engagement.

Next Steps

The four proposals below represent immediate actions to actualize our vision, achieve our mission, and accelerate our impact as we enter 2025. These proposals focus on strengthening our core offerings and expanding our reach while maintaining the quality and integrity of our coordination processes.

Below the proposals are four strategic framework documents to inspire discussions and further guide our progress. The first step is to discuss these proposals and then we can discuss the strategies when the time is right. I welcome your feedback and any other ideas you may have in mind about the best way to proceed. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

Proposal 1: Set Core Intents

My first proposal aims to establish clear priorities that will guide our efforts through 2025. While our mission of implementing fractal decision-making processes throughout society remains constant, we've gained the most traction through specific products like the Respect Game and Respect token. Focusing on these specific products that have demonstrated success will help concentrate our efforts where they can have the most immediate impact and accelerate broader adoption of fractal decision-making processes.

Intent 1: Respect Game Implementation

The Respect Game has proven to be our most effective tool for helping communities experience and adopt better coordination processes. Our first core intent focuses on scaling its implementation and impact across communities and organizations.

By focusing our efforts on growing Respect Game adoption, we can:

• Help more communities experience the benefits of better coordination
• Generate clear evidence of impact through consistent implementation
• Build momentum for wider adoption of fractal processes
• Create natural pathways toward deeper governance improvements
• Foster a culture of recognition and collaborative growth

Success metrics include:

• Number of active communities playing weekly
• Total weekly players globally
• Variety of implementations and use cases
• Quality of feedback and testimonials
• Growth in educational resource usage

Intent 2: Respect Token Utilization

Our second core intent focuses on expanding the meaningful use of Respect for community coordination and decision-making. The Respect token creates tangible records of contribution that enable sophisticated governance frameworks while maintaining democratic principles.

This intent builds on successful implementations at Optimism Fractal and other communities where Respect has enabled:

• Democratic council formation
• Resource allocation decisions
• Community agenda setting
• Reputation-based governance
• Verifiable impact measurement

Success metrics include:

• Decisions made using Respect
• Value governed through Respect systems
• Protocol integrations and implementations
• Active governance participants
• Community-led initiatives

Note on Branding and Variations

While we promote the "Respect Game" and "Respect" branding as our primary focus, we welcome communities adapting these concepts under different names (e.g., Merit, Value, or Appreciation tokens; or calling it a process instead of a game) while maintaining the core principles. This openness enables:

1. Communities to customize implementations for their specific contexts
2. Innovation in how these principles are applied
3. Natural evolution of the ecosystem
4. Broader adoption and experimentation

The emphasis remains on the effectiveness of the underlying processes while maintaining consistent branding where possible to build recognition and understanding.

Proposal 2: Set Respect Game Prompt

The second proposal addresses the critical question that guides weekly contribution evaluation. The game prompt should balance accessibility for newcomers with alignment to our broader goals while welcoming valuable work from adjacent fields.

Proposed New Prompt

Option A

"What did you do to help people enjoy the Respect Game, benefit from Respect, or improve human coordination?"

This formulation:

• Centers on our proven tools while maintaining broader relevance
• Makes the value proposition immediately clear to newcomers
• Welcomes both direct and supportive contributions
• Connects to universal coordination challenges
• Maintains alignment with our mission while using more accessible language
• Creates natural entry points for adjacent innovations

Option B

“What did you do over the past two weeks to help people benefit from the Respect Game, enhance collective decision-making, or improve human coordination?” Rationale:

• Helping people benefit from the Respect Game naturally includes helping people benefit from Respect.
• By including collective decision-making and human coordination, it opens the ways that people can contribute and makes it more welcoming/accessible for a larger demographic who are not yet building with the Respect Game.
• This provides natural opportunities for people to learn about the Respect Game and play the Respect Game, without feeling pressured to build with the Respect Game.
• By including a bit about Respect Game first, it still focuses on our core products and anchors the discussions with at least one kind of specific contribution.
• Coordination is a major theme of Psinq, Ethereum.org, and Ethereum.Foundation.

Option C

“How did you help make collective decision-making more fair, fast, or fun?”

“How did you help make governance more fair, fast, or fun?”

Rationale:

• See the comment above in option B

Option D

“How did you help foster the adoption of the Respect Game?”

Rationale

• see the comment above

Option E

“How did you help grow Respect?”

Option F

“How did you help enhance governance, improve human coordination, or foster public goods?”

Rationale

• See comment above

Details and Considerations

Current Context

• While we previously discussed focusing Eden Fractal's Respect Game on evaluating contributions to discussions, I've been considering how we could measure contributions toward implementing the Respect Game and Respect token, along with fractal decision-making processes. We can be much more successful in achieving our mission if we measure contributions over two weeks instead of just contributions to a single discussion.

• One could argue that the prompt should focus specifically on contributions to the mission of implementing fractal decision-making processes. While this aligns with our ultimate goal, I believe that more accessible and broader language will help participants better understand and engage with these processes.

Alternative Formulations for Consideration

1. "What did you do to help people enjoy the Respect Game, benefit from Respect, or enhance collective decision-making?"
• Emphasizes practical outcomes
• More specific to governance
• May be less accessible to some contributors
2. "What did you do to help grow the Respect Game ecosystem or improve how communities coordinate?"
• Focuses on ecosystem growth
• Simpler structure
• Potentially too broad
3. "What did you do to help communities thrive through better coordination tools or processes?"
• Most general framing
• Welcomes wide range of contributions
• May lose focus on core products

Welcoming Adjacent Innovation

We actively welcome contributions from complementary fields that enhance coordination, including:

This broad scope is intentional because:

1. Better coordination requires diverse tools and approaches
2. Our dependencies deserve recognition and support
3. Cross-pollination of ideas drives innovation
4. Adjacent fields often reveal new implementation possibilities
5. Wider participation strengthens our community

Supporting Various Contribution Types

Contributions can take many forms:

1. Direct Implementation Work
• Building core tools and infrastructure
• Creating educational content
• Organizing community events
• Developing new applications
2. Supportive Contributions
• Contributing to organizations using these processes
• Improving underlying infrastructure (e.g., Ethereum, Base)
• Creating complementary tools and systems
• Sharing knowledge and experience
• Testing and providing feedback
3. Ecosystem Building
• Growing local communities
• Creating content and documentation
• Building sustainable businesses around these processes
• Fostering cross-community collaboration
• Supporting new implementations

The game prompt aims to recognize all these forms of contribution while maintaining focus on our core mission. Even when work isn't directly related to the Respect Game or Respect token, if someone joins Eden Fractal events and shares how they helped communities coordinate or make collective decisions, it deserves recognition within our ecosystem.

Proposal 3: Potentially Change Schedule of Events

The third proposal recommends moving Eden Fractal events to Thursdays at 17 UTC starting in 2025. In light of recent changes to Optimism governance for 2025, I'm considering proposing a change to the reduce the cadence of Optimism Fractal to a biweekly schedule. If this proposal goes into effect, then it naturally follows that Eden Fractal could change it’s meeting time to optimize for community participation while creating better alignment across the ecosystem.

Strategic Benefits

• Creates clearer weekly rhythm by alternating with Optimism Fractal
• Provides more focused time for development and implementation
• Enables Eden Creators and Optimystics teams to pursue broader opportunities
• Allows expansion to other ecosystems while maintaining quality
• Supports sustainable growth of our educational content

Implementation Approach

This schedule change would coincide with our technical deployment on Base, creating a natural transition point for Eden Fractal's evolution. The new schedule enables better resource allocation while maintaining our commitment to regular, high-quality events.

Proposal 4: Implement ORDAO on Base

Our fourth proposal focuses on deploying ORDAO (Optimistic Respect-based DAO) on Base as our primary coordination infrastructure for Eden Fractal events.

Why ORDAO

While we greatly appreciate and actively support other implementations like the respect.games app, ORDAO offers specific advantages for live events:

• Purpose-built for synchronous group coordination
• Implements the traditional Respect Game consensus algorithm
• Integrates seamlessly with Fractalgram interface
• Enables sophisticated onchain governance
• Maintains proven patterns while enabling innovation

Why Base and Ethereum

Base provides an ideal environment for expanding these coordination processes while maintaining strong connection to the Ethereum ecosystem. Building on Ethereum infrastructure enables:

• Access to the world's most robust smart contract platform
• Integration with a vibrant open source ecosystem
• Compatibility with widely-used tools and standards
• Natural connection to public goods funding
• Alignment with collaborative innovation culture and huge builder ecosystem

By building on Base specifically, we can:

• Reach the largest L2 user base
• Align with their mission of increasing creativity, freedom, and innovation
• Participate in bringing billions of users on-chain
• Maintain connection with the Optimism ecosystem through the Superchain
• Leverage robust infrastructure for widespread adoption

Longer-Term Focus: Strategic Framework Documents

To support these immediate steps and our longer-term vision, I’ve started developing four comprehensive strategy documents that explore different aspects of our growth:

Strategic Goals & Impact Measurement

A detailed framework for measuring our progress and impact, building on successful approaches demonstrated in our impact reports while establishing new metrics for growth. Learn more in this draft article.

Product & Service Development Roadmap 

Comprehensive plans for evolving our tools, events, and educational resources to serve more communities effectively. Learn more this draft article

Long-term Implementation & Institution Building 

Vision for transitioning from current initiatives to sustainable institutions that can support these coordination processes for decades to come. Learn more in this draft article.

Marketing & Community Growth Strategy 

Detailed approaches for expanding our impact while maintaining focus on quality implementation and genuine community benefit. Learn more in this draft article.

These documents provide deeper context and planning for our long-term evolution while the proposals above focus on immediate next steps for early 2025. Please keep in mind that the documents are early works in progress and will be updated soon. Any feedback is welcome and appreciated.

Conclusion: Accelerating Toward Better Coordination

As we enter 2025, we stand at a pivotal moment in the evolution of human coordination. The infrastructure we've built - from the Respect Game to sophisticated governance frameworks - provides a foundation for transforming how communities make decisions. Our four proposals represent carefully considered next steps toward implementing these processes throughout society.

The Opportunity Before Us

The timing for these initiatives couldn't be more crucial. As technological advancement accelerates and societal challenges grow more complex, the need for better coordination becomes increasingly critical. By combining proven tools like the Respect Game with new infrastructure on Base, we can help communities:

• Make more inclusive and effective decisions
• Allocate resources based on verifiable impact
• Build sustainable funding mechanisms for public goods
• Create lasting institutions that maintain democratic principles
• Scale collaboration without losing human connection

Our growing ecosystem demonstrates how these coordination processes can create tangible benefits while fostering genuine democratic participation. From Optimism Fractal's governance innovations to communities playing respect.games, we're seeing how better coordination tools enable groups to achieve more together.

Building Together

These proposals represent ideas for the next phase in a journey we're taking together as a community. Each element builds on lessons learned through consistent experimentation and refinement:

• Core intents focus our efforts where we've seen the most impact
• The evolved game prompt makes our tools more accessible while maintaining depth
• Schedule optimization enables sustainable growth and broader reach
• Technical implementation on Base opens new possibilities for expansion

As we implement these changes or others based on community feedback, we'll continue documenting our progress and sharing insights through our strategy documents. This transparency enables ongoing refinement while helping other communities learn from our experiences.

Next Steps

We invite your feedback on these proposals as we refine our approach for 2025. Join us at upcoming events to help shape this next phase of Eden Fractal's evolution:

• Share your thoughts on our core intents
• Help refine the game prompt
• Provide input on schedule changes
• Explore technical implementation considerations
• Share other ideas for our next steps

Together, we can build coordination systems that help communities thrive while creating more equitable and effective ways of working together. The foundation is laid - now is the time to scale these processes to benefit communities everywhere.

Join us at our next event as we discuss these proposals and work toward better coordination for all.

These proposals will be refined based on community feedback over our next events before the winter break, aiming to begin implementation in early 2025. For deeper exploration of specific aspects, please see our detailed strategy documents linked above.