News
- The dates and details of RetroPGF Round 3 have been announced. You can find details here.
Introduction to RetroPGF
One of the most exciting aspects of Optimism is their dedication to funding public goods in innovative ways. They have an inspiring vision with concepts like Esther’s Pheonix and ‘Impact=Profit’ that aim to reorient traditional incentive mechanisms and reward people for doing work that benefits everyone.
Optimism is pioneering retroactive public goods funding with an initiative called RetroPGF, where hundreds of esteemed Optimism community members vote to allocate funding to people who create public goods. The third round of RetroPGF is starting in the coming weeks and as far as I’m aware it is the largest retroactive public goods funding in the world. The Optimism Collective is planning to distribute 30 million OP in this round of RetroPGF, which is currently about 250x more funding than the next season of Pomelo.
I encourage everyone to learn about RetroPGF and consider how you can earn rewards by creating public goods with Optimism. I’d be happy to discuss this at our upcoming meetings and answer any questions. In the meantime, you can learn about RetroPGF in this introductory article, blog post announcing round 3, and video playlist.
More Details
What is RetroPGF?
RetroPGF is Optimism's groundbreaking system for fairly rewarding contributions to public goods, even long after they were created. Imagine society regularly looked back to survey all the projects and ideas that proved most useful, then rewarded the creators proportionally. RetroPGF makes this possible, so builders can fund their work by provably benefitting the world.
What is retroactive public goods funding?
Retroactive public goods funding is Optimism's clever solution for properly valuing contributions that are hard to measure in real-time. Like the invisible roots of a tree, some projects take time for their full impact to be revealed. Instead of attempting to predict the future, retroactive funding looks backwards at evidence of what provided the most widespread benefit. This empowers purpose-driven builders today, knowing their fruits will someday be fairly measured and rewarded.
What is the concept of “Impact=Profit”?
Impact = Profit is the guiding ethos of Optimism's vision - creating a world where every person profits in proportion to the measurable positive impact they bring to society. This engenders natural incentives to create public goods that benefit communities and humanity, since that is the path to sustainable success. The Impact=Profit model fosters harmony, in the same way flowers living in balance with bees bring mutual prosperity through fair value exchange.
What is Esther’s Phoenix?
Esther's Phoenix is the eternal spirit of human progress that Optimism seeks to summon, rewarding those who contribute to this vision of universal flourishing. Like a mythical phoenix rising triumphantly from ashes, Esther's Phoenix represents the dawning of new era of sustainable prosperity brought by aligning profit with purpose. This poetic metaphor symbolizes how Optimism aims to reshape society's incentive structures to encourage behaviors which benefit humankind as a whole. With our help co-creating aligned systems, Esther's Phoenix can take flight!