Eden Fractal Epoch 1: A Retrospective on Our First Three Years

Introduction

As Eden Fractal approaches its three-year anniversary and prepares to launch Epoch 2, we find ourselves at a remarkable juncture in the evolution of fractal governance. What began as an experimental community has grown into a thriving ecosystem that has fundamentally advanced how humans coordinate and make decisions together.

This article chronicles the rich and fascinating history of Eden Fractal's first epoch, documenting not just our community's journey but our role in nurturing an entire ecosystem of fractal governance experiments. Over these three years, hundreds of contributors have participated in this grand experiment, creating sophisticated tools, governance processes, and educational resources that are now ready to scale throughout society.

With Eden Fractal now deploying on Base and building directly on Ethereum, we're positioned to introduce these innovations to the broader blockchain ecosystem and beyond. This summary serves both to commemorate our journey and to welcome newcomers from the Ethereum ecosystem, Base community, and wider world who are discovering these ideas for the first time.

The story that follows explores four years of development across multiple fractal communities, examining what emerged when people were simply given the freedom to contribute what they felt called to give, organizing themselves around shared principles rather than traditional hierarchies. We'll see how this organic approach led to technical innovations, governance breakthroughs, and deep collaborative relationships that would have been impossible through conventional coordination methods.

We invite you to explore this history, dive into the extensive video documentation, and join us for Epoch 2 as we work toward our mission of bringing the best possible decision-making tools to all communities and organizations.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• The Philosophical and Technical Foundations
• More Equal Animals and Democratic Theory
• Eden on EOS: Early Democratic Experiments
• ƒractally and Genesis Fractal
• The ƒractally Team's Evolution
• Eden Fractal: Birth and Early Development (2022)
• Founding and Community Formation
• Technical Infrastructure Development
• Eden+Fractal Consensus Process
• Cagendas: Democratic Topic Selection
• Content Ecosystem and Documentation (2022-2025)
• Eden Town Hall (2022-2023)
• Systematic Knowledge Creation
• Technical Innovations and the Respect Game (2023)
• Naming and Formalizing the Respect Game
• Fractalgram: Making Participation Accessible
• Vision and Mission Development
• Optimism Fractal and EVM Evolution (2023-2025)
• Formation of the Optimystics Team
• Optimism Fractal Council and Democratic Governance
• Seasonal Structure and Ecosystem Integration
• Optimism Town Hall and Broader Ecosystem Connection
• RetroPitches and Integration
• The Expanding Fractal Ecosystem (2022-2025)
• Alien Worlds Fractal
• Spanish-Speaking Fractal
• Aquadac
• ZAO Fractal
• More Communities
• Advanced Application Development (2024-2025)
• New Fractalgram Web App
• ORDAO Development
• Respect.Games Platform
• Hats Protocol Integration
• ORDAO Implementation and Community Ownership
• ORDAO Fractal Community
• Superchain Development
• Eden Fractal's Strategic Evolution
• Strategic Development and Epoch 2 Planning
• Renewed Community Engagement
• Anniversary Celebrations and Community Bonds
• Understanding What Made This Possible
• The Power of Voluntary Excellence
• Emergent Coordination Without Control
• Global Collaboration Through Digital Democracy
• Documentation as Democratic Infrastructure
• Looking Forward: From Epoch 1 to Epoch 2
• Resources for Further Exploration
• Join the Future of Governance

The Philosophical and Technical Foundations

More Equal Animals and Democratic Theory

The intellectual foundations of what would become Eden Fractal were established in 2021 with Daniel Larimer's publication of "More Equal Animals: The Subtle Art of True Democracy." Larimer, who had previously served as lead designer of EOS and creator of numerous blockchain innovations, articulated essential principles for genuine democratic governance that could resist capture while scaling effectively.

These principles form the theoretical backbone of all fractal governance experiments, providing a framework for understanding why traditional coordination methods fail at scale and how fractal structures can maintain democratic participation even in large communities.

Learn more: Fractal Democracy: The Natural Evolution of Governance

Eden on EOS: Early Democratic Experiments

Shortly after the publication of More Equal Animals in early 2021, the Eden on EOS community began implementing fractal democracy principles through revolutionary democratic elections. This pioneering community distributed approximately $1.5 million over nine quarterly elections, demonstrating fractal governance at substantial scale with hundreds of participants.

The Eden on EOS elections provided crucial proof-of-concept data for fractal governance principles, establishing many patterns that would later be refined in subsequent communities. The success of these early experiments demonstrated that fractal democracy wasn't just theoretical—it could coordinate real resources and make consequential decisions. Learn more in this article.

ƒractally and Genesis Fractal

On February 22, 2022, at precisely 2:22 PM, the ƒractally whitepaper was released, providing comprehensive blueprints for implementing fractal democracy through the Respect Game and nested consensus processes. Within one week, the first Genesis Fractal meeting was hosted organically by community members eager to test these ideas.

The Genesis Fractal provided crucial testing grounds through an intensive 30-week experiment where over 30 participants joined each week on average. This community established the core patterns of what would become the Respect Game, creating proven practices for democratic coordination and peer evaluation that remain foundational today.

The ƒractally Team's Evolution

As the Genesis Fractal concluded in October 2022 due to regulatory concerns, the ƒractally team pivoted to building Psibase, a broader platform for creating blockchains and community applications that incorporated fractal governance principles alongside other coordination tools. This transition marked a significant moment when fractal communities needed to become self-sustaining rather than relying on well-funded external development teams.

This regulatory environment and funding transition forced fractal communities to evolve through purely grassroots, volunteer-driven efforts—a constraint that paradoxically strengthened the movement by proving these governance principles could thrive through authentic community commitment rather than external resources.

The History of Fractal Communities provides comprehensive documentation of these foundational experiments and transitions.

Eden Fractal: Birth and Early Development (2022)

Founding and Community Formation

Eden Fractal was officially launched on June 8, 2022, following a proposal written by Dan Singjoy. The community began with a dozen enthusiastic participants who had been inspired by the Genesis Fractal experiments and wanted to continue developing these governance innovations in a dedicated space.

The early events ran alongside the Genesis Fractal for several months, creating powerful synergy between the communities while allowing Eden Fractal to develop its own distinct character and focus. Eden Fractal maintained high engagement throughout its first year, with an average of 15 participants in weekly meetings.

The first events were generously sponsored by Dan Singjoy on behalf of Eden Creators and Patrick Schmid on behalf of NovaCrypto. Dan wrote a story about the launch event in the EOS Weekly report and hosted a news show covering the first events. Read about the founding: Eden Fractal Event #1

Technical Infrastructure Development

The launch of Eden Fractal inspired immediate technical innovation. James Mart and Vlad built dedicated software for the community on the EOS blockchain (now rebranded to Vaulta), allowing practical implementation and testing of fractal governance principles in an on-chain context. This early technical foundation was crucial for demonstrating that fractal governance could operate through verifiable, transparent mechanisms rather than informal social coordination.

Explore the technical foundations: Eden Fractal Tools

Eden+Fractal Consensus Process

In October 2022, as the Genesis Fractal concluded, Eden Fractal approved its first formal consensus process: Eden+Fractal. This legislative process based on electing delegates at each event established a democratic mechanism for community decision-making that operated successfully for over a year.

The delegate election system worked by having each breakout room select a representative, who then formed a council with delegates from previous weeks. This created dynamic governance that balanced fresh perspectives with institutional continuity—a crucial innovation for maintaining democratic legitimacy over time.

In December 2022, the community formally elected Dan Singjoy as moderator through this consensus process, marking the first time a fractal community had democratically chosen its facilitator rather than relying on founding authority.

Learn more: Eden+Fractal Consensus Process

Cagendas: Democratic Topic Selection

December 2022 also saw the implementation of Cagendas, a crucial innovation that extended democratic principles beyond formal decision-making into everyday community coordination. This system allows community members to democratically select discussion topics using their earned respect tokens, ensuring that conversations focus on what matters most to participants.

Cagendas demonstrates how fractal governance can make every aspect of community life more responsive to member interests, not just major decisions. This innovation has since been implemented across multiple fractal communities, proving its value for democratic coordination.

Learn more: Cagendas

Content Ecosystem and Documentation (2022-2025)

Eden Town Hall (2022-2023)

Eden Town Hall was founded by Dan Singjoy and launched alongside Eden Fractal in June 2022, providing a dedicated forum for deeper discussions about fractal governance, the Eden ecosystem, and broader coordination challenges. Dan hosted over 50 events, attracting more than 60 participants and producing well-documented content with comprehensive show notes, artwork, and timestamps.

These sessions served as a crucial complement to the structured Respect Game format of Eden Fractal, offering space for the kind of open-ended exploration that helps communities understand the deeper implications of their governance experiments.

Visit: Eden Town Hall

Systematic Knowledge Creation

From its inception, Eden Fractal committed to thorough documentation of its experiments, with the Eden Creators YouTube channel launching concurrently to systematically record the community's journey. This commitment to transparency and knowledge-sharing became a defining characteristic that enabled the broader ecosystem's growth.

What emerged was far more than simple event recording—the fractal ecosystem inspired numerous content initiatives that created rich perspectives on governance innovation:

• Fractal Apple musical show celebrating the ecosystem through creative expression
• The Creator Talk Show with Dan and Tadas, exploring development and implementation challenges
• Eden Fractal Brainstorming Sessions, featuring deep dives into the community’s development
• Community Stories podcast hosted by Rosmari, exploring fractal community experiences
• DEFS (Discussing Eden Fractal Stuff) with Dan and Vlad, diving deep into technical and philosophical aspects
• Approximately 20 interviews on the NovaCrypto youtube channel dedicated to fractal governance, helping bridge the ecosystem with broader blockchain communities

This proliferation of content created multiple entry points for people to discover and understand fractal governance, while building a comprehensive knowledge base that documents every aspect of these governance experiments. The systematic approach to education and documentation proved essential for scaling these ideas beyond the core community.

Technical Innovations and the Respect Game (2023)

Naming and Formalizing the Respect Game

In early 2023, the community officially named what had previously been called "the fractal process" as the "Respect Game." This naming coincided with growing interest from other communities, particularly Alien Worlds, whose creator reached out for assistance implementing fractal governance in gaming contexts.

This collaboration led to the creation of Alien Worlds Fractal and established the first formal implementation of the Respect Game as we now know it. For approximately a year, the Eden+Fractal consensus process was used to elect leaders in Alien Worlds for funding distribution decisions—one of the first instances of fractal governance directing substantial capital allocation in external organizations.

Fractalgram: Making Participation Accessible

In February 2023, Tadas built the Fractalgram Telegram app, significantly improving the Respect Game experience. Prior to this innovation, coordination happened primarily through Zoom chat, making the process cumbersome for participants and limiting accessibility.

Fractalgram streamlined interaction and made participation much more accessible, representing a crucial step toward making fractal governance usable for broader audiences beyond technical enthusiasts. This tool became essential infrastructure that enabled other communities to adopt these processes more easily.

Vision and Mission Development

Throughout 2023 and early 2024, Eden Fractal refined its identity and purpose through extensive community-wide discussions. Rather than having these imposed from above, the community democratically developed its core statements through the same consensus processes used for other decisions.

The community approved its vision statement in December 2023: "We believe all communities and organizations should have the tools and methods for the best decision-making possible—fair, fast, and fun!"

The mission statement followed in early 2024: "We're implementing fractal decision-making processes throughout society via collaborative research, development, education, gamification, and community engagement."

This process of collectively defining purpose demonstrated how fractal governance enables authentic shared vision rather than mission statements created by leadership teams.

Optimism Fractal and EVM Evolution (2023-2025)

This period marked one of the most significant developments in fractal governance history: the transition from EOS-based tools to Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) blockchains. This migration opened fractal governance to the world's largest smart contract ecosystem, dramatically expanding the potential reach and integration possibilities for these coordination tools.

Formation of the Optimystics Team

In October 2023, community members from Eden Fractal formed the Optimystics team and launched Optimism Fractal. This represented far more than just a technical migration—it was the moment when fractal governance entered the mainstream blockchain ecosystem with all its network effects, developer tools, and established user base.

The Optimystics team formed around the same time then built entirely new toolsets for playing the Respect Game on EVM, created comprehensive websites and educational resources, and established weekly events specifically for the Optimism community. This expansion attracted many outstanding contributors who had never participated in EOS-based communities but were drawn to fractal governance principles within the Ethereum ecosystem.

Throughout this period, Eden Fractal continued operating independently while supporting Optimism Fractal's development, demonstrating how fractal communities can collaborate and cross-pollinate while maintaining their distinct identities and specialized focuses.

Optimism Fractal Council and Democratic Governance

Optimism Fractal launched with a detailed intent document outlining its governance structure and community principles. By week 12, the community implemented its consensus process through the Optimism Fractal Council, representing a significant transition from decisions being made by the founding Optimystics team to a fully community-driven democratic process.

The council system has operated successfully for over a year, processing hundreds of community proposals and demonstrating the practical viability of reputation-based governance at scale within a major blockchain ecosystem.

Learn more: Optimism Fractal Council

Seasonal Structure and Ecosystem Integration

Around March 2024, Optimism Fractal adopted a seasonal structure with 12-week seasons followed by breaks of varying lengths. This evolution showed how fractal communities learn and adapt their coordination patterns over time, with breaks evolving from one week to two weeks to four weeks as the community discovered optimal rhythms for sustainable engagement.

Optimism Town Hall and Broader Ecosystem Connection

The launch of Optimism Town Hall in May 2024 created a crucial bridge between fractal communities and the broader Optimism Collective. Using Cagendas for democratic topic selection, this forum enables Optimism Fractal community members to vote on discussion topics with their earned respect while engaging with delegates, citizens, and builders across the entire Superchain ecosystem.

This integration demonstrated how fractal governance could enhance rather than replace existing governance systems, providing additional democratic mechanisms for coordination and decision-making.

RetroPitches and Integration

Six RetroPitches events were hosted alongside Optimism Town Hall, creating innovative formats where public goods creators could present their projects while participants ranked presentations using respect-weighted evaluation. These experiments showed how fractal principles could enhance retroactive public goods funding and other Optimism Collective processes.

During this period, some Optimism Fractal community members met in person for the first time at ETH Denver, strengthening online relationships through face-to-face interaction and demonstrating the genuine community bonds that fractal governance creates.

The Expanding Fractal Ecosystem (2022-2025)

Throughout Eden Fractal’s history, fractal governance principles proved their adaptability as several communities emerged, each adapting core concepts to specific contexts and audiences. This organic proliferation demonstrated that fractal democracy wasn't just a single governance model but a flexible framework that could serve diverse needs. Below are some examples of communities that have pioneered fractal democracy alongside Eden Fractal.

Alien Worlds Fractal

Initially launched by Duane Phillipe in mid-2022, hosting approximately 20 events. A second iteration was launched in 2023 by Eden Fractal members, running for another 10+ events and testing fractal governance in gaming and virtual world contexts. More details here.

Spanish-Speaking Fractal

Launched by Jorge Ramos to promote fractal democracy in Spanish-speaking communities, hosting dozens of successful events and demonstrating the global appeal and cultural adaptability of these governance innovations. Operated successfully for many months.

Aquadac

Founded and hosted by Gudasol for many months, Aquadac experimented with variations of the Respect Game focused on personal goal contributions and seasonal structures. These experiments provided valuable insights into how fractal principles could support individual development alongside community coordination.

ZAO Fractal

Founded by Zaal in 2024, this vibrant community of musicians has hosted over 52 events, adapting fractal governance principles to music creation and collaboration. ZAO Fractal continues running actively, demonstrating the versatility of the Respect Game beyond traditional governance contexts while building a thriving creative community.

Visit: ZAO Fractal

More Communities

Several other communities have implemented fractal democracy over the past few years, including the Eric’s Art Fractal, Spacewrangler Joe’s Upland Aliens, and local implementations. Each experiment contributed valuable insights to the broader ecosystem, testing different applications and proving the adaptability of fractal governance principles across cultures, languages, and domains.

Learn more: Fractal Communities Directory

Advanced Application Development (2024-2025)

This period saw the maturation of fractal governance technology, with multiple sophisticated applications being developed simultaneously by different community members. The diversity and quality of these tools demonstrated how fractal communities could inspire and coordinate distributed development efforts.

New Fractalgram Web App

In mid-2024, Abraham began developing a sophisticated web-based version of Fractalgram, working throughout the year to create a much more intuitive and feature-rich experience than the original Telegram interface. This application represents a major leap forward in making fractal governance accessible to mainstream users who expect polished, professional interfaces.

ORDAO Development

Tadas began building ORDAO (Optimistic Respect-based DAO) software in April 2024, creating smart contracts that enable decentralized execution of community decisions based on respect-weighted voting and optimistic governance principles. In May 2025, Tadas built the ORDAO Fractal app. This represented a significant advancement in on-chain governance capabilities for fractal communities.

Respect.Games Platform

The Eden on EOS community evolved into the Upscale community, which hosted over two dozen meetings and distributed substantial funding that supported Vlad and Lennar's development of the Respect.Games platform. Released around August-September 2024, this application enables asynchronous Respect Game participation and represents another pathway for communities to implement fractal governance.

Hats Protocol Integration

In mid-2024, Dan Singjoy and Jacob Homanics created the Optimism Fractal Hats Tree, which won the inaugural Hatathon competition. This innovation integrated reputation-based roles with the Hats Protocol, creating new possibilities for dynamic organization management where authority and responsibilities could be distributed based on earned respect rather than static assignments.

ORDAO Implementation and Community Ownership

At the beginning of Season 5 (September-October 2024), the Optimism Fractal community democratically approved a proposal to use ORDAO as the smart contract governing the community account. This transferred ownership to the 65 people who had participated in the first four seasons, representing a significant milestone in truly decentralized governance where the community collectively controlled its resources and decision-making infrastructure.

ORDAO Fractal Community

In May 2025, Tadas built the ORDAO Frontend and officially launched ORDAO Fractal, a dedicated community supporting ORDAO development and implementation. This created another specialized fractal community focused on advancing the technical infrastructure that enables fractal governance across multiple blockchain networks.

Superchain Development

In March 2025, Jacob began building Superchain ORDAO software after Dan received an invitation to the Superchain Interop Incubator. This development extends fractal governance capabilities across the entire Superchain ecosystem, creating possibilities for coordination between multiple blockchains using shared reputation and governance frameworks.

Eden Fractal's Strategic Evolution

During the launch and growth of Optimism Fractal, Eden Fractal transitioned from active Respect Game play to focus on vision and mission development, strategic planning, and ecosystem support. This wasn't a pause in activity but rather a strategic shift toward the foundational work needed to scale fractal governance more broadly.

Strategic Development and Epoch 2 Planning

In summer 2024, the original Epoch 2 proposal was made, outlining plans to migrate Eden Fractal to Base and restart the Respect Game with enhanced focus and clarity. This kicked off extensive discussions about product development, institutional building, marketing strategies, and scaling approaches that would enable fractal governance to reach mainstream adoption.

Renewed Community Engagement

Throughout 2024-2025, Eden Fractal experienced renewed interest with increasingly engaging events, excellent community feedback, and growing participation. The community transitioned from weekly to biweekly events, allowing for more focused and impactful gatherings that could dive deeper into strategic questions and governance innovations.

Anniversary Celebrations and Community Bonds

Eden Fractal has marked its journey with meaningful community celebrations that strengthen bonds while reflecting on collective achievements:

• First Anniversary (2023): Featured a speech competition where participants shared how Eden Fractal had inspired them, plus a Fractal DJ game ranking community music selections. Watch here.

• Second Anniversary (2024): Brought together participants from Genesis Fractal, Eden Fractal, Optimism Fractal, and other communities to share reflections and celebrate the broader ecosystem's progress. Watch here.

These milestone events demonstrated how fractal governance creates lasting relationships that transcend individual communities, with people maintaining connections and continuing to collaborate across different fractal experiments.

Understanding What Made This Possible

When Jorge asked why these contributions are outstanding and why they wouldn't have happened outside fractal democracy, he touched on something fundamental about human coordination. The story of Eden Fractal and the broader fractal ecosystem reveals something remarkable: what happens when people are simply given the freedom to contribute what they feel called to give, recognized fairly for their efforts, and empowered to make decisions together.

The Power of Voluntary Excellence

Traditional organizations rely on external incentives—salaries, equity, recognition from authority figures—to motivate contribution. The fractal ecosystem operated differently. Community members like Tadas spent months building sophisticated applications, Abraham dedicated a year to creating intuitive interfaces, and hundreds of people showed up week after week simply because they believed in the vision and felt their contributions mattered.

This wasn't naive volunteerism—it was voluntary excellence. The Respect Game created a mechanism for peer recognition that aligned individual fulfillment with collective benefit, enabling people to give their best work because they knew it would be seen, valued, and remembered by their community.

Emergent Coordination Without Control

None of the major innovations in the fractal ecosystem were planned from the top down. Fractalgram emerged because Tadas saw a need and had the skills to address it. The Spanish-speaking fractal started because Jorge wanted to bring these ideas to his community. ZAO Fractal flourished because Zaal adapted the framework to music creation.

This pattern repeated across every aspect of the ecosystem: technical development, content creation, community building, and governance innovation all emerged organically as individuals took initiative while remaining connected to shared principles. Fractal democracy provided enough structure for coordination without constraining the creative initiative that drove actual progress.

Global Collaboration Through Digital Democracy

Perhaps most remarkably, this entire ecosystem emerged through digital-first community building. People from different continents, time zones, and cultural backgrounds formed deep working relationships and collaborative bonds solely through online interaction organized around fractal governance principles.

The success of these relationships—leading to substantial technical development, resource allocation, and collective decision-making—demonstrates that digital democracy isn't just possible but can be more effective than traditional coordination methods when structured around human-scale interaction and peer recognition.

Documentation as Democratic Infrastructure

The systematic documentation of every aspect of these experiments created something unprecedented: a complete historical record of how new governance systems actually develop in practice. Unlike most institutional changes that happen behind closed doors, the entire evolution of fractal governance was captured in real time and made publicly available.

This transparency wasn't just philosophical—it was practical infrastructure that enabled the ecosystem's growth. New communities could learn from documented experiments, developers could build on open-source foundations, and the broader movement could maintain coherence even as it diversified across different domains and blockchain networks.

The hundreds of hours of recorded events represent more than documentation; they're proof that genuine democratic participation can be sustained over years when people have meaningful ways to contribute and see the impact of their efforts.

Looking Forward: From Epoch 1 to Epoch 2

As Eden Fractal prepares to transition into Epoch 2, we stand at a pivotal moment in fractal governance history. The foundations built during these first three years—sophisticated technical infrastructure, proven governance processes, strong community relationships, and comprehensive documentation—provide an exceptional platform for scaling these innovations throughout society.

Epoch 1 demonstrated the viability and power of fractal democracy in small to medium-sized communities across multiple contexts and blockchain networks. Epoch 2 will focus on bringing these principles to broader implementation, moving from experimental proof-of-concept to practical tools that any community or organization can adopt and adapt for their needs.

With deployment on Base, deep integration with Ethereum, and enhanced interoperability across the Superchain, we now have unprecedented technical capabilities. Our clear vision and articulated mission provide direction, while our mature tools and experienced community provide the means to achieve ambitious goals of implementing fractal decision-making processes throughout society.

The transition to Epoch 2 represents not just Eden Fractal's evolution, but a moment when fractal governance is ready to fulfill its potential of transforming how humanity coordinates and makes decisions together.

Resources for Further Exploration

• EdenFractal.com: Our home base with comprehensive resources
• Eden Fractal Videos: Over 120 documented events
• Eden Creators YouTube Channel: Complete video library
• Optimism Fractal: Our companion community on the Superchain
• Optimism Town Hall: Bridging fractal communities and Optimism Collective
• Fractal Communities: Directory of fractal experiments worldwide
• History of Fractal Communities: Broader context and origins
• Fractal Democracy: The Natural Evolution of Governance: Core principles explained
• Eden+Fractal Consensus Process: Democratic decision-making framework
• Optimystics Tools: Infrastructure and applications for fractal governance

Join the Future of Governance

We invite everyone to participate in Eden Fractal Epoch 2, whether you've been with us since the beginning or are discovering these ideas for the first time. The extensive documentation of Epoch 1 provides rich context for understanding our journey, while upcoming events offer opportunities to help shape our future.

The future of human coordination is being written now. Join us in creating it. Learn about Epoch 2 in this article and register for our upcoming events on the Optimystics events calendar. Together, we can continue working toward a world where all communities and organizations have access to the tools and methods for the best decision-making possible — fair, fast, and fun!