NOTE: We are slightly delaying the launch of our Futarchy Grants Contest (originally scheduled for Feb 27) due to external events. Sign-up here to receive updates about the new launch date (aiming for early next week) once we have more details.
*A key difference is that forecasters in Optimism’s Futarchy Grants Contest won’t deposit real money, so there is no real loss to users. Rather, forecasters will use PLAY tokens. The amount of PLAY tokens a forecaster receives is tied to reputation via OP attestations, and top forecasters (based on PLAY token winnings) will be eligible for OP rewards.
TL; DR: Optimism is experimenting with Futarchy during Season 7 to test new ways to more effectively make growth incentive grant decisions. Anyone with a Farcaster and Telegram account is encouraged to participate as a forecaster by signing up here.
- All forecasters will have the opportunity to influence additional grant decisions
- Optimism governance contributors with OP attestions (including Citizens, Top 100 Delegates, Council and Committee members, Retro Funding Guest Voters, and NumbaNERDs) are eligible for higher amounts of PLAY tokens (voting power)
- Top forecasters will receive OP rewards and will be highlighted on a public leaderboard in June, once we’ve measured the impact (increase in Superchain TVL) generated by projects
Futarchy: What and Why?
- To recap, futarchy is a form of government proposed by economist Robin Hanson where prediction markets (more precisely, decision markets) are used to determine which policies will have the most positive effect.
- Decision markets are similar to prediction markets but rather than simply predicting whether an event happens they directly decide what happens.
Historically, making grants decisions or other predictions has been difficult for DAOs. Current approaches such as Council structures are less scalable, less transparent, and more centralized, so at Optimism we we’re exploring more effective approaches to making predictive governance decisions.
- Futarchy is said to lead to more accurate decisions by incentivizing accuracy: When decision-makers are held accountable for decisions (i.e., they are rewarded for accurate decisions and penalized for inaccurate decisions) this should incentivize thoughtful, rather than random or biased, decisions.
- In addition, a permissionless futarchy model encourages broader participation — wisdom of the crowds — rather than, say, a centralized and closed decision-making body.
Optimism’s Futarchy Experiment: Grants Allocation
At Optimism, we want to understand: Is Futarchy a more effective way to make grant allocation decisions than existing approaches? Specifically, do projects selected via Futarchy see a greater increase in Superchain TVL than projects selected by the Optimism Grants Council?
To do this, we are experimenting with elements of Futarchy* in our upcoming “Futarchy Grants Contest” which will launch on Feb 27 and run for 3 weeks.
*A key difference is that forecasters in Optimism’s Futarchy Grants Contest don’t deposit real money, so there is no real loss to users. Rather, forecasters will use PLAY tokens. The amount of PLAY tokens a forecaster gets is tied to reputation via OP attestations, and top forecasters (based on PLAY token winnings) will receive OP rewards.
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The experiment opens [new launch date TBD] and runs for 3 weeks in parallel with the Grants Council cycle. Forecasters can sign up to join at any time during this period. At the end of the 3-week experiment, the top 5 projects will receive a 100K OP grant each. -
The question forecasters will be trying to accurately answer: If given a 100K OP grant, which protocol will have the highest increase in Superchain TVL? -
At the end of Season 7 (June 2025), top forecasters will be eligible for rewards, based on the accuracy of their predictions.
Sign up to participate in gov innovation and influence grants allocation here! 
FAQ
Who can participate as forecasters?
Forecasters are the voters in this grants contest. Anyone can participate by signing up on this link. You’ll be asked to link TG and Farcaster and some other identifying information for sybil protection. If you have received an OP attestation, you should use the same wallet as you are eligible for additional PLAY tokens.
In a real market, forecasters deposit varying amounts based on conviction and knowledge. We wanted to recreate that dynamic and use involvement in Optimism to proxy that given our play money design. Special thanks to Robin Hanson for helpful discussion here.
The image above comes from the Futarchy Experiment Leaderboard, which will publicly display individual top forecasters and leading categories. It currently reflects synthetic data but the categories are accurate — if you fit one or more of categories 1-6 listed above you are eligible for additional PLAY tokens. Unaffiliated users will receive the baseline amount to participate.
Who can participate as projects competing for grants (protocols)?
We have a list of 23 protocols recommended by the OP Growth team who have agreed to sign up. We have decided to focus this round on projects within a specific Superchain TVL range to get the most meaningful insights. Once you sign up to participate as a forecaster and access the user interface, you’ll see the 23 protocols listed. You do not need to bet on all of the projects.
How do protocols receive grants?
Five of the 20 projects will ultimately receive a 100K OP grant each. These will be the top five protocols expected to increase TVL the most. The top 5 projects ranked by the GC will also receive a 100K OP grant each. If both projects are selected, the max award is still 100K OP and we will select the sixth-ranked project that is higher on both rankings to receive the grant.
What precisely are forecasters estimating?
The overall question is: If given a 100K OP grant, which protocol will have the highest increase in Superchain TVL? The top 5 projects here receive grants.
What do the UP and DOWN tokens mean?
For a given project, a forecaster can predict the increase in TVL. Forecasters can use their PLAY tokens to buy UP tokens if they estimate a project’s increase in Superchain TVL at the end of Season 7 (June 12 2025) will be higher than the current estimate, or buy DOWN tokens if they estimate it will be lower. Top forecasters will receive OP rewards based on how close a forecaster’s estimate is to the final outcome, and the amount of PLAY tokens backing the estimate.
This image is a screenshot from (a working version of) Butter’s interface, where forecasters will estimate a project’s Superchain TVL increase using PLAY tokens.