Retroactive Public Goods Funding (Retro Funding) 5 will reward contributors to the OP Stack, including core Ethereum infrastructure that supports or underpins the OP Stack, advancements in OP Stack research and development, and tooling which supports its accessibility and usability.
Timeline
Please note that all dates are preliminary and might change. This post will be updated to reflect future changes.
- Sign up: Aug 22nd - Sept 5th
- Application Review Process: Sept 6th - Sept 20th
- Voting: September 21st - Oct 4th
- Results & Grant delivery: October 10th
Contributing to the OP Stack
If you’re looking to make contributions to the OP Stack which could be rewarded within a retro round, check out open ideas describing impactful initiatives on the OP Stack repo here
Round Scope and Eligibility Criteria
Retro Funding 5: OP Stack will reward impact which has been generated between October 2023 - August 2024. Impact will be rewarded within the following categories:
Ethereum Core Contributions
Ethereum infrastructure which supports, or is a dependency, of the OP Stack.
Examples: Smart contract languages, Ethereum consensus & execution clients, EVM, Ethereum testnets, Cryptography research
Eligibility: The following types of projects are eligible:
- Ethereum client implementations
- Infrastructure to test and deploy chains
- Languages that are dedicated to the development of smart contracts
- Research that informs Ethereum core development
Not eligibile: The following types of projects are not eligible
- Projects that are used to develop or deploy contracts or apps, including in the development and deployment of Optimism contracts, may be rewarded in Retro Funding 7: Dev Tooling, and are not in scope for this category.
- Extended Ethereum related tooling that is not listed under eligibility, including analytics/data infrastructure, frontend libraries, indexers and more. These may be rewarded in Retro Funding 7: Dev Tooling and are not in scope for this category.
- Generic Ethereum related research that does not inform Ethereum core development
OP Stack Research & Development
Direct research & development contributions to the OP Stack, and contributions that support protocol upgrades
Examples: Optimism Protocol upgrades, OP Stack Client Implementations, modules & mods, audits and Fault Proof VM implementations.
Eligibility: The following types of projects are eligible:
- Work on core components of the OP Stack, including client implementations, modules, and modifications.
- Research or development that introduced features, improvements, or capabilities to the OP Stack.
- Security audits specifically on the OP Stack or its components.
Not eligibile: The following types of projects are not eligible
- Optimism Monorepo contributions by non-core devs: Only Optimism Monorepo contributions by core devs may be rewarded within Retro Funding 5. Commits to the monorepo are currently mainly done by Optimism core devs and the core dev program is not developed enough to support outside contributions to the monorepo yet. As the core dev program evolves, more contributions to the monorepo may become eligible.
- Submissions to the Optimism Bug Bounty Programs are not eligible to participate in this round
OP Stack Tooling
Efforts that improve the usability and accessibility of the OP Stack through tooling enhancements.
Examples: Integration and load testing infrastructure, scripts for running an Optimism node, RaaS providers, OP Stack tutorials & documentation
Eligibility: The following types of projects are eligible:
- Tools that facilitate the deployment, operation, or testing of the OP Stack. This includes integration tools, load testing infrastructure, and scripts for node management.
- Services for deploying and hosting an OP Chain
- Documentation and tutorials which aid in understanding of the OP Stack’s components and its development
Not eligibile: The following types of projects are not eligible
- Projects that are used to develop or deploy contracts or apps, including in the development and deployment of Optimism contracts, may be rewarded in Retro Funding 7: Dev Tooling, and are not in scope for this category.
- Extended tooling that is not listed under eligibility, including analytics/data infrastructure, frontend libraries, indexers and more. These may be rewarded in Retro Funding 7: Dev Tooling and are not in scope for this category.
- Documentation and tutorials which are not about the OP Stack’s components or development, such as non technical tutorials about Optimism.
Round Sizing: 8m OP to reward OP Stack contributors
Retro Funding 5 will allocate 8m OP to reward the impact of OP Stack contributors. The Foundation will size Retro Funding 4 & 5, and will propose round sizes for Retro Funding 6 & 7, to be ratified by the Citizens’ House. In the future, this process will gradually transition to be more community-led, which may involve the creation of a Budget Board, or similar, in future Seasons. Below you find some considerations that informed the round sizing:
- Retro Funding 3 benchmark: In retro round 3, approx 6.5m+ OP were allocated to projects contributing to the OP Stack.
- Rapid development of the OP Stack: Since round 3, 5+ Protocol upgrades took place that introduced major performance improvements to the OP Stack. Research has accelerated with the deployment of the OP Stack fault proof system on mainnet. Thus, the impact generated by contributions to the OP Stack has increased significantly since October 2023.
Voting design
Retro Funding 5 will sort Badgeholders into smaller groups dedicated to evaluating a specific set of applications, with the hypothesis that voter experience and allocation of rewards are improved, compared to past rounds. For the round, a number of guest voters with expertise relating to the OP Stack will be selected, to test if there are significant differences in how experts versus non-experts vote to allocate rewards to OP Stack contributions. You can find out more about the rounds governance design here Retro Funding 5: Expert voting experiment
KYC & Grant delivery
The Optimism Foundation is making continous improvements on the KYC & Grant delivery process. Grants will be streamed to recipients over 100 days, following the announcement of results and approval of KYC. Superfluid is providing infrastructure for the streaming of Retro Funding grants. Grantees must receive a minimum of 1,000 OP to be eligible for rewards.
FAQ
How do I apply?
Go to https://retrofunding.optimism.io/ and follow the steps of this tutorial: Retro Funding - 27 August 2024 | Loom
When will grant disbursements happen?
Retro Funding 4 will conclude in October 2024, following KYC approval, tokens will be streamed to you over 100 days via Superfluid.
Where can I ask questions?
You can ask questions in the Optimism Discord in the #retrofunding-discussion channel.
I'm not sure my project is eligible, what should I do?
You can ask questions in the Optimism Discord in the #retrofunding-discussion channel.
My project doesn't have any contracts, what should I do?
For Retro Funding 5, providing onchain contracts is optional and not required to apply
I will apply with multiple projects, do I have to report my funding & grants for each?
Yes, if you’re applying with multiple projects, you need to report your funding & relevant grants for each
Can I apply for multiple categories?
Each project can only apply to one category.
What happens if my application violates the Application Rules?
If badgeholders find that you violate the Application Rules listed above, your project will be disqualified from participating in this round of Retro Funding. You will be able to apply again for future rounds.
Where can I nominate projects?
Theres no nominations process in this round, instead projects sign-up directly. So remind your favourite projects to apply!
Why do I need Farcaster to sign up for Retro Funding?
You will need Farcaster account to sign up for Round 4, if you don’t already have a Farcaster account, you’ll need to make one. Your Farcaster account isn’t just a sign-in method for Round 4, it’s also your Optimist Profile and will be used for future Retro Funding applications and other interactions with the Optimism Collective.
The easiest way to sign up for a Farcaster account is via the [Warpcast](https://warpcast.com/) app, which acts as a wallet to easily manage the keys of the newly created account. Upon sign-up, Warpcast currently charges a $7 fee to rent storage on the network. As a decentralized social network, Farcaster content is not stored on centrally controlled servers, but rather in Hubs, which are a [distributed network of servers](https://docs.farcaster.xyz/learn/architecture/hubs). Each unit of storage buys 5000 casts, 2500 reactions and 2500 follows. For those who prefer to register a Farcaster account via contracts directly, this can be done via the [ID Registry Contract](https://docs.farcaster.xyz/learn/architecture/contracts). Storage can be rented via the [Storage Registry Contract](https://docs.farcaster.xyz/learn/architecture/contracts). There are alternative Farcaster clients beyond Warpcast that also support account creation and storage renting.
Can I apply with two different projects?
Yes, one person can apply to two different projects, so long as there is no overlap in the work. You will need to complete the sign-up flow twice.
Can individuals apply or just projects?
You and your team should apply together with your project. Applying for individual contributions to a project is not recommended.
Can a team that has gotten a grants council grant, partner fund grant, mission grant get Retro Funding?
Yes! As long as you’ve deployed your contracts on one of the qualifying OP Chains and meet the application criteria.
Do I need to report my Airdrops under Grants & Funding?
No, you don’t need to report airdrops that you have received
Are Token sales considered as Investment?
Yes, if you consider them to be equity in your project
