Season 8 Intent

Collective Strategy 🧭 Intents
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Season 8 Intent

This post outlines the main strategic goal of the Collective for 2H25 (Season 8 Intent) and highlights the contributions the Collective will support towards that goal. The audience for this post is all contributors towards the Collective.

If you’re a builder and want to understand how to Get a Grant - skip to here.

Don’t want to read? Join the Joint House Community Call on June 17th or leave questions for an async AMA, details to follow.

You can find all AMAs and other dates on the public governance calendar.

Season 8 Intent

The Foundation recently outlined our two year vision for the Superchain. Executing on this vision will require collaboration among all of the Collective’s contributors. The Collective uses Intents to guide these contributions so that OP Labs, the Foundation, OP Chains, the Token House, the Citizens House, and the many builders helping to make the Superchain a reality are all working towards the same goals.

What are Intents?

Intents are high level strategic goals the entire Collective works towards. All contributions in the Collective should be working towards the Intents.

In Season 8, we will have one Intent, focused on a core pillar of our Superchain Product Vision: Interoperability. This is consistent with our Season 7 Intent, as the Collective remains focused on delivering protocol-native interop and preparing the ecosystem for successful adoption.

While the Intent remains the same, it has been adjusted to 100m per month based on benchmarks across the Superchain and the latest staged rollout plan.

For more information about Interoperability and the Collective’s overall strategy, see this.

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Cross-chain asset transfers will be defined as the movement of an asset between two chains that relies on underlying Superchain interop messaging – which delivers consistent security assumptions and 1-block latency UX.

Collective programs will aim to grow a set of supporting metrics (described in the Governance Fund Missions section below) to prepare the Superchain for successful adoption of Interop.

Note: While the Season 8 Intent focuses the Collective on making progress towards the Superchain Product Vision, our commitment to decentralization has not changed. The goal is not to have the Foundation and OP Labs accomplish these Intents by ourselves but rather to build a governance system capable of accomplishing these goals without us in the future.

Objectives

There are three main objectives that will allow us to achieve this intent:

  • Ship Interop
  • Grow TVL on the Superchain
  • Drive Developer Adoption of Interop

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All roadmaps and Missions will work towards one of these objectives.

Roadmaps outline the work to be completed by OP Labs and the Optimism Foundation, supported by the Foundation Budget.

*Note: These are estimated budget amounts. The Foundation may spend more or less than these estimates to execute on these roadmaps. To reference actual spend, the Foundation publishes budget reports twice per year on the forum here. The Foundation currently operates with the budget allocated to the Foundation in the initial token supply. If the Foundation needs more tokens to continue operating in the future, additional token budget will be subject to governance approval.

Missions outline the work to be completed by Collective contributors. Missions are specific initiatives aimed at making measurable progress towards each objective. They are clearly scoped, and can be executed by Collective contributors start-to-finish in less than 12 months. Missions may be supported by the Foundation, Retro Funding, or the Governance Fund.

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All incentive programs and the chain delegation program for Season 8 will be available to chains on a fully-standard, governance-approved release of the OP Stack and have opted into the Security Council (or are on track to). This corresponds to the green + yellow chains (see Superchain Index.)

1. Ship Interop

The core development program, led by OP Labs, and the Foundation will work towards this objective via the 6 month roadmap outlined below:

Development Projects Budget
Protocol-level Message Passing 5M OP
Enable Interop token bridging 3M OP
Scale the interoperable set to 4 chains 2M OP
Sub-second, sub-cent block optimization 2M OP
Onchain revshare & buy-burn 1M OP
Ship Kona to production 1M OP
Core development grants 2M OP
Growth Projects
Ecosystem Partnerships to support Interoperability 5M - 10M OP

We estimate up to 26M OP from the Foundation Budget will be required to execute this roadmap.

Mission: OP Stack Dependencies (Retro Funding)

This Mission will reward critical software dependencies that underpin the OP Stack — with an initial emphasis on Ethereum Core Development.

Strategic Rationale

  1. Reinforces Ethereum Alignment: Supporting Ethereum Core Development reinforces Optimism’s positioning as the most Ethereum-aligned L2. This alignment has historically influenced developer preference: many contributors chose Optimism precisely because of this demonstrated alignment. In a climate where some perceive L2s as “extractive to Ethereum”, continued funding of L1 R&D signals that Optimism is additive — a steward of Ethereum’s long-term health.
  2. Strengthens the Superchain: Ethereum serves as the data availability and security layer of the Superchain. Previous investments in L1 R&D — such as EIP-4844 in Retro Funding 2 — have improved downstream scalability and cost-efficiency. Moreover, OP Stack implementations (e.g. OP-Geth) rely directly on Ethereum clients and standards. Failing to support this upstream infrastructure would constitute a market failure: the Superchain would be consuming Ethereum resources but contributing minimally to the development of its underlying infrastructure.

The Budget Board will propose a budget for each Retro Funding Mission, subject to Optimistic approval in the Citizens’ House.

Success Metric

  • $100m / Month in Cross-chain Asset Transfers

2. Grow TVL on the Superchain

The Foundation will work towards this objective via the 6 month roadmap outlined below:

Growth Projects Budget
Growth Campaigns (e.g. Superstacks v2.0) 5M -10M OP
Marketing 1M OP

We estimate up to 11M OP from the Foundation Budget.

Governance Fund Mission: Grants Council

  • Grants Council: The Grants Council make proactive grants on behalf of the Token House to make progress towards this objective’s success metrics. Grant policies apply.

Governance Fund Mission: Futarchy

  • Futarchy: Building upon an initial experiment in Season 7, the Foundation would like to run additional experiments to test futarchy as an alternative method for making predictions in Optimism governance.

Budgets proposed by Budget Board, subject to Optimistic approval in the Token House.

Success Metrics

Interop-ready TVL

Primary: X TVL/AOP that is interop ready within the Interop set

Secondary: % share of TVL / AOP within the Interop Set that’s interop ready v.s. Total TVL / AOP

Why this metric?: Interop introduces new development and interaction patterns for application developers. Growing the volume and share of interop-compatible assets onchain increases the chance that interop is widely adopted by application developers and users alike.


Interop Transaction Fees

Primary: X ETH / Month transaction fees generated from transactions that interact with the L2ToL2CrossDomainMessenger contract

Secondary: % share of interop transaction fees v.s. non-interop

Why this metric?: The total fees spent on interoperable transactions maps to usage of the feature after launch, and is a good indicator of the net growth caused by introducing the feature to the Superchain. This metric may not be measurable until full interop launches in late Q4.

3. Drive Developer Adoption of Interop

The core development program, led by OP Labs, and the Foundation will work towards this objective via the 6 month roadmap outlined below:

Projects Budget
Interop Developer Tooling 2M OP
Grow the set of Stage 1 Chains on the Superchain 20M - 40M OP

We estimate up to 42M OP from the Foundation Budget.

Governance Fund Mission: Developer Advisory Board

The Developer Advisory Board will make proactive technical grants on behalf of the Token House to make progress towards this objectives success metrics. These make take the form of audit grants or Mission Requests (as in previous seasons.) Grant policies apply.

The Budget Board will propose a budget for each Governance Fund Mission, subject to Optimistic approval in the Token House.

Retro Funding Mission: Onchain Builders

This Mission will reward application developers for their contributions to Superchain growth and interop adoption.

Strategic Rationale

  1. Drives Superchain Usage and Growth: Onchain applications are the primary driver of transactions, gas fees, and user activity. Retro Funding rewards the builders behind these apps, aligning economic incentives with the Superchain’s long-term success.
  2. Accelerates Interop Adoption: By recognizing builders who integrate interop functionality, Retro Funding provides targeted incentives for widespread interop adoption.
  3. Builds long term alignment: Instead of relying on short-term grants, Retro Funding offers builders a durable stream of rewards tied to real usage.

Retro Funding Mission: Dev Tooling

This Mission will reward toolchain software, such as compilers, libraries and debuggers, that support builders in developing onchain applications on the Superchain.

Strategic Rationale

  1. Enables Developer-Led Growth: OS Dev Tooling is the foundation of the Superchain’s developer experience. Retro Funding ensures open source tools like libraries and debuggers remain well-maintained and composable.
  2. Corrects a Clear Market Failure: These tools are essential to the ecosystem but lack clear business models. Retro Funding solves this by rewarding impact retroactively, allowing builders to focus on utility.
  3. Strengthens the Platform: Supporting OSS complements prevents vendor lock-in by closed source alternatives, compounds innovation, and reduces reliance on top-down grants—making the Superchain more open, resilient, and scalable.

The Budget Board will propose a budget for each Retro Funding Mission, subject to Optimistic approval in the Citizens’ House.

Success Metric

Verified Developer Interop Adoption

Primary: [X ] Atlas deployers with contracts interacting with interop L2ToL2CrossDomainMessenger per month

Why this metric?: We believe it’s an early indicator of developer adoption and verified developers set a quality bar.



What does this mean for Delegates?

  • Join the Community Call on July 17th
  • Join the Foundation AMA on June 26th
  • In Special Voting Cycle #39a:
    • Vote to ratify the Intent
  • In Special Voting Cycle #39b:
    • Optimistically approve 3 Governance Fund Missions

What does this mean for Citizens?

  • Join the Community Call on July 17th
  • Join the Foundation AMA on June 26th
  • In Special Voting Cycle #39a:
    • Vote to ratify the Intent
  • In Special Voting Cycle #39b:
    • Optimistically approve 3 Retro Funding Missions

See the Reflection Period Guide for full steps.

Summary of Spend by Objective

Objective Project Budget Fund Governance Approval
Ship Interop Product & Engineering (OP Labs) 16M OP Foundation None
Growth (Foundation & OP Labs) 5M - 10M OP Foundation None
Retro Funding Mission: OP Stack Dependencies TBD Retro PGF Citizens’ House
Total TBD
Grow TVL Growth (Foundation & OP Labs) 6M - 11M OP Foundation None
Governance Fund Mission: Futarchy TBD Governance Fund Token House
Governance Fund Mission: Grants Council TBD Governance Fund Token House
Total TBD
Developer Adoption Product & Engineering (OP Labs) 2M OP Foundation None
Growth (Foundation & OP Labs) 20M - 40M OP Foundation None
Retro Funding Mission: Dev Tooling TBD Retro PGF Citizens’ House
Retro Funding Mission: Onchain Builders TBD Retro PGF Citizens’ House
Governance Fund Mission: Dev Advisory Board TBD Governance Fund Token House
Total TBD
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I’ll leave my feedback on the Season 8 documents here to avoid spamming multiple threads.

All relevant Councils and Boards from Season 7 were required to publish a retrospective by June 12th. This gives the Collective visibility into what worked, what didn’t, and the overall progress that is essential context for the next round of approvals.

However, I’m not seeing any reports related to the initiatives outlined in the Season 7 Intent by The Foundation. I assume the Foundation isn’t required to report on how it spends the budgets it proposes for The Foundation treasury but the more opaque things get, the more it feels like we’re drifting toward an ivory tower dynamic.

To illustrate: roughly 60M OP are expected to be allocated from the Foundation Fund to ship interop, grow TVL, and drive dev adoption for Season 8. But I can’t find any public updates for the following Season 7 budgets:

Development Projects Budget
Deliver the MVP for interop (at least two OP Chains and audited) 4M OP
Upgrades to reach Stage 1 1.5M OP
Infra/processes to scale Superchain upgrades 1.5M OP
Alternate Rust stack & Stage 2 progress 1.5M OP
ERC7802 adoption + interoperable ETH 1M OP
Decision Market Mission (Futarchy) 1M OP
Retro Funding 16M OP
Superstacks 2M OP

These were real budgets with big expectations. Yet I see no reports, no outcomes, and no lessons learned. Meanwhile, the Collective is now being asked to optimistically approve (meaning if someoen is not paying attention it passes) the Futarchy mission again, and it’s unclear whether Citizens have any say in the future of Retro Funding.

As someone analizing a proposal for the Grants Council S8, with a clear vision and the expectation to be held accountable six months from now, I’d really like to know if that same mentality exists across the board.

Unchecked use of funds, OP tokens in this case, inevitably breeds complacency, especially when there’s no public accountability. If I had failed in any of the five seasons I’ve served, Token House wouldn’t give me a second chance to get elected. Meanwhile, Retro Funding is on its seventh iteration with no indication of being sucesfull during S7, and Interop MVP was promised back in November 2024 with no clear delivery or post-mortem.

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Clarifications are provided below

I assume the Foundation isn’t required to report on how it spends the budgets it proposes for The Foundation treasury

  • The Foundation was allocated 30% of the initial token supply. The Foundation posts regular budget updates outlining how those tokens are used. The next update is being prepared and will be posted shortly. This report was not published alongside the Season 8 materials, as the Foundation is not currently requesting more tokens.

The Collective is now being asked to optimistically approve (meaning if someone is not paying attention it passes) the Futarchy mission again

  • Butter’s analysis of the futarchy experiment should be available later today
  • The Foundation analysis of the futarchy experiment is expected to be available by June 26th
  • The Foundation’s analysis of the Grants Council in Season 7 is expected to be published by June 19th

It takes some time to do rigorous analysis (the Season ended less than 48 hours ago) but this information is expected to be available to the community before votes on any of the Missions occur. Given the need to understand longer term impacts, like retention, the reality is that we will not fully understand the efficacy of different programs immediately after they conclude. We will post links to all the analyses mentioned above in the Missions as they become available.

All token allocations (Mission budgets), including the Grants Council Mission, will be optimistically approved in Season 8. This is for a few key reasons:

  • The experiments we ran in Season 7 indicated that most participants, even non-experts, tended to align with budgets proposed by an “expert group.” (See Season 7 Guest Voter Selection Experiment Outcomes)
  • The Budget Board has the relevant expertise to make informed and comprehensive proposals about budgets. Governance participants still have the ability to veto these proposals if they disagree.
  • Optimistic approvals allow the decisions to be outsourced to high context decision makers while ensuring they remain accountable to governance participants that retain a veto. Insufficient monitoring is a known failure mode of optimistic systems, which we will prevent with email notifications, etc.

It’s unclear whether Citizens have any say in the future of Retro Funding

  • Citizens will have a say in whether or not Retro Funding receives token allocations, meaning Retro Funding is ultimately accountable to the Citizens’ House. Citizens will not be involved in the day-to-day decision making involved in running the Retro Funding program, as that increases platform risk and is, therefore, outside the governance surface area.

As someone analizing a proposal for the Grants Council S8, with a clear vision and the expectation to be held accountable six months from now, I’d really like to know if that same mentality exists across the board.

  • Yes. The Foundation is bootstrapping the infrastructure required for all token allocations to be compared in as standardized a manner as possible. You can see that in standardized success metrics, public analyses, and increased transparency around the Foundation’s roadmaps and budgets.
  • In the future, the Foundation may need to request more tokens from governance, in which case the Foundation will go through the same process as anyone else requesting tokens.

There’s no public accountability. If I had failed in any of the five seasons I’ve served, Token House wouldn’t give me a second chance to get elected.

  • The Foundation is similarly accountable to the Token House, as outlined in the Operating Manual.

Retro Funding is on its seventh iteration with no indication of being sucessfull during S7

  • OSO is expected to share this analysis by June 20th. They have shared many such analyses for previous seasons (for example.) As stated above, all such analysis are expected to be available before Missions are voted on in Voting Cycle #39b.
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hey @Gonna.eth is there some place I can see a data report for how the past 50-100m OP of Grants Council spend has helped grow the ecosystem? I’m talking TVL per contract, not just stuff like NPS.

I don’t see any dashboard or ROI report linked in the S6 retro or S7 retro.

I agree w/ your points that we need to be good at following up on how tokens were spent, but tbh it doesn’t seem like the Grants Council is very good at this either…

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Absolutely, you can track each contract using this Google Sheet.

  • Column C lists the OP distribution contracts.
  • Column D lists the TVL contracts we’re monitoring.

Unfortunately, when both the Milestone & Metrics and Grants Council budgets were created back in December, neither included a proper dashboard for tracking TVL growth, with the assumption that this was going to be done more broadly by The Foundation’s analytics team. We didn’t even had the interoperable TVL definition by Dec 4th when my budget was posted. Not to mention is becoming increasingly hard to ask independent teams to do work for 1 year locked OP under these market conditions. That said, Superchain Eco has offered to build a Dune dashboard using this data, and we’re currently waiting on that.

In the meantime, the TVL data we’re reporting is based on what grantees share with us directly via Telegram. I ping all of them monthly for updates, and those numbers are reflected on the second tab of the same sheet. Just keep in mind that it’s a static snapshot; that’s why each report includes a specific date.

This is a quote from the retrospective published on June 9th.
“Grantees have reported (On June 7th) using 356,000 OP so far, resulting in a combined $480M in direct TVL. While a large portion of this comes from Spark ($400M), removing that still leaves $80M in TVL driven by early-stage OP incentives, which is highly encouraging. That said, we invite caution when interpreting these numbers.”

If you want to make an easy confirmation of the 400M reported above, you can check these contracts from Spark:
OP Mainnet:
0xe0F9978b907853F354d79188A3dEfbD41978af62
0x876664f0c9Ff24D1aa355Ce9f1680AE1A5bf36fB
Unichain:
0x345E368fcCd62266B3f5F37C9a131FD1c39f5869
0x7b42ed932f26509465f7ce3faf76ffce1275312f

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Related to the above, we’ve already (and without any reward/pay in exchange) produced a Season 7 Grant Tracking dashboard and are adding additional metrics in the coming days.

View the Dune Dashboard here

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@Gonna.eth
These metrics are important for making informed decisions, especially when budgeting for the next season.
NumbaNERDs will be happy to assist in any way possible to expedite the cleaning and collection of accurate data.

While the market conditions of locked OP for 1 year deter many from working, I would like to mention that many numbaNERDs contributors are providing their time and intellect working on various tasks. We should provide more, and the communication channels should be better to ensure we utilise their strengths for such activities, which are crucial for governance.

Simple questions that arise from the current analytics, like, “Was the TVL increase in Spark an outcome to be associated solely with OP grant?” This can be backed by data and completed as a task by numbaNERDs. And the answer will also help reviewers in the next season.

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