Seeking perspectives on RPGF from Optimism participants for research

[madisonk]

Hi everyone,

I’m Madison, a research fellow at Plumia studying how digital contribution and funding mechanisms could inform tax and public goods systems for a digital nation. I’m examining Optimism’s RPGF as an example of how retroactive funding works in practice as it relates to what it incentivizes, who it serves, and how impact gets evaluated.

I’d love to hear from people who’ve participated in the Optimism Collective (as builders, Citizens/badgeholders, delegates, reviewers, grants operators, etc.) about their firsthand experiences. I’m reading a lot about the formal structures (https://gov.optimism.io/t/the-evolution-of-retro-funding-in-2025/9414) but I value individual perspectives on how things actually work in practice.

Note that I’m new here, so if there are existing discussions I should read first that I may have missed, I’m happy to go there instead. Also happy to chat individually, just send me a message.

Questions (answer any that resonate, or share something else related):

1. What role have you played in the Collective, and what motivated you to get involved?

2. What value have you gotten from participating?

3. What’s your view of retroactive funding for public goods? Where does it work well and where does it break down?

4. Did RPGF change what you built or how you participated? Or were you motivated by other factors?

5. Does RPGF actually fund “public goods”, or more like private goods with spillover benefits? Who benefits from the projects and how easy is it to access those benefits?

6. What’s been hardest about participating? Has token volatility affected your trust in RPGF?

7. If you could change one thing about how RPGF works or evaluates impact, what would it be?

[Gonna.eth]

@madisonk

What role have you played in the Collective, and what motivated you to get involved?

I’ve been delegate since inception, badgeholder since SO, and on the Grants Council since inception.

I got involved because I loved through the gas wars of 2020 and I believe L2 are the way to scale Ethereum. Chose Optimism because it is the most aligned, the most neutral L2 that uses ETH for gas.

@madisonk

What value have you gotten from participating?

First: the biggest governance gets the hardest it is to steer the ship. Second: there’s no value in gov and you will loose participants attention if you don’t have a clear and fast plan to give gov their right to propose and decide. Third: you get as much value created as you get on grift and greed, be clear on what you want to reward and hear those who push for value over greed.

@madisonk

What’s your view of retroactive funding for public goods? Where does it work well and where does it break down?

Humans are good to determine what is useful for them, metrics are useful to determine what’s good for the infra and growth. I believe retro should experiment more with AI eval to find a good balance of both.

@madisonk

Did RPGF change what you built or how you participated? Or were you motivated by other factors?

I was motivated way before Retro appeared. Tbh living through many “failed” RPGF demotivated me on my view about society. I say failed as I believe impact was not properly rewarded and a lot of greed was overly rewarded.

@madisonk

• Does RPGF actually fund “public goods”, or more like private goods with spillover benefits? Who benefits from the projects and how easy is it to access those benefits?

You need to define “public good” and we wasted years without guidance to come up with a definition. Best definition I found was given by Arjun here: https://youtu.be/ZtRmPaLOaRw?si=Zu7uTqnNcvVUtNfT

TLDR something becomes so cheap to provide to anyone that it makes sense for the “state” to finance it and make it a public good. I believe RPGF never asked projects how do you become cheap enough that it becomes sustainable for OP to fund you. And the premise was to fund it with sequencer revenue that is also becoming a cheap almost public good.

There are a few exceptions like Velodrome and Protocol Guild, probably an educational effort I’m missing. But there is no easy access, not even a simple wallet for noob users as a public good and benefits go tho whatever the private structure sets. Ej. Velo benefits Velo holders, it is open, it is almost free to use, and brings liquidity to OP Mainnet, but there’s no benefit to OP token.

@madisonk

What’s been hardest about participating? Has token volatility affected your trust in RPGF?

Hardest: asking for a change and to stop the use of OP until a good system comes out. Volatility does not affect my trust, but kills momentum and users lose attention.

@madisonk

If you could change one thing about how RPGF works or evaluates impact, what would it be?

I would take the time to analyze every single project rewarded so far, score their real impact vs funding vs sustainably and train and use that score to train an AI for future RPGF.

Hope this helps, stay Optimistic!

[Lucent]

I learned a lot from reading your response.

Thank you, ser.