👉 Jump back to the RetroPGF 3: Badgeholder Manual

Content

1. Overview
2. Defining Impact
   1. The Impact Evaluation Framework
3. Defining Profit

Overview

The goal of Optimism’s Retroactive Public Goods Funding is to retroactively allocate rewards to realize impact=profit — the principle that positive impact to the collective should be rewarded with profit to the individual. This principle serves as a North Star, motivating the creation of a more productive and sustainable economy.

• Impact signifies the value a contributor has created for the Optimism Collective.
• Profit signifies the value a contributor has extracted from the Optimism Collective.
• The gap signifies the difference between a contributor’s impact and profit. (e.g. impact - profit = the gap)
• RetroPGF fills the gap between a contributors impact and profit resulting in a state of impact = profit.

In previous RetroPGF rounds, badgeholders have requested a closer definition and understanding of both impact and profit, how they are defined and applied in practice. This document aims to provide guidance to badgeholders on how this can be achieved. Disclaimer: This framework reflects the Optimism Foundation’s vision for RetroPGF. Individual badgeholders may adopt this framework or apply their own

Defining Impact

• Retroactive means that there should be no forward looking assumptions. Only past impact is considered. Impact measurement should not include any considerations for the future contributions of a project or individual (e.g. how much impact will they have in the future? How important are the rewards to enable their future work?). Future contributions can and should be rewarded in future RetroPGF rounds.
  • In RetroPGF 3 all historical impact & profit can be considered up to the application deadline (Oct 24th 6:00 UTC)
• Impact measures the outcomes that were created for the Collective. Impact does not consider the inputs that went into a particular contribution (e.g. how many people have worked on a contribution or how many hours were spent).
• In this round, impact is categorized into how a contribution has supported the development and adoption of Optimism.
  1. OP Stack: Work that enhanced the efficiency, security, resilience, and awareness of the OP Stack.
  2. Collective Governance: Work that provided impact to governance participants of the Optimism Collective, or helped bring new governance participants into the Collective.
  3. Developer Ecosystem: Work that provided impact to application developers in the Optimism Collective, or helped bring new developers into the Collective.
  4. End User Experience & Adoption: Work that provided impact to end users in the Optimism Collective, or helped bring new end users into the Collective.

The Impact Evaluation Framework

Think of it as your compass as you go through reviewing RetroPGF applications. In it, you’ll find audiences, definitions, and metrics on impact for each category of this round, which you can leverage to inform your voting.