You can be pro-crypto and agree that:
-99% of tokens have ponzi dynamics
-99% of projects have no utility
-99% of hodlers only care about number go up
(and probably also agree that public goods are good)
every single library for javascript developers that applied for
@Optimism
retropgf received funding
every. single. one.
to the tune of ~$10M (2.8M OP) total
these are projects w/o VC funding, tokens, SaaS fees, etc
web2 doesn't fund its dependencies - the new internet does.
Just finished a long write-up on RetroPGF3 results.
Some insights on what this round favored:
- Open > closed source
- Offchain > onchain impact
- Developer libraries > end user applications
- Peanut butter > power law distributions
- Small > big teams
crypto has created a substrate for funding "long tail public goods" on an internet-wide scale
short tail public goods are the things we all recognize as valuable. they deserve and often get the lion's share of funding.
but every short tail public good started out on the long
in the long run, i think
@gitcoin
's biggest impact will be the connective tissue it's creating: not just between projects & funders, but also among projects and people who share the same north star ...
@KlimaDAO
treasury exceeds 14M tons of CO2.
That's more than the annual emissions of 119 countries - incl. Lithuania, Tanzania, Paraguay.
Pretty remarkable progress in 3 months.
My thoughts on Optimism’s new direction for Retro Funding:
1/
I am excited to see an increased focus on verifiable impact and a shift to more tightly curated rounds. I have been outspoken about the need for these types of things for much of the past year. FWIW, my project
Today we're introducing a new era of clarity for Retro Funding!
The Collective has allocated a total of 850M OP to incentivize impactful work across the
@Optimism
Collective and the Superchain.
In the last few years, over $360M worth of grants has been allocated to over 5K projects in the Ethereum ecosystem. Most of that was during the bear market ... and 2024 is on pace to greatly exceed 2023!
Want to explore where the funding went?
You can see flows by funder,
It’s all retro funding
Your ability to raise money for future work is 99% based on impressions of what you’ve done before, who you know, how well you pitch your idea, where you’re from, etc etc
The realty is we overpay for grant writers and underpay for doers
I’m sharing my RetroPGF voting strategy to provide transparency to projects and other badgeholders regarding the impact I care about and how I value it
Ballot is ready to go, will cast it tomorrow. Feedback on the strategy is welcome; shilling is not 🔴
Longish thread on what the data says about the open source software projects participating in
@optimismFND
's latest RetroPGF round.
Full write-up (including links to the source code)
Read on ...
Prediction:
@Polymarket
will be to the 2024 elections what the 538 model was for the 2008 election. It will go from being an obscure corner of the internet to a foundational source of intelligence.
Beyond 2024, I predict the polling industry as we know it to be completely
I've supported 50+ projects on GR14.
I'm going to do a final round today. Tag your project if I've missed it and you want me to check it out!
Here's what I've funded so far.
imagine if funding for digital public goods were as pervasive and as seamlessly integrated as ordering food or booking a flight online?
some thoughts on programmable retro-funding and why we need more of it:
Excited to see the results of RetroPGF tomorrow!
When we applied a few months ago, I wrote down a number that I felt was a reasonable target. Since then, there has been a lot of positive price action, but I want to remain anchored on our original target.
If we exceed the
✨🌏
Earth Day POAP challenge:
1/ Go outside & admire the world
2/ Take a photo of your favorite tree, shrub, flower, grass
3/ Share photo & drop your ENS/ wallet address below by 23:59 PT
I will all stitch the photos into a special POAP for everyone who participated
🌍✨
In the long run, I believe Ethereum's biggest export will be new mechanisms & rails for funding public goods like open source software.
To the doubters & cynics, look no further than these 500 projects that just received over $100M for a heavy dose of
@Optimism
✨
Over $100m distributed in
@Optimism
RetroPGF round 3.
Really impressed to see their ongoing commitment to funding public goods, helping devs and others contribute to Ethereum even if they lack a business model.
Hope to see more projects doing QF and RPGF rounds in the future!
Funding projects on
@gitcoin
grants is like shopping at IKEA
You go with one thing in mind, you checkout with a full cart
Then you come back the next day bc you forgot something. And you leave with a full cart again
The good thing is you’re filling up yr cart w public goods
I’m going to test out some impact evaluation methods for all projects in each of the current
@gitcoin
alpha rounds.
Then I will allocate a sizable amount of ETH (for me) across them.
Finally I will share a write-up, hopefully inspiring others to fork or follow suit.
if retro pgf is going to crossover from being a neat little experiment on ethereum to something that can change the world, we need data to prove its impact
some analysis & recommendations for how
@optimismFND
can continue to blaze the trail
Update. I cast my ballot. It was incredible learning about many new projects - and seeing such clear impact of more established ones.
Badge holders had an enormous responsibility. There was a huge diversity of opinions and voting strategies. I learned more from the groupchat
I’m sharing my RetroPGF voting strategy to provide transparency to projects and other badgeholders regarding the impact I care about and how I value it
Ballot is ready to go, will cast it tomorrow. Feedback on the strategy is welcome; shilling is not 🔴
Just finished a looong essay on the game dynamics of RetroPGF.
Check it out if you were a player (or a spectator) in the game.
I will be cross-posting all this on the new
@OSObserver
blog space (soon), but you can find it here for now:
Projects looove
@pifafu
's figma template for announcing retropgf results. Overheard in the badgeholders chat:
"I like the little things. Whoever did this, congrats" -
@LefterisJP
"Kudos to whoever made that template and instructions, even an untalented marketing person like me
Very proud of this piece. I believe that funding public goods effectively is a powerful competitive advantage for crypto ecosystems - but we need the data to back that claim.
The key finding in this report is that every $1M in match funding provided to
Check out our analysis on the impact of Gitcoin Grants on developer activity since 2019.
This is the first of hopefully many longitudinal impact assessments. Reach out if you have ideas or want to collaborate on this type of analysis!
Excited to see the results of RetroPGF tomorrow!
When we applied a few months ago, I wrote down a number that I felt was a reasonable target. Since then, there has been a lot of positive price action, but I want to remain anchored on our original target.
If we exceed the
So excited to be at
@FundingCommons
Taipei this weekend !
@da0_g0v_tw
are pushing the frontiers of digital democracy and public goods funding - incredible to see my heroes
@noahyeh
and
@vvntp6
on their home stage ✨
Every one of these light pixels represents an open source contribution made by an individual who is represented as part of a gitcoin grant (since 2018)
your contributions help keep the lights on for thousands of people
go to & click the appopriate button
📢 Gitcoin Grants 19 is LIVE until 23:59 UTC Nov 29th
#GG19
is your opportunity to Fund What Matters & get your donations multiplied with matching funds in the biggest Quadratic Funding event in web3 🫶
TL;DR on GG19:
Back to our roots w/ 3 Program Rounds:
🛠️OSS
⛓️ETH Infra
Finally, it should go without saying, but there are some truly prolific builders working on Ethereum.
This chart might melt your screen but it's one of my favorites. It captures 150 of the most active contributors across all of the RetroPGF 3 projects. 👑
I love this visualization of the Two Loops Model by
@CassieRobinson
It shows the Dominant & the Emergent Systems as entirely different paradigms - two loops that never touch
It also underscores the importance of connecting & nurturing in an Emergent System 🌱
congrats to
@ourZORA
fastest/easiest L2 bridge -> do cool things UX I’ve encountered
spent some time exploring and immediately got ideas for things I want to create
L2 summer is here 🔥
It's humbling & inspiring to see how
@RedemptionDAO
's tent has grown over the past 48 hours.
Congolese activists, community leaders, NGOs have joined forces with
#ReFi
leaders, artists, devs, GIS mappers, energy experts, lawyers, etc.
It's just getting started - come help!
Some more stats* on
@gitcoin
's alpha round:
- 29K unique wallet addresses
- 1.5K supported projects across all 3 rounds
- 10K had unique "donor DNA", meaning no other user chose to fund the same combination of projects as them
Pluralism FTW!
.
@owocki
should be proud of this. I never felt comfortable accepting payment for work at gitcoin because I felt it was giving me so much more. Most full-time contributors are whale donors to projects (+ don’t brag about it). Most alumni part ways on a mission to grow the pool.
Vitalik's meditation on the "scene" is a reminder that balkanization can happen in any community. It is often a byproduct of new people+money entering quickly.
He holds up regen & refi as a growing scene that gives him optimism about a different path.
Here are some thoughts:
Here's my little essay on why I think this governance stuff matters, why you should be proud to participate, why you should kick the tires on all of it, and why other people should care. (just in time for those wtf are you doing holiday conversations)
I made some art 🌞
1/ Polar Optimist
- Each project on OP mainnet is a unique wedge
- Bar height = log transactions for that project
- One plot per month
Some stats* on
@gitcoin
's alpha round:
- $582K donated across all 3 rounds
- 24K unique wallet addresses
- $13 median total donations/wallet
- 6.9 avg projects/wallet
- 1.5 avg rounds/wallet
only a few hours left!
Congrats to gitcoin
- launched multiple protocols
- greatly improved design / UX
- rounds popping up everywhere
- experiments on various chains
- bringing QF to various normie causes
- doubling down on OSS + eth infra
Lots to celebrate 👏
🥁 2023 - Year in Review 🥁
Yes, it is that time of year again and this one felt like a few! Please take a spin down memory lane with us as we recap our favorite moments… 🧵
Kicking us off is the return of our beloved
@owocki
– reunited, and it feels so good 🎶
A few months ago
@greenpillnyc
hosted a wonderful salon and invited me to give a talk on the past, present and future of public goods funding.
I made a scorecard comparing crypto vs legacy systems on 7 dimensions.
Here’s a blog version of the talk:
Hot take: there's too much money chasing too few builders in the climate /
#refi
/ carbon space.
Supply side needs more:
+ Removal projects
+ DAOs / composable infra for project origination & verification
+ Moonshots
What start-ups, projects would you like to see in 2022?
@MattAhlborg
@BetterMarkets
@ewarren
@GaryGensler
this inspired me to do some digging on better markets.
all US tax-exempt orgs must disclose their financial activity to the public. these include their total revenue and the compensation paid to their highest officers. you can see a copy of better market's latest return here:
i got hit by an uber while crossing the street this morning
apart from some scrapes and bruises, i am totally fine
the driver was extremely gracious, hugged me, took my somewhere i could clean up, has been calling to check that i'm fine
feeling grateful 💜
Impact is not like pornography.
“I can’t define it but I know it when I see it.”
Impact is hard to define, pluralistic, context specific. It’s a collective intelligence problem.
That’s why you want a lot of efforts to measure it, not one (or none).
0⃣is curious 1⃣apes in 2⃣loses it all 3⃣reads up/subscribes to bankless 4⃣gets greenpilled 5⃣gives to gitcoin grants 6⃣joins project(s) 7⃣goes fulltime web3 8⃣starts own project 9⃣raises on gitcoin grants 🔟builds ▶️ships ⏩funds public goods ⏭️inspires others
why don't u get a job
the companies i want to work for don't exist yet
why don't u become an investor
no one is ready to invest in the things i want to fund
why don't u convince people
the data to convince people doesn't exist yet
why don't u get the data
that is the plan
.
@MessariCrypto
just released their annual Crypto Theses for 2024.
This year’s included a chart by
@a16z
+ a quote from
@twobitidiot
: “If I could invest blindly into crypto based on a single chart, it’s this one”
There’s a lot to love about this take, but one thing I hate...
Just published a new RetroPGF List ✨
This one is experimental and warrants a longer write-up, which you can find here:
This thread has details on the methodology ...
Just finished my second round of donations on
@gitcoin
@grantsstack
, i tried to sweep both the floor and the ceiling this round
h/t to
@MegLister
and the team for making some big improvements to the Grants UI
Very grateful & humbled by the support during the
@GitcoinCitizens
round.
I view this funding as a gift — and with it a desire to pay it forward. I haven’t decided how yet, but I want to put all of it into tomorrow’s impact data scientists.
Thank you 🫶
I'd like to see public goods funding on crypto rails reach nation state scale -- and be 10x more impactful.
If you want proof, check out my wallet history.
If you want to help, consider funding my new project on
@gitcoin
#GG19
:
Decentralized decision-making isn’t about drawing everything up by committee and achieving consensus on every issue.
It is about removing barriers to information and access, so all people feel empowered to seek advice, run the numbers, and make decisions.
To all the people saying that
#DeFi
is just crypto-natives with no connection to the real world, I give you
@KlimaDAO
which has brought 9.4 million carbon tonnes on chain in the space of just 3 weeks and is now a hot topic of conversation at
#COP26Glasgow
. $KLIMA (🌳,🌳)
I just donated to GG18 on
@gitcoin
. Join me in making a difference by donating today, and check out the projects I supported on my Donation History page!