Greetings Octant community!
As we approach 2025, we’re excited to follow up on our previous engagement and share our comprehensive proposal for Epoch 6. Over the past year, we’ve continued developing essential coordination infrastructure while following Octant’s thoughtful approach to public goods funding. Together, we look forward to expanding these proven systems to create profound benefits across the Ethereum ecosystem and throughout society.
Project Description
Optimystics create essential public goods infrastructure through open-source software, community events, and educational resources that transform how organizations coordinate and make decisions. At the heart of our work is the Respect Game - an innovative social coordination system where participants showcase their work, evaluate contributions through peer consensus, build meaningful relationships, and develop verifiable onchain reputation (aka Respect) through engaging social experiences.
These coordination processes form the foundation for fractal democracy - a revolutionary governance system that enables democratic participation at any scale. Through implementation across multiple communities, we’ve demonstrated how reputation-based processes enable more effective collective action, from funding public goods in local initiatives to coordinating sophisticated governance in global protocols. By combining transparent evaluation frameworks with sybil-resistant identity systems via onchain social games, our products create new possibilities for collaboration that can profoundly strengthen all communities and organizations.
Our integrated ecosystem makes these processes accessible through weekly events, modular software infrastructure, and comprehensive implementation resources. This infrastructure enables anyone to experience these benefits firsthand through our events, while empowering communities to adopt these processes for their own needs with our open-source toolkit and documentation. As organizations worldwide face mounting coordination challenges, these processes provide essential foundations for making collective decisions more fair, fast, and fun - transforming how humanity collaborates to create positive impact.
Public Repository: GitHub - Optimystics/frapps: Toolkit for fractal apps on Ethereum. Modular and open-source
Budget Breakdown
We are requesting 30 ETH to advance essential coordination infrastructure that transforms how organizations make decisions. This funding supports both technical development of sophisticated governance tools and systematic implementation that enables adoption across Ethereum.
As we enter 2025, with proven implementations demonstrating significant impact, sustainable funding will accelerate development of our open-source infrastructure while expanding educational initiatives and ecosystem coordination. While we’ve operated primarily through volunteer contributions, this support enables thoughtful scaling of both our technical capabilities and community engagement.
Our budget allocation and milestones are divided into two complementary areas: Events, Education & Community Implementation, and Technical Development of applications for prosocial games and fractal governance.
Events, Education, and Community Implementation (20 ETH)
Our events team leads systematic testing and implementation of coordination tools while developing comprehensive educational resources and fostering sustainable ecosystem growth. Through three interconnected community initiatives combined with strategic development and educational programming, we provide critical environments for validating technical innovations while helping builders experience these processes firsthand. All events are recorded with detailed timestamps and documentation, creating lasting resources that benefit the broader Ethereum ecosystem. Key Q1 2025 deliverables include:
1. Optimism Fractal Events
Milestone: Host 6 bi-weekly events fostering collaboration and coordination on Optimism, targeting 25% increase in participation (from an average of 8-9 to an average of 10-12 builders per event) and video viewership (from ~50 views per event to ~65) while maintaining our track record of outstanding community feedback.
Context: Optimism Fractal is a community dedicated to fostering collaboration, awarding public goods creators, and optimizing governance on the Superchain. Community events bring builders together to showcase their work, evaluate contributions through peer consensus, and help evolve coordination frameworks through practical implementation of democratic processes. Through Respect Games focused on measuring contributions to Optimism, these sessions demonstrate how reputation-based systems can enhance community governance while creating natural networking opportunities and testing grounds for technical innovation.
Expected Outcomes:
- Sustained testing environment for governance frameworks through regular builder participation
- Enhanced collaboration between ecosystem projects via structured evaluation processes
- Verifiable onchain records of contribution assessment and reputation development
- Practical validation of coordination tools through hands-on implementation
- Strengthened relationships between builders, developers and governance participants
2. Eden Fractal Events
Milestone: Host 6 bi-weekly sessions advancing coordination frameworks with focus on Ethereum ecosystem and broader societal development, targeting 25% increase in participation (from 5-7 to 8-10 builders per event) and video viewership (from ~40 to ~50) while maintaining exceptionally high quality of events
Context: Eden Fractal is a community dedicated to optimizing collective decision-making with fractal consensus processes via collaborative research, development, education, gamification, and community engagement. Regular events since 2022 have combined rigorous testing of coordination mechanisms with hands-on education, fostering deep understanding of how reputation-based processes can transform collective decision-making. We plan to start playing Respect Games on Base at each event, potentially focused on measuring contributions to advancing governance, coordination, and public goods.
Expected Outcomes:
- Expanded testing of coordination frameworks across diverse organizational contexts
- Enhanced documentation of proven implementation patterns and success metrics
- Strengthened cross-ecosystem collaboration between Ethereum developers
- Accelerated development of educational resources and implementation guides
- Validation of reputation-based governance in different community environments
3. Optimism Town Hall Events
Milestone: Host 6 bi-weekly forums implementing democratic agenda-setting, targeting increase to 9-11 regular participants (from current 8-9) and develop audience with independent production of videos
Context: Optimism Town Hall demonstrates practical implementation of reputation-based topic selection while fostering essential ecosystem discussions. These collaborative sessions provide dedicated space for governance evolution, with participants using earned Respect to help determine discussion focus. By documenting how communities can democratically coordinate conversations at scale, these events create foundations for better collective decision-making. Independent video production ensures comprehensive coverage of governance innovations.
Expected Outcomes:
- Validated patterns for democratic coordination of community discussions
- Enhanced understanding of reputation systems’ role in agenda-setting
- Strengthened connections between builders and governance participants
- Expanded documentation of implementation successes and lessons learned
- Clear demonstration of how reputation enables more effective collaboration
4. Strategic Development & Operations
Milestone: Complete comprehensive 2025 Strategy Document detailing technical development, implementation support. and impact measurement to nurture transformative ecosystem growth
Context: This strategic planning combines coordination between development teams, community management, and ecosystem growth initiatives. Our systematic approach includes product refinement based on community feedback, relationship building with implementing organizations, and development of sustainable growth models. This work ensures our tools and processes can effectively serve communities across different contexts while maintaining implementation quality. Draft document are underway and can be provided upon request.
Expected Outcomes:
- Clear roadmap for expanding coordination infrastructure adoption
- Enhanced alignment between technical development and community needs
- Strengthened relationships with implementing organizations
- Improved frameworks for measuring and accelerating ecosystem impact
- Sustainable models for long-term community growth and engagement
5. Educational Resources & Documentation
Milestone: Comprehensive enhancement of implementation guides, technical documentation, and educational materials across each of the websites linked above
Context: This fundamental work makes coordination processes accessible to new communities while preserving essential knowledge. Through systematic documentation of implementation patterns, technical specifications, and governance frameworks, we help organizations understand and adopt these processes effectively. Regular updates ensure materials reflect latest developments while maintaining clear paths for different implementation contexts.
Expected Outcomes:
- Enhanced accessibility of coordination tools and processes
- Improved onboarding resources for new communities
- Comprehensive technical documentation supporting adoption
- Clear implementation guides for different organizational contexts
- Preserved knowledge base enabling ecosystem growth
Our systematic approach combines hands-on testing with thorough documentation, fostering genuine engagement while gathering vital feedback. This work provides essential coordination between builders, community leaders, and development teams - creating foundations for transforming how organizations make decisions. By maintaining high standards for both implementation and documentation, we ensure these coordination processes can benefit communities throughout Ethereum and beyond.
Technical Infrastructure Development (10 ETH in Total)
Building on successful implementations across our communities, we’re advancing modular coordination infrastructure through two complementary applications with distinct technical architectures. This development combines sophisticated smart contracts with intuitive interfaces, enabling both synchronous and asynchronous coordination while maintaining democratic principles. All open-source repositories can be found in the frapps repository and you can explore more about each tool (including comprehensive video demonstrations) in our detailed articles.
We’re requesting a total of 10 ETH to be split across technical infrastructure development of flagship two applications:
ORDAO Protocol Development (6 ETH)
ORDAO is a state-of-the-art set of EVM smart contracts that represent a breakthrough in democratic governance infrastructure. The core component is OREC (Optimistic Respect-based Executive Contract), which allows for truly decentralized, onchain execution of transactions based on community voting with an innovative consent-based voting system. This sophisticated protocol enables community decisions through an innovative optimistic quorum system, where participants use earned Respect to execute collective actions. Integration with the Fractalgram web app provides seamless coordination during events while maintaining decentralized control. Key Q1 2025 deliverables include:
6. ORDAO v1.1 Release
Milestone: Complete comprehensive release of ORDAO v1.1 with enhanced deployment scripts, improved blockchain integration, and Privy GUI integration by December 20th, 2024
Context: The v1.1 release significantly enhances system stability and accessibility while maintaining rigorous security standards. Technical improvements include optimized node connections, streamlined deployment processes, and expanded GUI integration through Privy - making democratic coordination more accessible without sacrificing decentralization.
Expected Outcomes:
- Enhanced reliability of consensus processes through improved node infrastructure
- Expanded accessibility of GUI interfaces via Privy
- Streamlined deployment enabling faster community adoption
- Strengthened security maintaining democratic principles
- Clear foundation for integration with complementary tools
7. Community Implementation: Optimism Fractal
Milestone: Deploy ORDAO v1.1 for Optimism Fractal community, enabling governance participation for 65+ contributors who earned OPF Respect by January 20th, 2025
Context: This deployment demonstrates sophisticated coordination at scale while enhancing Optimism Collective governance. By enabling democratic execution of community decisions through verifiable reputation, ORDAO creates new possibilities for transparent resource allocation and collective action. This implementation shows how reputation-based systems can enhance both local community governance and broader ecosystem participation.
Expected Outcomes:
- Demonstrated democratic coordination through practical implementation
- Enhanced governance capabilities for active community members
- Clear patterns for scaling reputation-based decision-making
- Improved accessibility through intuitive interfaces
- Validated frameworks for ecosystem governance enhancement
8. Cross-Ecosystem Deployment
Milestone: Deploy ORDAO for Eden Fractal and ZAO Fractal communities, enabling coordination across different contexts by February 20th, 2025
Context: These implementations validate ORDAO’s flexibility across different organizational needs. Eden Fractal’s Epoch 2 deployment on Base enables systematic testing of coordination frameworks, while ZAO Fractal’s implementation on OP Mainnet demonstrates how musicians can leverage democratic processes for cultural development. Together, these deployments show how reputation-based governance can enhance different types of communities while maintaining consistent democratic principles. More details about ZAO Fractal can be found on their website and this interview.
Expected Outcomes:
- Validated coordination patterns across different community contexts
- Enhanced cross-chain collaboration capabilities
- Clear demonstration of flexible governance implementation
- Strengthened foundations for ecosystem growth
- Expanded testing across different organizational needs
Respect.Games Platform Development (4 ETH)
Respect.Games is all-in-one app designed to build thriving communities and empower decentralized, autonomous organizations with the Respect Game. The platform provides an innovative approach to asynchronous community coordination, complementing ORDAO’s synchronous governance capabilities. Building on implementations with communities like Bitcoin Fractal, this expansion demonstrates how coordination tools can enhance different organizational contexts while maintaining democratic principles. As you can explore in this detailed article, the apps’ intuitive interface combined with sophisticated smart contracts creates accessible entry points for experiencing better coordination.
9. Community Implementation Strategy
Milestone: Successfully onboard 3 new communities to the Respect.Games platform, providing comprehensive implementation support and documentation of adoption patterns
Expected Outcomes:
- Validated implementation patterns across diverse community contexts
- Enhanced documentation of successful adaptation strategies
- Expanded ecosystem of communities using reputation-based coordination
- Strengthened frameworks for asynchronous governance
- Clear pathways for broader ecosystem adoption
10. Systematic Platform Testing
Milestone: Facilitate 50+ game sessions with at least 30 unique participants, gathering comprehensive implementation feedback while validating coordination frameworks
Context: This systematic testing validates both technical infrastructure and implementation patterns while expanding our understanding of how different communities benefit from reputation-based coordination. Each session provides valuable insights into user experience, governance patterns, and community dynamics. Regular feedback from diverse participants shapes ongoing development while demonstrating how these tools can transform collective decision-making.
Expected Outcomes:
- Comprehensive validation of technical infrastructure
- Enhanced understanding of implementation requirements
- Clear insights driving future development priorities
- Expanded knowledge base of coordination patterns
- Strengthened foundations for ecosystem growth
Plans for Different Funding Scenarios
If Below Target: While we have runway to maintain core operations through Q1 2025, reduced funding would slow our expansion timeline and create pressure to focus our efforts on non-optimal funding approaches. Our dedicated teams remain committed to achieving these milestones on a tight budget, but limited resources would constrain our ability to accelerate development and community support. We may need to extend timelines while seeking additional funding sources to maintain sustainable growth.
If Target Reached: Full funding enables dedicated focus on infrastructure development while beginning strategic team expansion. This support allows our core teams to concentrate entirely on advancing these coordination systems while improving implementation support for communities. We can execute planned milestones while maintaining high standards for both technical development and community engagement, creating strong foundations for sustained ecosystem growth.
If Exceeded: Additional funding accelerates expansion through enhanced development and community support capabilities. We can engage more volunteer developers already contributing valuable improvements, expand our marketing team to increase awareness, and strengthen educational content creation. This enables faster scaling of proven coordination processes while maintaining implementation quality. Extra resources support more comprehensive testing and validation while expanding our ability to support adopting communities.
Through careful resource allocation across both technical development and community implementation, we aim to create profound positive impact for the Ethereum ecosystem that is in alignment with the goals and budget of Octant. Our strategic approach balances immediate milestone execution with sustainable growth, ensuring these coordination tools can benefit communities worldwide.
Impact Measurement and Reporting
Through systematic documentation and comprehensive analytics, we track both immediate outcomes and transformative long-term impact. Our measurement frameworks combine quantitative metrics with qualitative assessment, enabling continuous refinement of coordination infrastructure while validating implementation patterns.
Short-term Outcomes (0-3 months)
Building on our milestone outcomes, Q1 2025 implementation establishes critical foundations for scaling coordination processes throughout Ethereum and beyond. Our baseline targets include:
- Over 50 Respect Game sessions fostering collaboration and onchain reputation development
- 18+ comprehensive event recordings documenting builder contributions and implementation patterns
- Enhanced technical infrastructure through ORDAO v1.1 and Respect.Games platform evolution
- Expanded educational resources supporting diverse implementation contexts
- Strengthened relationships between builders, developers and community leaders
While these targets represent our baseline goals, we anticipate additional positive outcomes through organic ecosystem growth and community-driven innovation across both coordination tools and implementation patterns.
Mid-term Outcomes (3-6+ months)
As our infrastructure matures, we expect accelerating adoption driven by four key developments:
Technical Evolution & Developer Growth
Our open-source infrastructure will attract more developers customizing coordination tools for different contexts. We expect dozens of new implementations leveraging our modular codebase - from governance frameworks to social experiences. Enhanced integrations with protocols like Farcaster and Zora will enable novel reputation-based applications. Regular testing and community feedback will drive continuous improvement while expanding possibilities for coordination infrastructure.
Community Expansion & Implementation
Regular events and systematic documentation will support hundreds of active participants implementing these processes weekly. From local creative collectives to global protocols, communities will adapt these frameworks for their needs. Our educational resources will enable both casual gameplay in social settings and sophisticated organizational implementations. Growing developer engagement will accelerate customization for different contexts while maintaining democratic principles.
Ecosystem Integration
Deep relationships with key stakeholders across Ethereum will create opportunities for enhanced collective decision-making. For example, the Octant community can benefit from improved fund distribution processes and governance frameworks, tailored to their evolving needs. Our tools will help attract and retain builders while making coordination more accessible and enjoyable. Cross-ecosystem collaboration will demonstrate how reputation-based processes can strengthen different communities.
Value Creation & Sustainability
Novel funding mechanisms and business models will emerge as communities implement coordination tools. Integration with protocol reward systems, NFT platforms, and governance frameworks will create sustainable revenue streams for public goods creators. Enhanced analytics will demonstrate clear ROI while growing developer ecosystems create new opportunities for value capture through better coordination.
Long-term Impact (5+ years)
Our vision centers on transforming how humanity collaborates through better coordination infrastructure - from local communities to global organizations:
Coordination Renaissance
We expect millions of people regularly participating in Respect Games across diverse contexts and all of humanity benefitting from fractal decision-making processes. Through transparent evaluation and systematic reputation development, communities can make better collective choices about resource allocation and development priorities. Enhanced collaboration tools will foster genuine human connection while enabling democratic participation at any scale. Regular events and comprehensive documentation will maintain high standards as adoption grows exponentially.
Public Goods Revolution
These frameworks enable a fundamental shift in how society recognizes and rewards valuable contributions. By creating credibly neutral ways to evaluate impact, we help align incentives for positive-sum development. This empowers creators, researchers, educators and builders to earn sustainable income through public goods creation - from scientific research to environmental protection to open-source infrastructure. Growing developer ecosystems will create new possibilities for sustainable funding through reputation-based coordination.
Institutional Evolution
We envision both enhancement of existing institutions through better coordination processes and development of new institutions specifically supporting fractal decision-making. Educational institutes will train coordination specialists, development funds will support infrastructure improvements, and implementation consultancies will help organizations adopt these processes. Regular events and comprehensive documentation will maintain high implementation standards while fostering continuous innovation in coordination frameworks.
Civilizational Infrastructure
As humanity faces mounting coordination challenges and existential risks, better collective decision-making becomes increasingly critical. Our infrastructure provides essential tools for navigating technological complexity while maintaining human agency. By enabling genuine democratic participation at scale, we help create foundations for more effective collaboration on humanity’s greatest challenges. Growing implementation across different contexts will demonstrate how better coordination can transform all aspects of society.
Outcomes Measurement
We maintain sophisticated frameworks for measuring coordination infrastructure impact while continuously evolving our analytics capabilities. Our approach combines rigorous quantitative metrics with rich qualitative assessment, enabling data-driven refinement of implementation patterns.
Demonstrated Impact & Measurement Evolution
Our ecosystem governance impact analysis provides comprehensive documentation of how four of our key initiatives have enhanced Optimism governance over the past year (Oct 2023 - Sept 2024). This detailed assessment, supported by four companion articles examining each initiative’s specific contributions, demonstrates our systematic approach to impact measurement. From tracking onchain attestations during Respect Games to documenting governance participation, these metrics create clear baselines for measuring coordination improvement.
Building on this foundation, we’re expanding our measurement frameworks to capture broader implementation patterns. While our initial analysis focused on governance enhancement on Optimism, our evolving analytics will track adoption across different organizational contexts across all networks. This expansion helps establish standards for measuring novel coordination processes while supporting implementation by other communities.
Quantitative Analytics & Dashboard Development
We’ve started designing a comprehensive analytics dashboard that integrates existing metrics with new indicators tracking ecosystem growth. Our draft design includes 10+ key measurements across critical dimensions:
- Community adoption and implementation patterns
- Respect Game participation and attestation volume
- Respect Token utilization for coordination and governance
- Educational resource engagement and knowledge transfer
- Cross-ecosystem collaboration patterns
As our infrastructure scales, we’ll enhance these analytics through integration with tools like Dune Analytics, Bello, and Nansen, enabling automated data collection while maintaining verifiable records. This creates foundations for standardized measurement frameworks that implementing communities can leverage.
Qualitative Assessment & Community Feedback
Our communities have provided outstanding validation of these coordination processes, with over 100 curated testimonials documented at OptimismFractal.com/feedback. These detailed reviews from builders, developers and community leaders demonstrate tangible benefits while providing crucial implementation insights. Regular event recordings enable systematic collection of participant experiences, creating rich documentation of coordination improvements.
Through careful curation of both quantitative metrics and qualitative feedback, we maintain clear understanding of:
- Implementation success patterns
- Community adoption challenges
- Technical integration opportunities
- Educational resource effectiveness
- Cross-ecosystem collaboration potential
Measurement Infrastructure Evolution
Our measurement capabilities continue expanding through:
- Enhanced blockchain analytics integration
- Standardized impact reporting frameworks
- Cross-platform engagement tracking
- Systematic feedback collection
- Implementation case studies
This comprehensive approach combines empirical data with community insights, enabling continuous refinement of coordination processes while supporting broader ecosystem adoption. By establishing clear standards for measuring novel coordination mechanisms, we help communities understand and validate implementation benefits.
Through systematic documentation and analytics development, we maintain transparent insight into our infrastructure’s evolving impact while identifying opportunities for improvement. This measurement framework adapts alongside our coordination tools, ensuring we can effectively track and enhance implementation across different organizational contexts.
