Public goods funding is a topic that is getting more and more attention in the web3 world - and rightfully so.

Why?

Because there are many projects like development tools, software libraries/packages, open-source protocols, and other things that provide a lot of utility to the web3 ecosystem, but for various reasons cannot be monetized.

A good example is a library called ethers.js, which the majority of frontend apps use to interact with the blockchain. Ethers.js does not have a way to monetize its usefulness, but someone still needs to spend time maintaining and upgrading it.

With public goods funding, developers working on these kinds of projects can be compensated fairly and can perhaps even focus full-time on maintaining the project.

RetroPGF on Optimism

A few months ago, the Optimism team has set up an address to which anyone can donate any kind of funds - ETH, stablecoins, or other tokens.

All these donated funds then go into RetroPGF (governed by Optimism’s Citizens’ House).

What is RetroPGF?

RetroPGF stands for retroactive public goods funding. It’s a novel concept within PGF which aims to reward projects retroactively, for the work that was already done.

Usually projects get grants to finance their future work, with milestones that unlock parts of the grant. The problem with this approach is that all the past work is not compensated.

Public goods projects usually have the bulk of the work done before applying to grants, which often makes them ineligible to receive funds. That’s why it is important to recognize and reward the work that was already done.

To learn more about retroactive public goods funding, read this blog post by Vitalik.

Punk Domains ❤️ PGF. 💯!

As you probably know, Punk Domains is a permissionless web3 domain protocol. It can support multiple domain extensions, such as .wagmi, .op, .fantom, .sgb etc.

Because we firmly believe in (retro) PGF, we have decided to divert part of our revenue stream into public goods funding. Any time a new .op or .optimism domain is minted, 100% of the revenue goes directly into the official Optimism’s RetroPGF address.

This way we’ve automated public goods funding (AutoPGF) and we hope to see many more protocols on Optimism doing the same. 🤘😎

Track in real time

You can track the amount of donations in real time via Dune Analytics:

Would you like to get yourself an .op domain? We’ve set up a dedicated website just for that: https://optimistic.domains/

Shout out to Norswap who pushed for setting up the RetroPGF address within Team Optimism, and Michael Silberling who made a huge $OP donation to the RetroPGF address! 🎉