Optimism Announces $10 Million OP Grant for Valuable Projects

After a period of silence, Optimism (OP) has finally announced a new grant initiative to fund ecosystem development with OP tokens.

Optimism Announces $10 Million OP Grant for Valuable Projects

Optimism (OP), the Layer-2 scaling solution for Ethereum, launched its OP token in June through a controversial airdrop. At the same time, Optimism introduced the Optimism Collective governance model, featuring a bicameral structure with the Token House and Citizens’ House, along with the Optimism Stimpack ecosystem fund.

The Stimpack fund had previously allocated 36.6 million OP to major Ethereum projects that supported the early development of Optimism. This funding was intended to be used for developing new features for the Optimism community (referred to as “public good”) or as incentives to encourage the use of Layer-2 solutions.

In a recent announcement on December 7, Optimism revealed the second round of its OP grant program, with a total of 10 million OP (~$10 million) to be distributed to individuals and projects contributing to the ecosystem.

OP token holders will have voting rights to select grant recipients through the Retroactive Public Goods Funding (RetroPGF) mechanism. Under this process, 90 members of the Citizens’ House (badgeholders) will evaluate project applications and select deserving candidates.

Projects can apply for OP grants from January 3 to January 17, 2023, with voting taking place from January 31 to February 10, 2023. The 10 million OP grant will be distributed afterward.

Eligible projects must fall into one of the following three categories:

• Infrastructure and Utilities: Priority for solutions related to OP Stack, the modular blockchain scaling structure introduced by Optimism in October 2022.
• Tools and Utilities: Tools that aid in app development on the Optimism mainnet, OP Stack, interaction with the Collective, or using dapps on Optimism.
• Education: Efforts to increase awareness of Optimism, both from a technical and community perspective.

Optimism has stated that up to 20% of the total OP in its project fund will be allocated to RetroPGF, with plans for additional grant rounds in the future. The third grant round is expected to be announced as soon as the second round concludes.

Optimism has not yet disclosed any plans for further OP airdrops to the general public, despite community engagement in Optimism Quest tasks recently.

The OP token price has seen a slight increase following the announcement, stabilizing after a volatile half of 2022 due to the crypto market downturn.

1D Chart of OP/USDT on Binance as of 08:24 AM on 12/07/2022