[Research] Impact Measurement in Retroactive Funding: Evolution Through RetroPGF 3-6 (Update RF5/RF6 details)

[Cthulhu-Du]

Metadata

• Slug: retropgf-impact-measurement-evolution
• Short Description: Update/correct details for Retro Funding 5 (OP Stack) and Retro Funding 6 (Governance), and replace “RetroPGF 6 (Active)” with finalized round status + sources.
• Tags: impact measurement, retroactive funding, evaluation, optimism
• Featured:
• Sensemaking For:

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Description

Type: Analysis
Authors: Gitcoin Research (community update)

Sources:

• Optimism Blog — Announcing RetroPGF Round 3 Recipients (30M OP / 501 recipients): https://www.optimism.io/blog/announcing-retropgf-round-3-recipients
• Optimism Gov Forum — Retro Funding 4: Onchain Builders (Round details, 10M OP): https://gov.optimism.io/t/retro-funding-4-onchain-builders-round-details/7988
• Optimism Gov Forum — Retro Funding 5: OP Stack (Round details, scope + categories): https://gov.optimism.io/t/retro-funding-5-op-stack-round-details/8612
• Optimism Gov Forum — Retro Funding 6: Governance (Round details, timeline + categories + budgeting experiment): https://gov.optimism.io/t/retro-funding-6-governance-round-details/8870
• Optimism Gov Forum — Citizenship learnings 2024 (confirms RF5 = 8M OP Oct 2024, RF6 = 2.4M OP Nov 2024): https://gov.optimism.io/t/citizenship-learnings-2024/9563

The Measurement Challenge

Retroactive funding promises to reward demonstrated impact, but measuring “impact” for public goods is difficult. Optimism iterated significantly across rounds by tightening scope, clarifying evaluation categories, and experimenting with voter design.

Evolution Across Rounds

RetroPGF 3 (January 2024)

30M OP allocated to 501 recipients

• Approach: Badgeholder voting with comparatively broad scope
• Categories: OP Stack, Collective Governance, Developer Ecosystem, End User Experience & Adoption
• Challenge: High evaluation load across diverse categories makes consistent cross-category comparison hard

Retro Funding 4 (Onchain Builders, June–July 2024)

10M OP to reward onchain builders

• Approach: Narrowed scope to onchain builders (deployed contracts / measurable onchain impact)
• Improvement: More concrete eligibility + clearer criteria than prior broad rounds
• Result: More consistent comparison because the scope is narrower and more measurable

Retro Funding 5 (OP Stack, Sep–Oct 2024)

8M OP to reward OP Stack contributors and dependencies

• Focus: OP Stack contributions (not “Dev Tooling” as the primary scope)
• Scope categories (from round details):
  • Ethereum Core Contributions
  • OP Stack Research & Development
  • OP Stack Tooling
• Measurement/process iteration:
  • Voters sorted into smaller groups to evaluate subsets of applications
  • Guest voter participation to test expert vs non-expert allocations

Retro Funding 6 (Governance, Oct–Nov 2024)

Round completed (not “Active”); 2.4M OP rewarded for governance contributions

• Scope: Governance contributions
• Categories (from round details):
  • Governance Infrastructure & Tooling
  • Governance Analytics
  • Governance Leadership
• Measurement/process iteration:
  • Reused the “smaller evaluation groups” approach introduced in Round 5
  • Experimented with community-led budget allocation (min/max range + median vote)
  • Guest voter participation experiment (random selection with opt-in)

Key Learnings

1. Scope matters: Narrower scope enables better evaluation
2. Training & voter support helps: Improves consistency
3. Metrics + judgment: Neither purely quantitative nor purely qualitative works alone
4. Iteration required: Each round informs the next

Recommendations for Other Programs

1. Start with narrow scope and expand
2. Invest in evaluator training and support
3. Build impact measurement infrastructure
4. Plan for multi-round iteration

Related Apps

• optimism-retropgf

Related Mechanisms

• retroactive-funding
• attestation-based

Submission Checklist

• This is an update to an existing research page (slug set to the existing slug)
• Corrected RF5 scope: OP Stack (not “Dev tooling”)
• Corrected RF6 status: not Active; added completion context + allocation reference
• Replaced generic sources with round-specific primary sources (Optimism blog + gov forum)
• Left the overall structure intact; focused on factual accuracy + citations

Payout (off-page)

• Address (MetaMask): 0xC4b8F20bd0d64AcAAAe6B0306f6785fEBb2b5182

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