A Social Choice Analysis of Optimism’s Retroactive Project Funding

Eyal Briman (), Nimrod Talmon (), Angela Kreitenweis () and Muhammad Idrees ()
Additional contact information
Eyal Briman: Ben-Gurion University
Nimrod Talmon: Ben-Gurion University
Angela Kreitenweis: GovXS
Muhammad Idrees: GovXS

A chapter in Decentralized Autonomous Organizations—Governance, Technology, and Legal Perspectives, 2026, pp 69-96 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract The Optimism Retroactive Project Funding (RetroPGF) is a key initiative within the blockchain ecosystem that retroactively rewards projects deemed valuable to the Ethereum and Optimism communities. Managed by the Optimism Collective, a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), RetroPGF represents a large-scale experiment in decentralized governance. Funding rewards are distributed in OP tokens, the native digital currency of the ecosystem. As of this writing, four funding rounds have been completed, collectively allocating over $100M, with an additional $1.3B reserved for future rounds. However, we identify significant shortcomings in the current allocation system, underscoring the need for improved governance mechanisms given the scale of funds involved. Leveraging computational social choice techniques and insights from multiagent systems, we propose improvements to the voting process by recommending the adoption of a utilitarian moving phantoms mechanism [1]. This mechanism was originally introduced by Freeman et al. [1], is designed to enhance social welfare (using the $$\ell _1$$ ℓ 1 norm) while satisfying strategyproofness–two key properties aligned with the application’s governance requirements. Our analysis provides a formal framework for designing improved funding mechanisms for DAOs, contributing to the broader discourse on decentralized governance and public goods allocation.

Keywords: DAOs; Computational Social Choice; Voting Mechanisms; Simulations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:prbchp:978-3-032-03273-7_5

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783032032737

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-032-03273-7_5

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().