The Optimistic Vision

Web3 has opened the door to a new potential reality — a cyberspace not only occupied but governed by its citizens. We’re presented with an opportunity to reinvent the way we organize in this digital age .

It is critical we seize the occasion. Cyberspace today suffers from a monumental market failure because it has inherited economic rulesets built for the physical world. Yet unlike the old world of flesh and steel, cyberspace is built on information, a substrate which can be freely replicated. This means public goods are far more important to the growth of cyberspace but our markets are ill-equipped to nurture that growth. We are being held back by our inability to reward the creators of these public goods for the clear impact that they have.

The Optimism Collective is a new model of digital democratic governance optimized to drive rapid and sustained growth of a decentralized ecosystem. The Collective is a band of communities, companies, and citizens united by a mutually beneficial pact to adhere to the axiom of impact=profit — the principle that positive impact to the collective should be rewarded with profit to the individual. This axiom serves as a North Star, motivating the creation of a more productive and empathetic economy.

The Optimism Collective will dispel the myth that public goods cannot be profitable. The Collective will consistently provide massive retroactive incentives for public goods which benefit Optimism, Ethereum, and the Collective as a whole. These public goods act as a propellant for the growth of the Collective economy. Growth which yields profit for the Collective and profit which funds more investment in public goods, all together producing a virtuous cycle of impact driven expansion.

We expect that as the Collective grows, the scope of what falls under the umbrella of Collective public goods will grow along with it. We imagine a future in which the Collective expands beyond the digital realm and into the physical world. The idea that a decentralized ecosystem could reliably provide for basic human needs at scale may seem idealistic today, but it will seem commonplace tomorrow. We start small out of a sense of pragmatism, but we aim big out of an overwhelming sense of Optimism.

Together, we will create the future of coordinated, collaborative cyberspace.

Together, we will summon Ether’s Phoenix.

Stay Optimistic ✨