Before the Collective

Optimism's grant programs grew out of Plasma Group, a nonprofit research team that struggled to fund public goods work through patchwork donations and grants before reforming as Optimism in 2020 with $3.5 million from Paradigm and IDEO CoLab Ventures. The article argues that this experience with unsustainable funding led to the "Impact = Profit" principle and the idea of funding public goods from protocol revenue. Plasma Group raised $1,593 from 126 small donors on Gitcoin Grants Round 1, and it closed on January 9, 2020. RetroPGF Round 1 in October 2021 distributed $1 million to 58 projects, and the OP token launched in April 2022 with 45% of supply dedicated to ecosystem funding.