Optimism Glossary

An Alliance needs to be formed to apply to Foundation Missions (RFPs) or to propose missions (Proposed Missions). An Alliance can be an individual, a group of contributors, or a pre-established organization. Each Alliance has a leader, whose Trust Tier determines the Trust Tier of the whole Alliance.

The Citizens’ House is one of two houses which governs the Optimism Collective. In the Citizens’ House, Optimism citizens are responsible for allocating rewards to providers of public goods through a process called “retroactive public goods funding” (RetroPGF). Citizenship is currently temporary. Over time, the scope and role of the Citizens’ House is expected to expand significantly.

Addresses with delegated OP voting power are called “delegates”. Only delegates with >0.25% of votable supply can give delegate approvals to proposals.

5.4% of the total initial token supply (231,928,234 OP) will be distributed to Optimism projects and communities via the Governance Fund. The goal of the Governance Fund is to empower the OP community to proactively incentivize future growth of projects and communities in the Optimism ecosystem.

The Grants Council is a group of community members elected by the Token House. The council makes small to medium-sized grants supporting Intent #2 based in two categories: 1) Builders Grants 2) Growth Experiments Grants

Intents are directional goals that allow the Collective to align and focus. You can think of an Intent as a near term target. There may be multiple paths towards that target; it is up to the Collective to determine which paths to pursue by proposing Missions.

Missions are specific initiatives aimed at achieving one of the Intents. There are two types of missions: Proposed Missions (specific pieces of work proposed by contributors) and Foundation Missions (requests for contributors to build specific projects specified by the Optimism Foundation).

An OP Chain refers to a Layer 2 blockchain that has committed to joining the Superchain. According to the Law of Chains, a framework that will guide the governance of all networks that opt-in to the Superchain, OP Chains will be governed by Optimism Governance. The benefit of opting in to the Superchain and becoming an OP Chain is that users of OP Chains will have a convenient, homogenous experience bridging between OP Chains, and the OP Chain itself will share security and a governance standard (Law of Chains).

OP Mainnet is a Layer 2 blockchain powered by Optimism's modular OP Stack. It is the first chain to commit to the Superchain vision.

The OP Stack is the standardized, shared, and MIT-licensed open-source development stack that powers the Optimism ecosystem and the Superchain, maintained by the Optimism Collective.

An OP Stack Chain refers to a Layer 2 blockchain that has been built using the MIT-licensed OP Stack, but has not opted in to joining the Superchain. This means OP Stack Chains won’t share security or interoperability with OP Chains in the Superchain. Since the OP Stack is MIT-licensed, and open source code is one of the fundamental values of the Optimism Collective, builders will always be able to use the OP Stack to create and deploy their own L2 blockchain.

The OP token is a governance token.

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.

An inclusive, open source Superchain that sustainably funds Public Goods, dispelling the myth that building public goods cannot be profitable!

Seasons are separated with a Reflection Period where delegates reflect on what’s been going well and what can be improved. During Reflection Periods, the Optimism Foundation will also make suggestions for the next Season. There will be no active votes during Reflection Periods.

RetroPGF stands for Retroactive Public Goods Funding. This is a series of experiments where members of the Citizens’ House allocate protocol profits or portions of the token treasury to projects they deem have provided substantial public good along certain criteria. RetroPGF is based on the idea that it’s easier to determine what was useful than to issue proactive grants for what might be useful.

Optimism generates revenue through transaction fees paid on OP Mainnet and other OP Chains. Part of this revenue is directed by the Collective for the benefit of the Collective through RetroPGF. Better public goods means more development, which creates more revenue that can be directed to public goods.

Special Voting Cycles typically follow reflection periods. Votes on proposals to modify the collective’s structure can only take place during Special Voting Cycles.

The Superchain is a vision for a horizontally scalable network of chains that share security, a communication layer, and an open source development stack. Something to keep in mind is that the Superchain does not exist. A number of governance and technical milestones need to be achieved before we have a functioning interoperable network of chains. Because of this, it is best to talk about the Superchain as a “vision” for something we are working towards.

The Token House is one of two houses which governs the Optimism Collective. In the Token House, OP holders are responsible for submitting, deliberating, and voting on various types of Optimism Collective governance proposals.

Collective Trust Tiers are the very first step towards establishing a connection between one’s positive impact in the ecosystem and access to different types of work, grants, and roles within the Collective. Over time, Trust Tiers will become more robust as they incorporate Attestations and impact scores derived from one’s activity in the ecosystem.