Rethinking governance: Optimism and Uniswap experiment with futarchy
Optimism Weekly Overview - February 18, 2025
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Superchain Ecosystem Numbers
DeFi total value locked (TVL) across Superchain: $4.4B (+7.32%)
Assets onchain: $18.4B (+0.55%)
Daily average transaction volume: 11.6M (+2.65%)
Base: 7.6M (-3.8%)
OP Mainnet: 908.1K (-9.19%)
Soneium: 806.1K (+19.42%)
World: 666.0K (+1.46%)
Lisk: 624.8K (+5.11%)
Revenue-generating deployers on:
Zora: 111 (+0.91%)
OP Mainnet: 1205 (-1.07%)
Superchain transaction fee total savings vs L1s:
OP Mainnet: 15,021 ETH
Base: 94,746 ETH
Zora: 856 ETH
Compared to Ethereum, L2 Superchain users saved a total of 110.6K ETH, or $290M on txn fees this week.
The percentages and metrics are pulled from the Superchain Health Dashboard and are calculated from its change over a 7-day time frame, unless noted otherwise.
Spotlight on Optimism’s Superchain
Highlighting some of the biggest updates on Optimism’s Superchain this week.
🔴What’s happening: Optimism Foundation and Uniswap Foundation are collaborating with Butter, a decentralized governance protocol, to experiment with “futarchy,” a decision-making process that uses prediction markets to determine grant allocations.
🔴Why it matters: Imagine a system where decisions aren't based on subjective opinions, but on data-driven predictions about real-world outcomes. That's the essence of futarchy: vote on values, but bet on beliefs. The topic, originally proposed by Robin Hanson, allows prediction markets to be used to make important decisions about resource allocation. Instead of voting directly on which projects to fund, community members can predict which projects will best achieve a predefined goal.
Currently, the Optimism Foundation relies on leadership and a grants council of 10-15 individuals to review hundreds of applications and make predictions on what would be useful for the collective. This is arguably more centralized compared to a futarchy and may not be the most scalable approach, especially as grant allocations get larger and applications increase.
This system also allows those that make decisions on grants to have more "skin in the game" by having them back their predictions with capital and rewarding accurate forecasting. This creates direct alignment between decision-makers and desired outcomes, while potentially reducing the influence of biased interests in the grant-making process.
Both Optimism and Uniswap are testing this approach in different ways. For Optimism, forecasters can participate in a play-money voting system to earn OP rewards by accurately predicting grant impact. Their collective predictions will determine which teams receive funding. The top forecasters will be rewarded with OP and “reputational rewards” that may link to future governance decision making power.
For Uniswap, Butter’s Conditional Funding Markets (CFMs) will be implemented on Unichain, where participants can deposit USDC to earn rewards by forecasting outcomes. This will specifically focus on predicting which lending protocols will generate the most TVL growth when given a $450,000 grant. The projects that win will receive the grants that can be used for “liquidity, incentivization, partnerships, building integrations with Uniswap v4,” Erin Koen, Uniswap Foundation’s governance lead, mentioned in an X Space.
Sign up here to participate in Optimism’s Futarchy Experiment and here for Uniswap Foundation’s.
🔴What it means for the broader ecosystem: Overall, this governance system could help scale more effective decision-making than current approaches. By combining market mechanics with governance, it creates an efficient framework for allocating resources while maintaining decentralization. The success of these experiments could also influence how other ecosystems or DAOs approach decision-making processes in the future. In general, futarchy could help with more efficient resource allocation, faster ecosystem growth, and increased decentralization.
This governance concept has the power to “take DAOs back to their original conception,” Vaughn McKenzie-Landell, CEO of Butter said in the X Space.
Futarchy can help to create distributed systems that people can participate in, without a centralized influence, making decisions as effective or potentially better than a system with a boardroom of executives. By aligning incentives and rewarding accurate predictions, futarchy has the potential to transform DAOs and accelerate the Superchain’s ecosystem growth.
What’s poppin’ on the Superchain
Total number of weekly active addresses by chain:
Base: 5.92M
OP Mainnet: 517.85K
World: 106.23K
Mode Network: 99.58K
Read the recently released whitepaper on Mode Networks Synth Subnet
Unichain lending protocol announced a $900K grant through Butter’s Conditional Funding Markets
Check out the Mint Blockchain whitepaper to learn more about its vision and mission with NFTs
Explore the Base Dashboard ecosystem metrics like transactions, users, TVL, and stablecoins
From the Optimism Collective
Highlighting the companies, communities and citizens bound to the Optimism Collective.
For more on Futarchy, listen to the X Space “An introduction to Futarchy”
Explore the new Superchain token scanner features on Quick Intel
Watch the first session of the Soneium Builders Workshop to learn about developing AI agents with Nebula
For more Optimism Collective weekly updates, look here.
Get into the OP Stack
Want to dive into the ecosystem full-time? Find the latest job postings here or get involved at an event below.
Going to ETHDenver?
Join the Superchain community at Superchain Space, hosted by Superchain.Eco in collaboration with the Optimism Foundation
Stop by Ink’s five-day hacker house and visit the House of Ink, starting on Feb. 22
Into rock climbing? Join the Unichain climbing experience
Going to Consensus? Stop by the Superchain Asia Gathering to connect with others in Hong Kong on Feb. 20
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This information is for entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial advice, nor should it be used to make investment decisions. Cryptocurrencies are high risk and you should consult a financial professional before making any financial decisions. Make sure you do your own research.
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