Open-source Supporters Create OP Stack Testnet To Pay For Public Goods
Gitcoin’s Public Goods Network says that most net sequencer fees will be put into public goods instead of going to token holders or devs.
Layer-2 blockchain Public Goods Network started a testnet on July 7. The network’s developers said in an announcement that “the vast majority of net sequencer fees” would be spent on public goods instead of going to the development team or token holders. In business, a “public good” is something that can’t be made for profit because it’s hard to keep people who don’t pay from using it.
The same group that made Gitcoin, a project that tries to raise money for open-source projects, also made the new network. The OP Stack is being used to build the Public Goods Network, which means it can be added to the planned “Superchain” that will also include the Optimism and Base networks.
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The project papers say that the Public Goods Network will be an optimistic rollup of Ethereum’s layer-2. This kind of network usually uses a centralized scheduler that makes money to batch transactions and send them to Ethereum every so often.
The Gitcoin team says that “the vast majority” of this profit will be put back into projects that help the public. They think this is important to stop “rent-seeking” companies like venture capital firms from taking advantage of the value that layer-2s offer:
“Rather than fill blockspace for other organizations who may be captured by VCs, or other rent seeking motivations, we believe we should fill our own blockspace such that we can reallocate those funds to further the Alliance’s objective of growing and funding public goods.”
Gitcoin says that the fees from the generator will not go straight to them. Instead, it will go to a “alliance” that is being put together based on a “newly defined governance model.” In a Twitter thread that went along with the news, the team said that the long-term goal of the network is to let projects be funded directly by sequencer fees, without a middleman, using the EIP-6969 standard.
Through an approved bridge, the current Public Goods network is linked to the Ethereum Sepolia network. This lets developers test apps with money from Sepolia’s faucets.
Gitcoin first became popular by giving grants to open-source projects and other public goods through quadratic funding. In June, Azeem Khan, who is in charge of impact at Gitcoin, joined the advising board for the crypto fund Foresight Ventures.
