☎ ENS Public Goods – Weekly Meeting: 12pm ET/5pm UTC, Thursday – Term 6

🏛️ Public Goods
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Time/Day: 5PM UTC (12PM ET)(6PM CET) every Thursday
Meet Link: https://meet.google.com/fyt-qcrb-tth

Agenda

  • Welcome ALL :sparkles:
  • Miscellaneous ENS updates of general interest
  • Feedback on Builder Grants
  • txpool-viz demo
  • Butter presentation
  • Open floor for all questions, proposals and other presentations etc.

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Notes

1. Welcome ALL :sparkles:

2. Miscellaneous ENS updates of general interest

  • The SPP Program has concluded.
  • 8 teams selected
    • 6 teams will have funding for one year
    • 2 teams will have funding for two years
  • Legal processes are underway
  • Agreements are expected to be signed in the next couple of weeks, with everything starting in early June
  • More info on SPP2 (here)

3. Feedback on Builder Grants

  • Few test grants have been created.
  • Pushing the platform into production soon.
  • The launch date will be announced soon.

4. txpool-viz demo

Full Presentation (here)

  • Problem: There are no tools to monitor pending transactions, compare node behaviour, or spot network anomalies.
  • Built for: infra teams, Ethereum core devs, chain devs, anyone working with memepools. But also, traders, researchers, etc.
  • Importance: analyzes how the network is working, and its attacks if/when they happen, memepool transaction analysis, etc.
  • Solution: Open-source public good visualization tool, real-time feed of pending txs from multiple nodes, easy to integrate, features like search, filter, and explore tx by type.
  • How it works:

1506×848 70.2 KB

5. Butter presentation

  • Talking about Conditional Funding Markets
  • State of Capital Allocation across the entire Ethereum:

990×766 350 KB

  • Protocols distribute capital towards ecosystem growth
  • Very few protocols have a group dedicated to public goods
  • Gitcoin grants program has struggled to raise outside funding for public goods

Misalignment

  • Butter identified that ecosystem misalignment is a root issue and aims to solve it through conditional funding markets that track outcomes tied to shared objectives.
  • Instead of framing these as public goods, Butter suggests calling them ecosystem goods, benefiting Ethereum participants specifically.
  • There’s a funding gap between EF (which supports infrastructure) and VCs (who expect returns), leaving many projects unfunded.
  • The EF’s neutrality protects its legitimacy but prevents it from supporting all ecosystem needs.
    • This can leave Ethereum vulnerable when essential services lack funding.
  • The EF avoids funding projects with tokens or financial products and focuses on developer growth, research, and infrastructure.
  • Their commitment to neutrality limits their scope, creating blind spots in the ecosystem.

Conditional Funding (and Decision) Markets

  • Butter is building markets that use prediction mechanisms to guide funding decisions.
  • Inspired by futarchy, these markets forecast outcomes of funding different projects, enabling data-driven capital allocation.
  • Decision markets don’t work exactly like prediction markets. They operate as a set of prediction markets working in tandem.

Butter’s Approach

  • Butter applies decision markets to funding: metrics (like TVL) are tracked, and markets simulate the impact of grants to competing protocols. The most promising outcomes drive actual funding.

How it works (OP example):

  • A market was run for Optimism, where participants estimated each project’s Superchain TVL increase after three months if given 100,000 OP.
  • The experiment involved giving everyone “OP Play,” a fake token instead of real money.
  • This led to interesting dynamics, including many bots.
  • 22 projects participated, including Rocket Pool, Superform, Balancer, and others.
  • Participants predicted the TVL increase after three months, given that each project received 100,000 OP.

Incentives

  • The goal is for the accuracy of prediction markets to translate to real markets.
  • Incentives are aligned because traders aim to maximize their returns
  • Prediction markets are expensive to game with real money

Ask for Public Goods WG

  • The ask involves seeking support, both financial and advocacy, for CFMs within the ecosystem.
  • Funding support would increase the rewards pool for conditional funding markets.

Links and handles

6. Open floor for all questions, proposals, and other presentations etc.

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