Summary

This proposal requests the Optimism Fractal Council approve an indefinite strategic hiatus for Optimism Fractal events, allowing the community to consolidate resources within Eden Fractal while continuing to advance fractal governance on the Superchain.

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Requested Action

The Optimism Fractal Council members (currently Tadas and Dan) are invited to approve this proposal to enter a strategic hiatus. Upon approval, Optimism Fractal events will pause indefinitely, with the community continuing its mission through Eden Fractal.

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Background

Optimism Fractal was founded in late 2023 by the Optimystics, which emerged from Eden Fractal to bring the innovations of fractal democracy to Ethereum and the Superchain. Over the past two years, we've hosted 72 Optimism Fractal events and over 40 Optimism Town Hall discussions, welcomed over 100 participants, deployed ORDAO smart contracts on OP Mainnet, and created comprehensive documentation and video archives. It's been an amazing learning experience and an extremely productive experiment in demonstrating the potential for fractal governance on Ethereum.

This decision was first suggested by Tadas back in mid-November, in the days after Optimism Fractal's last event of the season. Tadas proposed a topic proposal about this in the Eden Fractal telegram group and then we discussed it at the Eden Town Hall on November 20th. I invited everyone from the Optimism Fractal community to join that conversation and, after thinking about it very carefully, the direction became clear — we're better off focusing our energy on Eden Fractal. Zaal and other community members who participated were also fully supportive. You can watch the full discussion in the 67th Eden Town Hall video on the Eden Creators YouTube channel.

As explained in our community intent document and OptimismFractal.com/council, the Optimism Fractal Council operates through a legislative consensus process where community members who have earned Respect can register as Council members during each period between Respect Game events. In the most recent period, only Tadas and I registered, which means we have the legislative authority to make this decision. As both councilors and cofounders of Optimism Fractal (and the Optimystics), Tadas and I are confident that this is the right decision for the community.

While we had previously planned to return for Optimism Fractal Season 7 on January 22nd, we decided that consolidating resources makes more sense at this time. This proposal formalizes that decision.

Rationale

There are two major reasons for this change:

1. Consolidating Resources in Eden Fractal

Eden Fractal is the foundational community from which Optimism Fractal emerged. It's been working to implement fractal decision-making processes throughout society since 2021, and it has a clear vision and mission that needs more resources to fulfill.

Since Eden Fractal launched its Epoch 2 initiative last May, Eden Fractal has been building on Base—part of the Superchain—and is directly advancing Optimism Fractal's mission of fostering collaboration, recognizing public goods creators, and pioneering better governance on the Superchain. So even though we're pausing Optimism Fractal, we're continuing to build on the Superchain and support Optimism's ecosystem.

There's been a lot of exciting momentum in the fractal ecosystem lately, which you can follow at Eden Fractal’s Telegram group chat. Several new initiatives are sprouting up and there's a lot of work to be done to support this growth. Eden Fractal is the natural home for that support. Meanwhile, splitting our attention between communities has become unsustainable — we haven't been able to give either Eden Fractal or Optimism Fractal the attention they each deserve. This showed up clearly in Optimism Fractal when I was the only person at our last event, which became a meaningful signal about where to direct our energy. At the same time, Eden Fractal has been generating significant excitement that warrants more of our attention.

By focusing our energy on Eden Fractal, we can:

• Strengthen our core infrastructure (ORDAO, educational resources, etc)
• Provide more attention to the growing ecosystem of fractal communities
• Prepare our tools and processes for implementation at a greater scale

2. Alignment with Optimism Collective's Direction

The Optimism Foundation's Season 9 announcements signal a strategic shift away from community-led capital allocation, including pausing Retro Funding for 12+ months and planning to dissolve the Grants Council. As stated in the Season 9 Guide:

"In order to support Optimism's continued evolution and enterprise strategy, the Foundation believes it is necessary to conclude community-led grant experiments."

While I understand and respect this direction, community-driven governance and capital allocation is precisely what Optimism Fractal was designed to demonstrate. This news reaffirmed our already agreed-upon decision that this is the right time to refocus our energy. The timing makes sense to step back and continue building infrastructure through Eden Fractal until the ecosystem is ready to embrace these approaches again.

This is essentially wrapping up Optimism Fractal's first six seasons as a successful experiment in which we made significant progress toward our goals. It's also laying the groundwork for an eventual return when conditions in both the fractal ecosystem and the Optimism Collective are more aligned.

What Happens Now

The ORDAO app at https://optimism.frapps.xyz and the smart contracts continue to function. Your Respect tokens remain, and you can still use them to vote on proposals through ORDAO and Snapshot. The ORDAO branch of our governance stays active and can reactivate the Respect Game events and Optimism Fractal Council when the community decides the time is right.

All 72 Optimism Fractal event videos, over 40 Optimism Town Hall recordings, and all our documentation is still available. You can find these resources on our websites (OptimismFractal.com and OptimismTownHall.com) and watch all the videos on the Eden Creators YouTube channel. Optimism Town Hall will also enter an indefinite hiatus—I'll be hosting Eden Town Hall in its place. The Optimism Fractal Discord chat also stays open — feel free to keep chatting there. However, I'd recommend joining the Eden Fractal telegram group chat, which is much more active and the best place to keep in touch with updates from the fractal ecosystem.

I’m also letting you know that the Optimystics events calendar has transitioned to the Eden Creators events calendar. This goes along with our shift in resources to support the Eden Fractal ecosystem. If you were subscribed to Optimystics events, you'll now receive invitations from Eden Creators. The Optimystics’ educational materials remain available as well, but I'll be focusing more on work with Eden Creators going forward to support the Eden community.

Join Eden Fractal

Everyone from Optimism Fractal is warmly invited to continue the journey at Eden Fractal. Whether you've been deeply embedded in the fractal ecosystem or you're building on Optimism and curious about better governance and coordination—you're welcome to join us.

This Thursday, January 22nd at 16 UTC—the same day Optimism Fractal was scheduled to return—we'll be hosting an Eden Town Hall instead and we may meet for two hours. We'll be discussing Eden Fractal's schedule for Season 12 (we're deciding between weekly and bi-weekly events) and welcoming anyone from the Optimism Fractal community to share their thoughts about Optimism Fractal, Eden Fractal topics, and more. We'd love to see you there!

🌊 Explore Eden Fractal: https://edenfractal.com

📅 Register for events: https://luma.com/edencreators

💬 Join the conversation: https://t.me/edenfractal

🎬 Watch Videos: https://www.youtube.com/@EdenCreators

🌲 Explore Eden Town Hall: https://edentownhall.com/

Conclusion

I believe Optimism Fractal will return when the time is right. When both the fractal ecosystem and the Optimism Collective are more ready for this kind of collaboration, the community can pick up where we left off through our existing consensus processes. I'm excited for that day. Until then, I really hope to see everybody at Eden Fractal.

I want to thank everyone for all the wonderful experiences and the things we've built together over the past two years. We met so many amazing people here who played pivotal roles in helping Optimism Fractal and helping the broader fractal ecosystem grow. Thank you for being here, sharing your work, and believing in this vision. It's been a great pleasure and a very special time in my life, and I'm deeply grateful for everyone's participation.

For more details on Optimism Fractal’s haitus, you can read the proposal linked above and stay tuned for upcoming articles. Thank you all for everything. Go Eden Fractal, and go Optimism Fractal! 🌻