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Ever since Vitalik Buterin introduced the concept, Deep Funding has been gaining traction as a new way to support public goods and developer tools. Now, Optimism is joining the movement, launching its own Deep Funding initiative to experiment with more effective and scalable funding mechanisms.
As part of Optimism’s Retro Funding: Dev Tooling Mission, the Collective is exploring ways to improve the evaluation algorithm for developer tools. While there’s solid data on how Dev Tools are used, there’s a gap in understanding their actual utility. By allowing Onchain Builders to rate their dependencies, Optimism aims to create better metrics to measure real-world impact. This experiment takes inspiration from Deep Funding’s approach to rating dependencies, using structured comparisons to generate more accurate and insightful evaluations.
At General Magic, we’re excited to be part of this journey. We’re expanding Pairwise to support Optimism’s Deep Funding round, making it easier for participants to engage and contribute to funding decisions in a structured, transparent way.
Beyond Deep Funding, we’ve been deeply involved in Optimism’s ecosystem, supporting projects like:
Retro Funding Round 4,5 & 6 🔴
Praise 💬
Seeing the evolution of Deep Funding, we’re excited to keep building and improving community-driven funding models that make decision-making more inclusive, data-driven, and scalable.
Deep Funding is a new approach to funding Ethereum’s public goods, designed to support foundational infrastructure, open-source contributions, and critical dependencies that often go unnoticed. Traditional funding models tend to reward projects with high visibility, leaving essential but behind-the-scenes work underfunded. Deep Funding aims to fix this by shifting the question from “How valuable is project A for humanity?” to “For an outcome that benefits Ethereum, how much credit belongs to project A?”
Deep Funding operates through three core components:
Dependency Graph: A mapped network of Ethereum’s key dependencies and their relationships.
AI & Human Models: Algorithms and expert-driven assessments that assign value to different dependencies.
Jury Review: A panel of Ethereum experts that evaluates and validates funding allocations based on structured comparisons.
Rather than requiring projects to apply for funding, Deep Funding proactively identifies and rewards the dependencies that power the Ethereum ecosystem.
Developed by a coalition of innovators including Vitalik Buterin, Gitcoin’s Allo Protocol, Open Source Observer (OSO), VoiceDeck, Drips, Eval Science, Pairwise, and more - Deep Funding is building a smarter, fairer way to sustain Ethereum’s foundational infrastructure.
Learn more about Deep Funding and how Pairwise is participating in our latest blog post 👇
Current public goods funding mechanisms struggle with scalability and fairness. Learn how Deep Funding aims to solve this
Deep Funding on Optimism is an open experiment, and there are multiple ways to participate and contribute.
📅 Key Dates:
February 3 - 17: Onchain Builders & Experts submit rankings.
Data analysis phase: Ratings are processed to improve the evaluation model.
Check out the forum post for full details 👇
As part of the Retro Funding: Dev Tooling Mission, the Collective will experiment with collecting data on the utility of Dev Tools to improve the evaluation algorithm. This process is heavily inspired by Deep Funding's approach to rating dependencies.
If you’re an Onchain Builder, a governance expert, or simply passionate about public goods funding, now is the time to get involved and help shape the future of funding allocation.
At General Magic, our core mission has always been to build governance tools that empower communities to make better decisions. Through Pairwise, we are creating more transparent and scalable ways to allocate resources, rank proposals, and delegate decision-making. Our work with Optimism’s Deep Funding experiment is another step toward improving decentralized governance models.
With more ecosystems experimenting with Deep Funding, we’re witnessing a transformational shift in how public goods and Ethereum infrastructure receive funding.
💡 If you’re a project, DAO, or community looking to integrate Pairwise into your governance process, let’s connect! 👉 https://pairwise.vote/
Collect this post as an NFT.
