Agora - Optimism's RetroPGF Round 3 Summary

Collective Governance

Developer Ecosystem

End User Experience & Adoption

OP Stack

Velodrome

Project

0xc6...9652

velodrome.finance

The central trading and liquidity marketplace on Optimism.

Appears in

44 ballots

Contribution

Scaling Layer 2 Ethereum is a critical challenge, and Optimism faces fierce competition. Velodrome is an ecosystem public good with zero VC investment that exists solely to fuel Optimism’s growth while returning 100% of protocol revenue (over $28M to date) to the ecosystem. Velodrome serves as Optimism’s primary liquidity hub and onboarding engine, having recruited over 65 projects to OP, it has improved governance accountability through detailed reporting and leadership in governance, and it has enhanced the OP Stack and developer experience by developing core liquidity infrastructure while helping critical third-party infrastructure apps properly integrate Optimism.

Contribution links

Velodrome Github Repository

Dune dashboard showing 65 onboarded protocols and 28.7M in rewards

Dune showing a 40x+ value multiplier for OP spent on Velodrome

Our OP grant application that set the bar for applications going forward

Public complements from OpLabs Team of our application

Grant accountability update that raised the bar for grants going forward

Complements from Optimism staff showing the impact of this analysis

Open source software to improve decentralization

Open source software we built to price Optimism tokens

Open source software to fetch tokens and liquidity pool pairs

RFG program we contributed to to solve problems for builders

Impact

Velodrome has led the growth of Optimism, enhanced the OP Stack, and expanded its network of builders. Velodrome transformed user experience on Optimism by enabling $124M in liquidity for 90+ pairs, highest of any L2 DEX, distributing $80M in rewards for LPs and veVELO voters. It has onboarded over 65 partners by reducing friction for protocols seeking to get community exposure, capital-efficient liquidity, and key resources on Optimism. It led work with OP team and 3P apps like Infura, Etherscan, and Tenderly to ensure proper servicing of the OP Stack. Velodrome contributed to the creation of Optimism's RFG program, addressing critical developer needs (e.g., RPC costs, audits). It has also enhanced its core codebase, including "Sugar" for onchain data to ensure OP Stack's resilience.