Announcing the spin down of PGN (EoL June 2024)

[thedevanshmehta]

After following PGN since launch, I’m glad we are doing a retrospective on this experiment for us all to learn from.

Overall, a lot of the assessment centers around PGN simply being too early for its time, with inadequate tooling and unpredictable costs making this an unsustainable venture. Specifically, a gitcoin/public goods appchain may be worth revisiting as a validium after the ecosystem solves

@kyle

Low liquidity on bridges (cannot move large Tx volumes on stables or other tokens), lack of DEXs, missing core components like a Safe UI, etc.

@owocki

If the network is financially sustainable after the move of DA to Celestia, I think this could be interesting

There were also benefits for us to have a BATNA (best alternative to a negotiated agreement) that we could use to get L2s to sponsor the matching pool in return for us hosting rounds on their chain.

@kyle

For Gitcoin, having a “default chain with financial upside” gave us leverage to raise additional funds for public goods (e.g., Polygon sponsoring the Eth Infra round for us to run the round on Polygon instead of on PGN)

I wonder what our new BATNA would be to preserve this fundraising strategy - telling Polygon that if they don’t sponsor we will host a round on Optimism (due to retropgf) might understandably not be taken too well by them.

Now, some harsh questions not for the sake of it but so we can all learn the maximum from this experiment

@kyle

CSR was not a viable technology to integrate given the law of chains and requirements to maintain parity with Bedrock

Was this assessment not possible to do before we invested in spinning up an OP stack chain?

@kyle

The Alliance has been terrific but has not driven much Tx volume as they dont have the same dApp / Protocol usage that Gitcoin has during Grants rounds.

This was something we already knew beforehand, it did not come as any surprise right? What benefit did we perceive the alliance partners as bringing to the table in the 1st place?

@kyle

The cost / revenue estimates we initially made with OP have not borne out. (ie, the network is more expensive to operate than expected.)

This is in many ways a forecasting failure - may we know who and how the cost estimates were done in how much time? It’s important to investigate the lapse on this front in committing the resources we did before proper due diligence.

@kyle

Gitcoin wanted to be involved, and I should have included them in the decision making process. This decision to fund the network this way caused frustration and eroded trust within Gitcoin.

Now for the most interesting question of all - what have we learnt from this for the right relation between Gitcoin Foundation and the DAO?

Should we stick to @owocki’s suggestion of the foundation just being a legal wrapper?

@owocki

Afaik the Foundation is chartered to be the legal/administrative wrapper for the DAO. Whereas Labs would be chartered more for rapid experimentation.

(Keep me honest Foundation team members, but it seems like PGN was a one-off strategic project, but lmk if wrong. FWIW some of the folks that built parts of PGN, like @carlb, will be contributing to Labs

Or can we actually retain the amazing team that PGN has brought together and carve out a larger role for the Foundation to play of being like Gitcoin Labs, creating a culture of rapid 0-1 iterations while DAO workstreams retain the ethos of 1-10?

Arbitrum has some interesting learnings in this regard. Initially, they too focused on being the legal wrapper. Over time, the division has evolved to where the DAO supports teams in the ecosystem while the foundation poaches teams from outside. It is not a bad thing for these relationships to evolve over time.