<aside> <img src="/icons/headset_red.svg" alt="/icons/headset_red.svg" width="40px" /> INDEX

• Overview
• Protocols Analyzed
• Our Methodology
• Insights From The Analysis
• Inferences
• Suggestions To Governance
• Future Collaborations </aside>

Overview

<aside> <img src="/icons/zoom-in_gray.svg" alt="/icons/zoom-in_gray.svg" width="40px" /> With the on-chain Retroactive Public Goods Funding (RPGF) applications ending the first week of May, we, at PYOR, analyzed the performance of previous RPGF receivers in the DeFi space, focusing on on-chain metrics.

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This analysis is an Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) of the performance of these receivers, in order to empower the optimism governance to focus on recipients that bring in a net positive to the Optimism Superchain. As these are RPGF, these protocols weren’t expected to meet any criteria post-grant. From the datasets by Opensource Observer, we filtered 11 protocols, with DeFi presence, that received the January RPGF drop.

Protocols That Received The RPGF Drop:

1. Aerodrome

2. Hop Protocol

3. Kromatika

4. Kwenta

5. Lyra Finance

6. Sonne Finance

7. Sushi

8. Synapse

9. Synthetix

10. Velodrome

11. Yearn

Our Methodology

For on-chain metrics, we defined the following:

<aside> <img src="/icons/suitcase_red.svg" alt="/icons/suitcase_red.svg" width="40px" /> Total Value Locked: Total Value locked in the smart contracts controlled by the protocol. Data is sourced from DeFiLlama API

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<aside> <img src="/icons/atm_red.svg" alt="/icons/atm_red.svg" width="40px" /> Fees: Fees generated via payment from users for the services provided. Data is sourced from DeFiLlama API

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<aside> <img src="/icons/chart_red.svg" alt="/icons/chart_red.svg" width="40px" /> Volumes: DEX volume or Bridge volume of the respective protocol if any. Data sourced from DeFiLlama API

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<aside> <img src="/icons/user_red.svg" alt="/icons/user_red.svg" width="40px" /> User Activity: New and Active wallets interacting with the contracts of a protocol. Data sourced from OpensourceObserver BigQuery datasets

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For the metrics that are not continuous i.e. fees, volumes, and user activity, a smoothing operation is performed with a 5-day moving average. This is performed to remove volatility spikes and show trends better.

Only Optimism superchain values of these metrics were taken, i.e. metrics on Optimism and Base

For the metrics above:

• Before and After RPGF: A self-reflection analysis of each protocol was performed by comparing the data points before and after January 1st, 2024 (the start of RPGF distribution). This is done to see if there is potential growth in the protocol. This is quantified and made comparable by converting raw values into percentages, to the value on the date of RPGF distribution.
• Category-wise: Protocols are bucketed into their respective sectors, compared to see how a protocol performed with its peers.
• Normalization of Values: The growth data points are further normalized by the RPGF value distributed to find the protocols with the best bang for the buck.
• Benchmark for DEXs: For DEXes, Uniswap is chosen as a control and compared to with, to see if the growth can be correlated to RPGF.