What is PGN?

Public Goods Network (PGN) is a low-cost Layer 2 (L2) built on top of Ethereum for supporting public goods. It is built on the Bedrock (opens in a new tab) version of OP Stack (opens in a new tab), in collaboration with Optimism and powered by Conduit.

Why use PGN?

If you would like to support establishing sustainable, legitimate, and deep revenue sources for public goods, PGN is your new go-to L2 Network.

Building and using dApps on L2s provides revenue for the organization or alliance that builds it. PGN will dedicate the vast majority of this revenue to fund public goods, rather than directing profits to venture capitalists.

This means, simply by using the network, you are supporting public goods and public goods projects.

For users, PGN provides low transaction costs, with the security of Ethereum.

For application developers, PGN provides the security, stability, and scalability of an L2.

And for public goods maxis, PGN provides secure and regular funding for public goods without any additional financial commitment required.

We are excited to be funding public goods via a legitimate, durable, and deep source of funding. The more block space we fill on PGN, the more public goods we fund!

What are public goods?

At a high level, Toby Shorin, Laura Lotti and Sam Hart did a great job writing about this topic in their post Positive-Sum Worlds.

They share the definition of public goods as…

"Anything that is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous, that is, people can’t be barred access, and one person’s use doesn’t degrade another’s."

Some common examples include services that we use on a daily basis, as well as some important concepts that have emerged in the digital era:

• Public libraries
• Public parks
• Open source software
• Open data
• Open AI models
• Open standards and open content

How does it work?

The vast majority of net sequencer fees will go to public goods projects. After six months of network launch, fees will be assessed and allocated based on cumulative data. Specific governance details are still being worked on and interested organizations can join the Network Alliance, which will collaborate on governing and determining the split of sequencer fees.

Filling blockspace is, in part, a race to the bottom. The bottom of the stack is where value capture is the most persistent and accepted. Rather than fill blockspace for other organizations who may be captured by VCs, or other rent seeking motivations, we believe we should fill our own blockspace such that we can reallocate those funds to further the objective of growing and funding public goods.

PGN is a rollup run and operated by Gitcoin (opens in a new tab) (and Conduit a 3rd party infrastructure provider) that offers discretion in how the sequencer fees are allocated. PGN will be used as a digital schelling point for those who want to support public goods – this is not for Gitcoin, this is those who want to establish sustainable, legitimate and deep revenue sources for public goods.