Theory of Change

Contributors

Theory of Change for Contributors

Stakeholders ✨:

Any individual, company, project or group of individuals that actively builds on the Superchain, contributes infrastructure, tooling, education, research, or liquidity, or otherwise advances the Season 7 Intent of driving Interop adoption and ecosystem coordination.

Onchain Builders: Contribute to creation of projects that drive onchain usage of Superchain blockspace; evaluated based on measurable impact and ecosystem alignment.

Open Source Builders & Researchers: Create or maintain public goods (e.g., SDKs, dashboards, technical guides, experiments) that unlock shared value across multiple OP Chains.

Interop Integrators: Deploy standards like ERC-7683/7802 or tools like paymasters and bridge relayers; test and refine on Superchain testnets.

DAO Contributors: Provide support and management of new experiments, grantees and enable contribution between Stakholders unlocking a more efficient and functioning Collective.

Analytics Builders: Develop Interop-relevant dashboards that enable tracking of health and growth metrics, contribute to the curation and cleaning of relevant data.

How does the Strategic Intent translate for these Stakeholders?

👷🏽

Interop is not yet live — but your work now determines how successful the Collective will be when it is.

As a contributor, your role is to help prepare the Superchain for Interop adoption by building tools, infrastructure, education, or liquidity systems that enable $250M/month in cross-chain asset transfers by the end of Season 7.

Every line of code, guide, integration, and deployment you ship moves the Collective closer to scalable, trust-minimized coordination across OP Chains!

⚠️ Risks to keep in mind:

Season 7’s Intent is ambitious and still unfolding — and so is the risk landscape. Being aware of these risks helps you design and plan for contributions that are fundable, resilient, and high-impact, even if Interop isn’t live in production yet.

1.Lack of Attribution or Visibility:

a.There is a lot going in the Superchain ecosystem, if you’re building a new project or deploying new contracts make sure to label them accordingly to ensure that they are identified and potentially rewarded as part of the RetroRounds.

2.Dependency on Interop Launch Timing and specs

a.Interop is still in test phase, a lack of flexibility could lead for your project to be impacted if the production release is delayed. To prevent this, make sure to stay up to date with the developments of Interop through Github, and Discord, make sure to plan with buffer times and avenues to incorporate changes that may be needed along the way.

3.Insufficient Ecosystem Engagement:

a.Interop is pushing for a more interconnected Superchain Ecosystem where users will be able to seamlessly operate between chains. However, adoption won’t happen overnight, it will require you to understand users needs and that of the ecosystems in which they operate for your contribution to have meaningful engagement.

4.Non-alignment with Season Intent:

a.Interop is the main goal for the Collective during this Season, projects which do not advance this Intent or consider an interoperable functionality in their design might struggle to obtain funding.

5.Lack of Testnet-to-Mainnet Path:

a.While Interop is still in testnet, the goal for its development is to contribute to the long term success of the Optimism Collective. While testnet projects are desirable in validating the readiness for Interop in production, ensure that your project is ready to have a clear path to graduate into production to ensure it is fundable through existing retroactive programs.

🏗️ An Actionable Theory of Change:

This SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) Theory of Change outlines the path from your contributions to ecosystem-wide impact for Optimism Season 7’s Interoperability Intent It is designed to help contributors like you understand what the Collective is working toward, how progress is measured, and how to shape your work so that it's recognized, adopted, and rewarded especially in Retro Funding and Mission evaluations.

Each column in the table breaks down the logical steps needed to reach that goal, helping you identify where projects fit in, where gaps exist, and how to track progress throughout the Season.

Inputs	Activities	Outputs	Outcomes	Impacts
Your work: open-source code, integrations, infra, docs, dashboards, governance, research, comms Support from grants, Missions, and Retro Funding Shared ecosystem resources: OP Stack, ERC standards, measurement dashboards	Deploy Interop-aware contracts (ERC-7683/7802) Build tools or infra for OP Chains Publish dashboards, SDKs, or guides Collaborate or be a project running across multiple chains Contribute to Missions that enable Interop, liquidity, or measurement	Working code or assets on testnets Data made available through public dashboards New standards or contracts deployed Tutorials, templates, SDKs or PRs merged into ecosystem repos	Your work is used by OP Chains or apps to be Interop-ready Ecosystem projects build on or with your contributions Users begin testing or adopting Interop UX flows thanks to your contributions Impact can be tracked and attributed to you for Retro Funding or Milestone evals	The ecosystem is ready for Interop when it launches You directly contribute to a Superchain where value flows seamlessly, freely and securely between chains You are retroactively rewarded for work that pushed the Collective forward

🎯

This table is your strategic map: it shows where your work fits into the bigger picture, what milestones matter, and how to align your contributions with the incentives and infrastructure of the Collective.

🛠️ Impact Vectors for Contributors

To ensure your work meaningfully contributes to Season 7’s Interoperability Intent, the Collective uses three multi-dimensional impact vectors.These guide what’s measured, rewarded, and reused — helping you build in ways that matter.

These vectors help you:

Understand where to focus your contributions

Frame your work clearly for RetroRounds, Missions, and public dashboards

Track and communicate your impact

Impact Vector	Components	Why It’s Robust & Useful
1. Superchain Readiness Contribution	Help OP Chains test Interop Test Interop readiness in your deployments Contribute to public infra (relayers, paymasters, routers)	Helps prepare the ecosystem for a production Interop launch; ensures you’re contributing to the Collective’s most urgent priority.
2. Standards + Infra Adoption Signal	Build and promote the usage of reusable tooling around shared standards Collaborate with multiple OP Chains using the same patterns	Shows your work is composable, adopted, and ecosystem-aligned, not isolated or redundant.
3. Liquidity and UX Enablement	Improve bridging UX or multichain interfaces Deploy paymasters or fee abstraction tools Create apps or protocols that encourage asset flows between OP Chains	Enables user-facing, real-world usage of Interop. This is the high-signal outcome that makes the $250M/month goal real and tangible.

⛳ Sources for a data-driven successful evaluation of funding strategies pursued during S7

⚪️Superchain: App / Contract Growth Dashboard ⚪️Superchain Fee Sources Dashboard ⚪️Superchain Health Dashboard ⚪️Build interoperable apps on Superchain devnet