In fostering Web3 growth and infrastructure as well as ensuring equitable access to decentralized economics, Figment has proudly committed $150k in Gitcoin Funding Rounds. Gitcoin was born with the mission of enabling global financial freedom yet backing people and organizations to build digital public goods that favor society at large. Since its launch in 2017, it has supported some of the most prominent Web3 projects such as Uniswap and BanklessHQ.
In March of 2022, Figment committed $100k to the Main Grant Round 13 (GR13) aimed at advancing projects in the Ethereum ecosystem. We are continuing our support in the upcoming Grant Round 14 (GR14) with a further $50k for the development of Zero-Knowledge (ZK) Technology. Running every quarter for a period of two weeks, Gitcoin’s Grants have to date collected more than $40 million across 2,778 grants that support public goods creation.
Defined as non-excludable are non-rivalrous, digital public goods bolster equal opportunities and society’s advancement granting access to resources such as open content and standards, data sets, open-source software (OSS), and AI models.
The GR14
The upcoming GR14 features 9 ecosystem-specific matching rounds and 3 off-chain causes focused on climate solutions, crypto advocacy, diversity, and equity and inclusion (DEI). Leading institutions in the Web3 space backed the round including Coinbase Cloud, which contributed $1 million, Polygon, Chainlink, Celo, Aave, and The Graph amongst many others.
Along with other key matching partners like ZKValidator, RISC Zero, Scroll ZKP, and 0xPark, Figment contributed $50k to the ZK Tech ecosystem round aimed at advancing ZK tools, libraries, community, and protocols. We believe such technology will play a critical role in improving Ethereum scaling capacity and will be therefore key to Proof of Stake advancement in the future.
Contributing to Zero Knowledge research allows us to investigate data-efficient scaling solutions that will help scale the utility of blockchain technology. Zero Knowledge layer 2 research provides inroads to scaling Ethereum by validating blocks in a cheaper and more efficient manner, streamlining the consensus process. They do so by bundling hundreds of transactions off-chain into one cryptographic proof, which is then validated and posted to Layer 1. Projects featured in the GR14 ZK ecosystem round will help bring to market solutions that address Ethereum’s congestion issues and scalability problems allowing it to scale more efficiently without upsurges in gas fees.
How do Gitcoin Grants work?
The Gitcoin Grant is a way for DAOs and early-stage developers to raise funds for Web3-specific projects, typically open-source. Two types of donors generally provide funds:
- Individuals: they contribute capital to projects they feel committed to. A single donor usually allocates small amounts (on average $5 to $10) across multiple projects.
- Matching partners: mostly big protocol and/or institutions in the Web3 space (such as Figment!). They tend to invest a larger sum of capital in a set of matching pools.
The methodology used by Gitcoin to distribute capital across grants is based on Quadratic Funding (QF). QF follows an algorithm allocating funds proportionally based on the number of contributors each grant attracted; this doesn’t necessarily align with the total funding amount received by every single grant. The below example helps clarify:
QF values the number of contributors to a given grant more than the capital contributed by a single funder. This way it enables more democratic and effective crowdfunding methods distributing capital based on communities’ sentiment and the single donor’s commitment to a given project.
Besides being a highly scalable funding scheme, compared to centralized ones, QF is also a way to align individual funders’ and matching partners’ interests. The use of QF has proven to be the best way to validate and support projects in an ecosystem, fostering equal community interest and funding opportunities. Gitcoin is by far one of the largest and most successful examples with over $20m funds in digital public goods.
