Gitcoin Grants Round 18: Results and Recap

The Making of the GG18 Round

The round was operational from August 15 to August 29 with 4 Core Rounds and 7 Feature Rounds, each with a distinct matching pool. The primary difference between Featured Rounds and Core Rounds is that the Featured Rounds were not run directly by Gitcoin but by their respective community members and supporters who functioned as Round Operators. Since the Beta Round, the PGF team deliberated further on eligibility requirements and took additional feedback from the previous governance post into account for the GG18 eligibility criteria.

Here were some of the key changes in GG18 since the Beta Round:

• Removal of $500k external funding limit: There was still a general requirement that projects cannot have raised “significant external funding via venture capital, token launches, or NFT sales”; however, the threshold could vary from round to round.
• ZK Tech round: The ZK Tech round was determined to be a better fit as a Featured Round going forward based on the topic scope, number of grantees, and donor turnout from the Beta Round.
• Multi-round checkout: A new multi-round checkout flow on Grants Stack enabled donations to multiple rounds with a single transaction.
• Support for L2s: All rounds ran on Optimism, apart from the Core Eth Infra round, which ran on PGN.
• Passport Updates: A new scoring algorithm for Unique Humanity Score in Gitcoin Passport was created based on analysis of which stamps provide the strongest signal that holders of that stamp are likely to be unique humans, along with the introduction of 6+ new stamps.
• Next Gen QF: The round used Cluster-Match Quadratic Funding as a next step toward solving the Sybil and collusion problems by embracing the meaning of our social connections. 

Core Round Results

Across 11 rounds, 47,513 unique donors made 328K contributions and raised $680K (refer to the Grants Data dashboard for additional details). For this post, we’ll dive into the Core Round results of this round.

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Note: The number of contributions and estimated total contributed amount in the following sections indicate eligible donations counted for matching calculations after Sybil detection.

Climate Solutions

The Climate Solutions round comprised 89 projects with 14,084 contributions from 5,631 unique donors, raising approximately $34K. The matching pool for this round was $250K. For the complete list of grants in this round, view this sheet. The distribution of the funds in the separate matching pool by Shell is here.

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Ethereum Infrastructure

The Ethereum Infrastructure round comprised 28 projects with 67,714 contributions from 11,955 unique donors, raising approximately $123K. The matching pool for this round was $200K. For the complete list of grants in this round, view this sheet.

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Web3 Community & Education

The Web3 Community & Education round comprised 239 projects with 29,177 contributions from 12,421 unique donors, raising approximately $104K. The matching pool for this round was $250K. For the complete list of grants in this round, view this sheet.

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Web3 Open Source Software

The Web3 Open Source Software round comprised 124 projects with 202,029 contributions from 39,706 donors, raising approximately $360K. The matching pool for this round was $300K. For the complete list of grants in this round, view this sheet.

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Wen Payouts?

The Snapshot vote is now closed and grantees will receive funds shortly (there is no action needed to claim funds). Please visit this gov post for additional details. Payouts for the Featured Rounds are similarly facilitated by respective round operators. If you are a grantee in a Featured Round, contact your round operator for any additional questions.

Our learnings and reflections

• Share your feedback on the draft structure that provides a comprehensive approach to partnership engagement, emphasizing transparent processes and communication strategies.
• Read more about the efforts to enhance sybil resistance within Gitcoin's ecosystem for GG18 through GG20 by outlining a minimum viable anti-Sybil future connecting various efforts and groups to improve the anti-sybil process.
• Using Cluster-Match Quadratic Funding, we reduced the match of the most suspicious projects by up to 70% and redirected those funds to other projects.
• This post summarizes recent activities and plans for Grants Stack based on feedback from GG18, including feature prioritization by impact, feasibility, and readiness.
• Our hope to take feedback and lessons learned from GG18 and push those forward via GG19 in this plan.

The Path Forward

Gitcoin Grants is driven by the vision to empower communities, allowing them to build, fund, and protect what is important to them. By actively engaging with the community and implementing feedback, we aim to create a platform that truly meets the needs of its users. We will continue our pursuit in alignment with the broader goals of progressive decentralization and active community involvement.