The latest Gitcoin Grants round showcased an impressive array of 649 projects across 15 funding pools, offering nearly $1.5 million in matching funds.
In the previous round, I utilized a scoring algorithm to determine which projects to support. I had intended to deploy an improved version of the scoring script with new data sources in time for this round. However, I was unable to complete it on time. The number and diversity of projects available was overwhelming. Each pool of projects required customized metrics and analysis, making a one-size-fits-all approach impractical. Additionally, I had to travel during the round, making it even more challenging to evaluate the projects properly.
So, the combination of a more challenging evaluation task with less time to complete it is my weak excuse for not having something more comprehensive than a set of heuristics and a little data viz.
In the end, I chose to donate to seven funding pools for individual projects, including Web3 OSS, Web3 Community & Education, Climate Solutions, DeSci, Ethereum Infrastructure, The Sybil Resistance (The Phantom Menace), and ReFi Local Nodes.
I did not donate to individual projects in the Metacrisis or Advocacy rounds but opted to contribute directly to their matching pools via the Metacrisis.xyz crowdfund and Coinbase/Zora NFT sale.
If I had more time, I would have liked to explore the ZK projects and devise some evaluation metrics to select the ones that deserved funding.
Web3 Open Source Software
Over the past month, I’ve doing a lot of analysis that combines on-chain financial transactions with Github activity. The eventual goal is to test the effectiveness of different funding mechanisms and help funding ecosystems better allocate their capital. It’s too early to offer any meaningful insights, but I used the data I’ve been gathering to vet my grantees.
Here are the 16 Web3 OSS projects I donated to this round:
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BrightID 🔆 Universal Proof of Uniqueness
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Commons Stack
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Covoco / Voting Contracts
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datalatte ☕️
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DeCartography
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FundPG
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Giveth
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ITU Blockchain
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Praise
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Scaffold-ETH 2
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ShapeShift DAO
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Spect
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TrueBlocks and the Unchained Index
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Umbra
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viaPrize
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White Hat DAO
Ethereum Infrastructure
I appreciate that this is a small, well-curated group of long-standing projects. I applied the same GitHub x on-chain analytics on these projects that I used for the Web3 OSS cohort. The list includes perennials like ethers.js and rotki. I also added clr.fund and Protocol Guild because I love funding funding mechanism.
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clr.fund
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ethers.js
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L2BEAT
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Otterscan
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Protocol Guild
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rotki
Climate Solutions
I have been keeping tabs on most of these projects across various rounds, and I commend the communities they have fostered around their initiatives. They have a positive-sum mentality and are supportive of one another, which I find inspiring. I am particularly enthusiastic about the projects in Africa and Latin America, where the need for both crypto and climate solutions is more pressing than in the US. Crowdmuse is a project I learned about very recently and found very compelling.
Here are the 20 Climate Solutions projects I donated to this round:
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AgroforestDAO
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Atlantis
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AYOWECCA UGANDA
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Barichara Regeneration Fund
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Bloom Network
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Climate & Nature Hyperstructure | .basin
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Coffee Impact Collective
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Crowdmuse
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de_plan ostrom
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Digital Gaia
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D-MRV for Africa
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GainForest
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Impact Verification Infrastructure Bundle
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KOKO DAO
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Kokonut Network
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Solarpunk nomads
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The Impact App + Eco Labs
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The Solar Foundation
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Urbanika
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Web3beach
Web3 Community & Education
I didn’t attempt any quantitative impact evaluations and instead focused on 10 projects that have had an impact on me personally.
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Dream DAO - a learning DAO with an incredible community of GenZ builders from around the world; I’ve been an active member since it began in 2021
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Rehash - a podcast NFT community that I’ve been a part of since it began
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LexDAO - the only lawyer you’ll ever need (they also host great events)
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Njombe Academy - because I spent a lot of time in this area of Tanzania and was excited to see a project from here!
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Buidl Guidl - love their tools, their hackathons, and their spellings
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ImpactDAOs Research & Podcast - Deepa keeps shipping new things; I’m excited to see what the future holds for this budding regen media empire
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Crypto Altruism - a podcast and web3 x social impact learning community that I recently made a guest appearance on
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Web3ForGood - a web3 x social impact newsletter that keeps steadily shipping and getting better
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Greenpill Podcast - the green heart of crypto, where I learned most of my new vocabulary
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Greenpill Global - this one is more a bet that this will have an impact on future me, someday, somewhere
Decentralized Science (DeSci)
It's already 1 am, and the round is set to close tomorrow. I swiftly filled my cart with the projects that caught my attention, although I might have missed some initiatives that I have supported in the past. There were also a few projects I skipped because I funded them in other rounds (eg, OSS, Climate Solutions, Sybil Resistance).
Here are the five projects I supported:
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OpSci
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Crowd Funded Cures
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LunCo
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PlantGang
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DeSci Round Operations Fund
I was also quite happy to donate to the DeSci Round Operations Fund. I really appreciate the cohesion within this group of projects. It was observing the DeSci x Gitcoin Telegram community that inspired this thread last month:
ReFi Local Nodes
I funded five nodes, all in Africa: Lagos, Dar es Salaam, Nairobi, Cape Town, and DRC.
I’m especially keen on the DRC node which includes an initiative to bid against oil & gas companies and preserve some 30 tracts of pristine rainforest.
The Sybil Resistance / The Phantom Menace
I am keen to fund an anti-sybil army of data scientists, game theorists, and meme lords. I contributed to two projects led by Gitcoin FDD alumni: zer8’s Grant Review Dashboard and Omni’s Learning Data Science on the Ethereum Blockchain.
Spoiler alert: I’ve met Omni in real life and he does not look anything like the bearded purple professor in the banner image.
Proof of Virtue
And here are my transaction logs: