Centralised Grant Set To Be Retired As Gitcoin Begins Alpha Test For Decentralised Grants Protocol

A trial period where Gitcoin Grants tests designs for its decentralised and customisable grants protocol has begun with five grants rounds, signaling the end of its centralised grants which ran on the quadratic funding platform and a transition to decentralised protocol.

We want our transition to empower any community to coordinate its own grants program, Gitcoin said in a news release.

Called the Alpha Test, Gitcoin will run a series of rounds beginning from December 9, 2022 to February 2023. The trial period begins with UNICEF grants and followed by another facilitated by Fantom Foundation. Gitcoin, Optimism and Alchemix will subsequently follow. The firm said it will run the Gitcoin test to ensure that it continues to support early-stage builders during the transition.

Timeline of Alpha Test Round. Image Credit Gitcoin

The Alpha Test Season is where we will run early design rounds to test grants protocol as part of our transition from our centralised grants platform, Gitcoin also said.

Gitcoin said it will collaborate with a select group of design partners to test new tools and services such as grants protocol, fund allocation and distribution protocol which would help ensure transparency in community-funded projects.

We envision a suite of permissionless, modular, and decentralised protocols that will allow communities to coordinate funding to solve their most pressing problems in a self-sovereign way, the firm said.

As you probably heard, we're evolving our Grants Program to become more decentralized + customizable!

On that note, we're thrilled to share how you can participate in the first rounds of our Alpha Rounds Test Season—which uses our new grants protocol 🧵https://t.co/82uQlYgAzQ

— Gitcoin (🤖, 💚) (@gitcoin) December 6, 2022

For the first round, UNICEF selected 10 grantees with projects that cut across financial literacy and inclusion through the use of blockchain technology, epidemic management using health and climate data, education, vaccine distribution and tracking and agriculture.

The Fantom round targets projects that are building within the Fantom ecosystem. The Fantom Foundation allocated 125,000 FTM as matching funds to help projects grow and sustain their projects.

In the test round which will be conducted by Gitcoin in January next year, three causes such as Open Source Software, Ethereum Infrastructure and Climate Solutions will run. Gitcoin said the selected causes historically got the most contribution and that the feedbacks received from the round will help build operations to support scaling future rounds.

Retroactive Public Goods Funding (RetroPGF) will fund public goods that support the development and use of the OP Stack. Ben Jones, director at the Optimism Foundation said RetroPGF was to enable profitability for impactful work and eventually build an economy where positive impact to the Collective is rewarded with profit to the individual.

As we transition to protocols, we’ll continue to care for our grantee community and provide ongoing grantee support. We’re committed to helping communities build through the bear and intend to continue serving the ecosystem, Gitcoin said.

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