From the launch of Gitcoin Grants almost a year ago, we have hosted four rounds of Quadratic Matching — using an interesting formula to magnify the voice of the individual (sometimes matching over 100x) in determining the usefulness of a project to the community. We saw the matching pools double each round with $25K, $50K, $100K, and $200K respectively being pledged to the Ethereum community across rounds.

Gitcoin Grants Round 5 will be a $250K round, with a special $100K section allocated to Public Health — all COVID-19 related projects focused on research, response, and recovery efforts within communities.

This Public Health round came together thanks to the great work of Gitcoiner Scott Moore. He worked closely with the folks at The Giving Block, who will be running a sister campaign for those looking to fund in BTC, LTC, BCH or ZEC here.



When we came looking for a crypto giving solution to ease non-profit access to crypto-donations, The Giving Block answered the call, and we’re proud to have them as a partner. We’re hopeful that with this infrastructure, although it’s just the crypto community’s small contribution, we can help many of these public health projects get at least $10K to use immediately towards their efforts.



If you don’t have the means to donate, we encourage you to share the hashtag #cryptocovid19 across your feeds!

Gitcoin Grants Round 5

For contributors, old and new, here’s how it will work. The round starts today, 3/23/20, with three matching pools for grantees within three categories.

Public Health – $100,000 to support COVID-19 research, response, and recovery projects

– $100,000 to support COVID-19 research, response, and recovery projects Ethereum Tech – $100,000 to support Ethereum infrastructure projects spanning ETH 2.0, decentralized finance (DeFi), crypto wallets and the ever important UX

– $100,000 to support Ethereum infrastructure projects spanning ETH 2.0, decentralized finance (DeFi), crypto wallets and the ever important UX Ethereum Community – $50,000 to support media, community, and marketing projects

All donations will be matched using the quadratic matching formula, which prioritizes individual voices over dollars. This means that a $1 donation can result in matches of 100x or even more if many others also donate just $1.

Some New Things (!)

We’ll be introducing several new engagement ideas for projects in this exciting new round. To give you a quick tasty teaser:

We’ve added the option to express negative voting for the Media round (not for the Tech Round), in order for members to express both positive and negative feedback if necessary.

for the Media round (not for the Tech Round), in order for members to express both positive and negative feedback if necessary. We’ve updated our matching formula to introduce a $25 fixed pairwise constant

We’ll also tweak the system to support medium to long term contributions (“subscriptions”), that spread across multiple rounds

Perhaps most importantly (and simplest), we ask that you send a comment with every donation you make. The signs of appreciation and the opportunity for partnership and serendipity via small statements on a Gitcoin Grant can sometimes matter more than the money itself.

More Than $: Community

With the many reasons (social, technical, public health, political) why Ethereum should be a remote community first and foremost, it’s clear to us that future growth & success depends on creating a space where projects are supporting each other with their dollars, their words, and with efforts to collaborate effectively.

With that in mind, a huge shout out to three partners we’re working with in this grants round.

The Giving Block, making crypto donations seamless for our public health partners

PoolTogether, who will be giving away one free ticket to PoolTogether to all donators during a *to be determined* 72 hour period

rDai, who launched High Priests, which you can use to pledge support to Gitcoin Grantees alongside respected members of the ecosystem

All of our hackathon partners – ETC Labs, AdEx, Mysterium, and OPGames – who teamed up with us to post great prizes for hackers building Web 3!

Other than them, each grantee and each donor is a part of a bigger community. We hope you join the commentary on the Gitcoin Grants feed and let us know which projects you like and why.

We hope you share our vision and we’ll be waiting to see your breakthrough ideas and passion shine. We look forward to seeing you on Gitcoin today.

P.S. Got questions? Feedback? Wild ideas? Let us know in the Townsquare.

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