Gitcoin DeSci Grants

Overview

Gitcoin is the leading quadratic funding platform in the Ethereum ecosystem. Its Grants Round 15 (GR15) featured the first-ever dedicated DeSci Round, using quadratic funding to expand and distribute humanity's shared knowledge by reimagining the incentives, culture, and infrastructure for research using Web3 tools.

Quadratic funding matches community donations using a formula that prioritizes the number of contributors over the size of contributions, ensuring broadly supported projects receive proportionally more matching funds. This democratizes science funding in ways traditional grant committees cannot.

DeSci Round Results

The GR15 DeSci Round saw 2,309 donors crowdfund $67.9k to over 82 projects. With matching partners, the total pool exceeded $567k. Funded projects created new incentives for scientists to engage in open practices, validate research results outside the university system, build a culture of collective problem-solving, and develop infrastructure for a knowledge commons.

Gitcoin's 2025 strategy focuses on distributing over $4.29 million across three major open-source software rounds, with Dynamic Quadratic Funding to adjust eligibility and caps for fairer distribution. While DeSci was not selected as a primary domain for GG24, the model established in GR15 demonstrated the viability of community-driven science funding.

External Links

• Gitcoin — Official Website
• DeSci: The Case for Decentralised Science — Gitcoin Blog
• GR15 Results & Recap — Gitcoin Blog