So as you might know next month we will be rolling out initial quadratic funding rounds on NEAR through Potlock. (Let us know if you want to be an early tester on telegram). We have some exciting rounds around support builders, creatives, AI, just to name a few, but would love to hear from yall on what verticals to focus on our explore.
Quadratic funding poses a grassroots way of delegating from existing grants pools as opposed to the current top down approach we have. It allows for
more unique individuals to support with external capital
new projects to come in an onboard their network
Discovery around projects across veritical
the rest of the world to know we are interested in certain verticals
sponsors to come in anytime and support a round
projects to be Onboard to a system where new funding and impact attestation mechanisms will be integrated
Builders to know that we support proactively and retroactively support impact
Before we decide the next rounds, some main factors play on the impact we want to make on the ecosystem.
Do we want to bring existing projects into Web3?
Do we want this to serve as a marketing and narrative funnel?
Do we want to use this as in bound for pre-seed startups to get bootstrapped alongside community to naturally convert to the ecosystem
Do we want this to be based on usage and fees in NEAR and align with usage of NEAR?
Would estimate funding amount * 1.5 for external contributions / number of projects be worth average amount for projects of worth caliber in eco to be attracted to?
Will a chef partner in this vertical have enough community traction to bring this set of cohorts
Do you want developers
Do these ecosystems already have funding avenues with substantially more covered in other ecosystems?
Big questions/factors influencing which rounds to pursue. My general sentiment is yes to most things. It doesn’t matter if a project wants to go venture track, as long as their public benefit to the ecosystem created is larger than the value they capture then it’s up to funders to estimate that when donating (or maybe even a declaration by projects). Fees for donors and projects need to be eliminated as much as possible - deferred to chefs/patrons as an operational cost. Desci has my vote as it has potential to bring new projects to web3, near, and either private/public benefit. Other things I’d support are open source, climate, and other longstanding high participation verticals in the Gitcoin ecosystem.
Climate round is interesting to me coming from Nigeria in Africa.
Climate is a powerful space for positive impact. I would be excited to see how quadratic funding can elevate initiatives in these domains.