Case Studies
Analysis of a funding experiment
All Case Studies
16 case studies
1inch: The Unstoppable Journey from Hackathon Dream to Decentralized Exchange Powerhouse
How a $50k Gitcoin grant helped 1inch's co-founders go from sleeping at hackathon venues to building a DEX aggregator with $250B+ in trading volume.
7 days ago
Austin Griffith: The Quadratic Freelancer Onboarding Thousands of Developers
How Gitcoin Grants enabled Austin Griffith to leave his job and build open-source tools that brought thousands of developers into Ethereum.
7 days ago
Celo Easy RPGF — Lightweight Retroactive Funding
Celo's implementation of simplified retroactive public goods funding, demonstrating how smaller ecosystems can adopt RetroPGF with minimal overhead.
7 days ago
Filecoin RetroPGF — Retroactive Funding Beyond Optimism
How the Filecoin ecosystem adopted retroactive public goods funding using Drips infrastructure, distributing over 580,000 FIL across multiple rounds.
7 days ago
GG24 — The First Funding Round of Gitcoin 3.0
The landmark first funding round under Gitcoin's 3.0 architecture, demonstrating the evolution from protocol-operated to community-operated grants.
7 days ago
GreenPill Hypercerts Experiment — Impact Certificates in Practice
An early real-world experiment using hypercerts to represent and fund impact from GreenPill Network chapter activities.
7 days ago
Pocket Network Retroactive Funding — Ecosystem-Specific RetroPGF
How Pocket Network implemented retroactive funding for its middleware infrastructure ecosystem, adapting RetroPGF patterns for a specialized community.
7 days ago
Shamba Network: Equipping Smallholder Farmers to Conserve Ecosystems
How Gitcoin Grants funded a D-MRV platform that enables smallholder farmers in the global south to receive fair compensation for carbon removal.
7 days ago
UNICEF Alpha Round: A Partnership Driving Fairness, Collaboration and Impact
How UNICEF's Office of Innovation partnered with Gitcoin to run a Quadratic Funding pilot for digital public goods, reaching 15,500+ donors.
7 days ago
Zuzalu and Pop-Up Cities — Temporary Coordination Experiments
How Zuzalu and subsequent pop-up cities demonstrated that temporary physical gatherings can seed lasting digital coordination networks.
7 days ago
Coin Center: Defending Cryptocurrency Rights Through Community-Funded Advocacy
How quadratic funding built community-backed support for crypto policy advocacy and litigation.
27 days ago
EIP-1559: How Quadratic Funding Legitimized Ethereum's Most Important Fee Market Reform
How a Gitcoin grant funded EIP-1559 implementation and signaled community demand for the upgrade.
27 days ago
Gitcoin Citizens Round 1: Retroactive Quadratic Funding for Community Contributions
Gitcoin's first retroactive quadratic funding round, achieving a record 4× matching multiplier.
27 days ago
Optimism: From Plasma Group Research to a $2B+ Layer 2 Ecosystem
How quadratic funding sustained early Optimism research that became a leading Ethereum L2.
27 days ago
Tornado Cash: How Quadratic Funding Sustained Ethereum's Most Important Privacy Tool
How quadratic funding sustained Ethereum's leading privacy protocol before OFAC sanctions.
27 days ago
QuadraticLenster: Replacing Likes with Quadratic Funding on Social Media
How QuadraticLenster.xyz piloted quadratic funding embedded in Lens Protocol's social network, turning tips into matched contributions that incentivize prosocial behavior.
Jul 2023
Share Your Experience
Have you run a funding round or received a grant? Your story could help others make better decisions. Only thorough, well-documented case studies are accepted.
Submit a Case Study