TL;DR

QF Round Dates: April 2 - 16

 RF Round Dates: April 9 - 23

OSS Program Matching Pool: $1.2M  

OSS QF Rounds crowdfunded $95,278.16 with over 9,991 unique donors 

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"GG23 marked a pivotal shift in our strategy—moving beyond just Quadratic Funding to a multi-mechanism model that supports builders across their entire journey. This round wasn't just about funding projects; it was about reimagining how communities allocate capital together.” — MathildaDV, Gitcoin Grants Program Lead

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Introduction

We’re excited to share the results of Gitcoin Grants Round 23. GG23 was a milestone round that marked the beginning of Gitcoin’s multi-mechanism future for public goods funding. Gitcoin Grants exists to fund what matters in the Ethereum ecosystem by empowering communities to allocate capital where it’s needed most. 

 This round introduced a multi-mechanism approach that supports builders at every stage of growth. Early-stage projects took part in Quadratic Funding rounds to support grassroots innovation while mature builders were in a curated Retroactive Funding based on the impact they already showcased. This approach marks GG23 as Gitcoin’s first multi-mechanism OSS Program. 

Additionally, GG23 introduced Grant Ships as the new mechanism to host and support Community Rounds. 

GG23 OSS Program Results

Focused on early-stage projects, the OSS Program Quadratic Funding rounds in GG23 featured a $600,000 matching pool, raised $95,278.16 in community contributions, attracted 9,991 unique donors, and supported 235 open-source projects. Quadratic Funding empowers early-stage projects to gain grassroots support from their communities.

The Retroactive Funding round for Mature OSS Builders allocated a $600,000 matching pool across 30 curated projects, with each receiving a minimum of $10,000.  The remaining $300,000 was distributed based on badgeholder voting, with top allocations reaching up to $39,895. Projects were selected in collaboration with Open Source Observer (OSO), using a data-driven, metrics-based ranking system to identify high-impact contributors. A total of 61 voters participated in the metrics-based voting process.

OSS QF Round Highlights

Top projects in each QF category were selected based on total matching funding. The projects on this list are the ones with the most diverse bases of support, regardless of the size of the base.

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Developer Tooling & Libraries

dApps & Apps

Web3 Infrastructure

Retro Funding for Mature OSS Builders

GG23 launched Gitcoin’s first-ever Metrics-Based Retroactive Funding round. With $600K in matching funds, dedicated to rewarding long-standing, high-impact OSS projects with proven contributions to the Ethereum ecosystem using metrics based voting.

Why Retro Funding?

While QF helps early-stage builders get off the ground, Retro Funding supports those who’ve already delivered proven impact, retroactively rewarding them for their impact to the ecosystem.

How it Worked:

• 30 projects were selected using data-driven metrics by the Gitcoin team and Open Source Observer (OSO).
  
  
• Badgeholder Voting: Community members (Experts, Donors, GTC Holders) didn’t vote for projects directly. Instead, they voted on impact metrics—like developer retention, fundraising history, and community participation.

OSS Mature Builder RF Round Highlights

Round Highlights

Grant Ships for Community Rounds

GG23 used Grant Ships, a governance model to host and support community round governance. Grant Ships allows for Community Round selection, voting, and post-round reviews to happen directly on the platform, allowing for a more streamlined process.

Sybil Resistance

GG23 continued to leverage two complementary approaches to sybil resistance: COCM and Passports model-based detection. COCM boosts matching for projects with broad and diverse community support, making it harder to game the QF system. Passport’s model-based detection is a seamless onchain analysis tool that identifies likely sybil accounts without creating extra friction for users.

Community Onboarding and EducationProgram

Let’s Grow DAO led the Community Onboarding Program for GG23, offering dedicated support to grantees across platforms and time zones. A key highlight of the program was personalized 1:1 sessions with the onboarding team, ensuring grantees received tailored guidance and assistance throughout the round.

GTC Staking

GG23 introduced an experimental GTC Staking mechanism, allowing GTC holders to signal support by locking their tokens in favor of specific projects. It served as a powerful reputation signal—amplifying visibility and community endorsement for projects during the round. During this round, 357,086 in GTC was staked.

Conclusion

GG23 was a landmark round in Gitcoin’s evolution, supporting builders at every stage of growth through a multi-mechanism approach. In addition to distributing over $1.2M in funding across early and late-stage OSS projects, we introduced key innovations like Grant Ships, enabling community-led governance, and a GTC staking experiment that brought new ways to signal support. By pairing Quadratic Funding with our first Retroactive Funding round, GG23 represented a meaningful step toward a more data-informed future for public goods funding. As we look ahead to GG24 and beyond, we remain committed to empowering builders, evolving our mechanisms, and inviting the community to co-create what comes next.

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