Allo.Capital x Gitcoin 3.0 Strategy Sprint – Summary + Next Steps

juliaak · June 23, 2025, 4:19pm

Allo.Capital x Gitcoin 3.0 Strategy Sprint – Summary + Next Steps

Over the past few weeks, Allo.capital in partnership with Gitcoin leadership ran a 3-day Strategy Sprint focused on building alignment and creating actionable next steps exploring the full lifecycle of GG24 and beyond — from early sensemaking and DDA allocation, through execution, to post-round learning and iteration– encompassing a modular arena for further funding mechanisms to emerge.

This sprint was rooted in the challenges outlined in @deltajuliet’s forum post here, and builds directly on the work surfaced in posts like “Dedicated Domain Allocation should be GG’s Core Function” and “Mastering Sensemaking”.

What We Did (at a Glance)

Across three intensive sessions, we mapped key dependencies, decision points, and strategic tensions across the Grants protocol and coordination layers. Daily summaries are linked, with a snapshot of what we tackled:

Day 1 (summary) focused on aligning around the full lifecycle of GG24 and clarifying the core tensions shaping its success. Participants mapped out the key stages of a grants round—from sensemaking and domain allocation to round execution and post-round iteration—and identified where ownership, responsibility, and friction currently exist. The group worked to differentiate protocol operations from coordination responsibilities, setting the stage for modular roles across future rounds. By the end of the session, there was shared language around the “jobs” each layer must perform, and a clearer picture of where Gitcoin should lean in or step back.
- Key Findings
  - Operational Load & Bottlenecks: Mathilda carries deep institutional knowledge but is overstretched; critical need to document processes and decentralize operational responsibility.
  - Program Narrative Lacking: Gitcoin has lacked a coherent, compelling strategy or narrative. The message to the Ethereum ecosystem has been “watered down.”
  - Mechanism Selection Needs Intent: Current funding mechanisms often feel arbitrary; GG23’s success was due to intentional matching of mechanism to builder maturity stage.
  - Builder Pain Points: Builders want more than just money—community, feedback, discoverability, mentorship, education, and clarity are top needs.
  - Funder Pain Points: Funders need better project curation, donor UX, impact reporting, and a clearer value proposition (especially external funders).
  - Tech & UX Issues: Historical software quality issues; need robust QF and Retro tools and smoother UX for builders/donors/operators.
  - Community Confusion: Inconsistent communication and changing strategie s have led to confusion about Gitcoin’s direction. \
Day 2 (summary): The group explored how to balance decentralization with the need for a reliable, Gitcoin-supported coordination stack, and examined different pathways for how Grants Rounds might be initiated, resourced, and executed. Through structured sensemaking, participants clarified the differences between “protocol operations” and “round coordination,” and discussed the conditions under which Gitcoin should play a lead vs. supporting role. The session ended with alignment around the value of Gitcoin defining a stable, minimally viable path to running a round — one that can support both repeatability and optional experimentation.
- Key Findings
  - Network-first: Gitcoin aims to shift as much as possible from hierarchical control to decentralized, community-driven coordination where ecosystem demand shapes funding domains and mechanisms.
  - Financial Sustainability: Long-term survival depends on increasing Total Value Flowed from External sources (TVFE) and capturing upside from supported builders and tooling.
  - Sense-Making Framework: A multi-stage process—open input, community tools, OKR formatting, and GTC voting—to identify and prioritize Ethereum’s biggest problems for funding.
  - OSS Builder Lifecycle: Recognize and support OSS builders based on maturity—early-stage via QF, mature via retro funding, with clear graduation paths beyond Gitcoin.
  - App Layer & UX Gaps: Ethereum suffers from low app adoption and poor UX; solving this is key to ecosystem growth and attracting verified on-chain users.
  - Tooling & Mechanism Alignment: Gitcoin must pair sense-making tools (e.g., Polis, Joke Race) with the right funding mechanisms (e.g., QF, futarchy) suited to specific domains.
  - Collusion & Transparency: Rather than eliminate conflicts of interest, Gitcoin should make them legible and judge domain proposals on transparency and theory of change.
  - Gitcoin-as-Arena: Gitcoin’s new role is to host a competitive arena for problem-solving and domain proposals, not dictate outcomes—supporting pluralism and bottom-up innovation.
  - Iterative Protopia Path: GG24 is a foundation round in a longer “protopia” arc—each round should be measurably better, with no more “extinction events” or disruptive resets.
Day 3 (summary): centered on finalizing a shared architecture for how GG24 should be executed, with a focus on modularity, clarity, and minimal viable structure. The group aligned on the core components needed to reliably run a round — including funding, operator roles, and tech infrastructure — and clarified which parts Gitcoin must own vs. what can be delegated to ecosystem actors. Participants refined a proposed “default path” for GG24 that balances flexibility with trust, providing enough structure to move forward while leaving room for future evolution. The workshop concluded with a request to Allo.capital to produce a written MVP tech stack spec (draft here) — a foundation Gitcoin can use to begin sourcing implementation partners.
- Key Findings
  - Bridge Between Vision and Operations: Rena’s core focus was aligning Kevin’s long-term, decentralized network vision with Mathilda’s operational execution needs to ensure GG24 delivers sustainably.
  - From Talk to Action: A key friction was too much discussion without decisions; Rena pushed for accountable ownership, budget clarity, and timelines to drive execution forward.
  - Key Workstreams Identified: GG24 was broken into actionable categories—budget, roadmap, software, strategy, communications, playbooks, GTC utility, legal, and vision—with leads and timelines assigned.
  - De-Risking via Sub-Rounds: Kevin proposed letting partners run branded sub-rounds (e.g., “Allo QF x GG24”) to reduce Gitcoin’s risk while supporting mechanism diversity—likened to Ethereum L2s.
  - Sense-Making Plan Finalized: Sense-making season will invite community submissions using OKR format. Core team will aggregate input and define domains for GTC voting—resolving tensions between top-down and bottom-up approaches.
  - Stakeholder Accountability Mapped: A detailed map was built to clarify who’s responsible for what—Core (R/M/K), Internal Contributors, Builders, Donors, Round Operators, Stewards, Funders, and Partners.
  - Gantt Chart Created for GG24 Timeline: Clear milestones were laid out from June–October, covering sense-making, software RFPs, domain selection, playbooks, builder onboarding, and round execution.
  - Allo.capital Chosen for GG24 Software: Alignment reached that Allo Capital would quarterback a bid on GG24’s core software (QF, retro tools), avoiding conflict of interest concerns by making Mathilda the decider and saving experimentation for GG25.
  - Momentum and Alignment Achieved: The day ended with high energy and broad alignment across stakeholders, shifting the sprint’s focus from Gitcoin to Allo strategy for Day 4. GG24 now has a concrete execution path. \

Outcomes & Next Steps

We closed the sprint with a clear north star:
A request was made to Allo.Capital to define and document a “Must-Have Tech Stack” that GG24 can confidently run on — a minimally viable but modular infrastructure – that can evolve over time and support more diverse coordination and funding mechanisms in GG25 and beyond . In short: a solid foundation that gives Gitcoin Grants what they need for GG24 and that simultaneously sets the foundation for an arena to built upon in the future.

That report is now live:
Gitcoin GG24 MVP Tech Stack Summary

Finally, Gitcoin asked Allo.Capital to begin sourcing proposals from builders and orgs across the ecosystem to configure existing tooling — or build what’s needed — in line with this MVP specification. Please use this form if you’d like to be considered for any of this work.

From there, the Gitcoin team has outlined their own next steps — both to execute components of the defined roadmap that fall outside the GG24 tech stack and to apply additional diligence in sourcing partners for various builds, including further analysis of build-versus-buy options. You can see some of this follow-on thinking reflected in the following forum posts:

Gitcoin’s Defined Next Steps:

Allo.capital continues to support Gitcoin’s leaner team structure by providing tech architecture guidance for GG24 and beyond.
The “Sensemaking SZN” process continues, with the goal of selecting a Dedicated Domain Allocation (DDA) partner — likely an external technology partner.
Plan and execute GTC Staking and Partner Compensation workshopsto align on incentive structures that reward contributors to Gitcoin’s evolving model, drive value for GTC holders, and sustain those building in and around GG24.
Publish a new foundation of documentation on Gitcoin’s pluralistic approach ahead of GG24 and share with the community as groundwork for GG25 and future rounds.

We’re grateful to the many contributors who brought insight, clarity, and deep care for Gitcoin’s long-term success to this sprint, especially @TravisWyche and @earth2travis. More soon as the work continues.

Onward,
Allo.capital