Ethereum For The World - Sensemaking Report

[LuukDAO]

Authors: Luuk Weber, Founder Kolektivo Labs & Lead CeloPG and Erik Brinde, Head of Governance and BD at Avantgarde Finance

Sustainable (Real-World) Development on Ethereum

TLDR

ETH For The World: Sustainable Development on Ethereum

Problem & Impact: Ethereum’s infrastructure is well-suited to address the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), yet remains underutilized by institutions tackling real-world challenges such as digital identity and humanitarian aid. This gap stems from limited access, ecosystem engagement, and builder support, hindering Ethereum’s potential impact.

Sensemaking Analysis: Ethereum For The World (ETH FTW) identified over 200 SDG-aligned, blockchain-relevant challenges via UNDP data and ecosystem experience. Most are at the idea or pilot stage, making them ideal matches for Ethereum’s capabilities and developer community.

Gitcoin’s Role & Fundraising: Gitcoin, with support from CeloPG, the Ethereum Foundation, and others, will drive ETH FTW funding. The pilot seeks $250,000–$500,000, utilizing quadratic and impact-based funding via the Karma and Prosperity Pass to support 10–18 MVP-stage projects.

Success Measurement & Reflection: Progress will be tracked through capital efficiency, builder retention, ecosystem legitimacy, and mechanism innovation—demonstrating Ethereum’s capacity to fund and scale real-world impact.

Domain Info: The Ethereum For The World Domain (ETH FTW) is proposed for Gitcoin Grants 24. ETH FTW is led by Luuk Weber and Erik Brinde. The program supports high-impact, onchain solutions and sets the stage for future domain growth focused on real-world development challenges.

Problem & Impact

Ethereum offers the most mature infrastructure for building real-world solutions. Yet, it remains largely absent from the strategies of most innovators and development institutions tackling global challenges.

This disconnect stems from a lack of accessible resources, proactive ecosystem engagement, and timely support for builders. As a result, Ethereum remains underutilized in Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) initiatives, despite being a permissionless, global, open-source network well-suited to address use cases such as digital identity, humanitarian aid tracking, and last-mile funding.

This is a significant missed opportunity.

Now is a pivotal moment to position Ethereum as the default blockchain infrastructure for sustainable development. Several converging forces make this urgent:

• Regulatory clarity (e.g. the GENIUS Act) and technical advances are driving growing institutional interest in public blockchains.

• Institutional adoption is accelerating, with major development institutions actively sourcing blockchain solutions through programs like the UNDP’s SDG Blockchain Accelerator, which creates a structured pipeline for UNDP country offices to partner with web3 builders on solving specific, pre-vetted challenges.

• Geopolitical shifts are disrupting global development institutions, with entities like the UN reducing budgets by ~30%—creating space for new infrastructure to emerge.

• Crisis breeds innovation—and Ethereum, alongside partners like Gitcoin, is uniquely equipped to become the backbone of a new, regenerative funding and solution ecosystem.

Succeeding in this domain does more than generate goodwill—it strengthens Ethereum’s core value proposition as the world’s decentralized ledger. Real-world use cases bring non-speculative transaction volume, expand the user base beyond crypto-native participants, and reinforce ETH’s role as essential infrastructure for the global digital economy.

A successful Sustainable (Real-World) Development on Ethereum initiative could catalyze thousands of impactful, open-source solutions within the Ethereum ecosystem—benefiting hundreds of millions of people. A portion of that value will inevitably flow back to Ethereum and Gitcoin stakeholders through increased usage, legitimacy, and adoption.

Seizing this moment is essential for Ethereum to fulfill its broader vision as the “world ledger,” as articulated by leaders like Vitalik Buterin and Joseph Lubin. If Ethereum is to serve as a Global Reserve Asset, Store of Value, and the “Oil” of the Digital Economy, as articulated in the Ethereum Bull Case, it must prove its value in solving humanity’s most pressing challenges.

Sustainable development is not just a moral imperative—it is one of the largest and fastest-growing markets. Let’s grow the pie—and ensure Ethereum earns its share.

Sensemaking Analysis

Our sensemaking approach combines on-the-ground experience, curated institutional data, and ecosystem-specific analysis to identify and validate real-world opportunities for Ethereum-based solutions.

Methods & Tools Used
We leveraged the following inputs:

• A list of 200+ pre-vetted, blockchain-relevant challenges provided by UNDP country offices related to the UNDP’s Blockchain Accelerator, with the potential to expand through similar development organizations.

• Public signals and institutional reports from development actors.

• Firsthand insights from eight years of working at the intersection of Ethereum and sustainable development.

Key Insights from the Data

• These challenges are not hypothetical or hype-driven. They are immediate, solvable problems actively seeking Web3 applications—ranging from digital identity and supply chain traceability to climate action and financial inclusion.

• Most opportunities are currently at the “Idea” or “Pilot” stage, where Ethereum’s open-source infrastructure and developer ecosystem can deliver the most value.

• After cross-referencing the challenge areas with Ethereum’s strengths (especially L2s), we found that many fall well within the ecosystem’s current capabilities.

Institutional Experience

Led by Luuk Weber and Erik Brinde , our work builds on:

• The launch of CuraDAO (2019), one of the first real-world impact DAOs.

• Collaborations with UNICEF Innovation, presentations at UNDP HQ, and large-scale coordination efforts.

• Strategic grantmaking and program design for real-world blockchain solutions.

• Key relationships through ongoing active engagements with the UNDP AltFinLab; the blockchain arm of UNDP.

What We’re Seeing Now

Three major signals are converging:

1. Institutional uncertainty and budget cuts (e.g. ~30% UNDP reduction).

2. Rapid development of scalable, onchain tools and last-mile applications.

3. Rising demand for real-world, user-facing blockchain solutions that can scale.

These trends present a unique moment for Ethereum to step in—not just as infrastructure, but as a trusted partner in solving global development challenges.

Gitcoin’s Unique Role & Fundraising

Gitcoin has long played a central role in funding work that matters—for both Ethereum and the world. With its strong track record in open-source and public goods funding, Gitcoin is well-positioned to help make Ethereum the leading ecosystem for sustainable development.

Solving global challenges requires ecosystem-wide collaboration, strong leadership, and continuous feedback. Fortunately, Ethereum already has a growing set of actors funding work at this intersection—including Gitcoin, the Ethereum Foundation, Celo, Optimism, Giveth, UNICEF Ventures, UNDP, and others.

Past Gitcoin rounds (e.g., dApps & Apps, OSS Core) and the Real World Builders round by CeloPG during GG21 have laid a solid foundation for this domain—both in terms of traction and developer engagement.

As CeloPG leads this effort, we’ve proposed a 250,000 CELO + 100,000 cUSD budget from the Celo Ecosystem Treasury, with most of it allocated to this domain. Additional support from the Ethereum Foundation will help us produce content, build a platform, and host an ETH FTW event at DevConnect.

With Gitcoin’s commitment to prioritize this Domain-Dedicated Allocation (DDA), we aim to raise a total of $250,000–$500,000 by engaging co-funders—ensuring this initiative drives lasting impact for Gitcoin, Ethereum, and the world.

Sustainable Funding & Scaling: From $500k to $100M

Our vision for ETH FTW is built on a pragmatic and phased strategy for scaling our capital base. We believe that funding for this initiative will grow as we progressively demonstrate a core value proposition: that leveraging Ethereum provides a more transparent, efficient, and impactful mechanism for allocating capital to solve global challenges than traditional systems.

The long-term financial sustainability of ETH FTW rests on two parallel strategies:

1. Integrating with Development Aid Pipelines: We will position the ETH FTW program as a superior “operating system” for the existing $200B+ annual development finance market by providing the rails for these large organizations to deploy capital with more transparency and efficiency than ever before.

2. Launching the ETH FTW Investment Fund: We aim to create a dedicated, evergreen investment fund to capture capital from the $1.5T+ global impact investing market and provide growth-stage equity and token funding to the most promising projects—creating a sustainable flywheel where financial returns are recycled to fuel further ecosystem growth.

We have a clear, multi-year plan to build momentum and attract compounding investment:

• H2 2025: The Pilot Program ($500K Target). Kickstarted by ecosystem leaders like Celo, Gitcoin, and the Ethereum Foundation, this initial round will focus on funding solutions for a curated set of thematic clusters with high ROI for onchain solutions to solve, based on the 200+ pre-vetted challenges from the UNDP pipeline. Success here is about demonstrating a working model.

• 2026: The Expansion Year ($1-2M Target). With successful case studies from the pilot, we will attract 3-5 new co-funders from the Web3-aligned ecosystem (e.g., Octant, Worldcoin, UNICEF Innovation) and impact-focused crypto philanthropists.

• 2027-2028: The Institutionalization Phase ($5M+ Target). With a multi-year track record of transparently deploying funds and measuring impact, we will secure multi-year commitments from larger institutions, development banks, and traditional foundations who see our program as a superior alternative to opaque, high-overhead funding channels.

• 2029 Onwards: Mainstream Integration ($100M+ Vision). Our ultimate goal is to become a primary channel for development finance, integrating with nation-states and multi-national entities to allocate a significant portion of the $200B+ in annual development funding on-chain by 2030.

By providing the model with this initial DDA, we lay the foundation for a system that can scale to address the world’s most pressing challenges, step by step.

Success Measurement & Reflection

ETH For The World (ETH FTW) is committed to making Ethereum the most attractive and effective platform for building sustainable development solutions that create real-world impact.

To evaluate our progress and align with Gitcoin’s strategic Pillars of Success, we will measure outcomes across four interconnected dimensions:

1. Strategic Capital Allocation & Ecosystem Leverage (Capital Efficiency)
We will assess how effectively ETH FTW identifies, supports, and scales high-leverage projects that advance sustainable development through Ethereum. This includes:

Metrics:

• Total capital deployed through ETH FTW rounds- Quality and relevance of funded projects (as rated via post-round impact metrics and expert validation)
• % of funding co-matched or coordinated with other aligned actors (e.g., Celo, Gitcoin, external DAOs)

2. Depth of Impact & Builder Retention (Builder Lifecycle Depth)
We aim to support builders not just at project inception, but throughout their growth journey—from experimentation to measurable outcomes.

Metrics:

• Number and quality of impact reports using standards like SDGs and CIDS
• Onchain impact signals (transactions, users, smart contract usage
• Builder retention across funding rounds (e.g., GG24 → GG25)

3. Ecosystem Legitimacy & Narrative Influence ( Ecosystem Legitimacy)

We want ETH FTW to be seen as a respected vehicle for funding meaningful work in the Sustainable Development space and advancing Ethereum’s broader purpose.

Metrics:

• Ecosystem sentiment (via community polling, forum engagement, and social media tracking)
• % of ETH FTW programs co-defined or co-executed with external partners
• Quality and visibility of thought leadership produced (blog posts, panels, reports)

4. Mechanism Innovation & Impact Transparency (Mechanism Innovation)

We will track how ETH FTW contributes to Gitcoin’s role as an innovator in capital allocation mechanisms—especially those tied to real-world outcomes.

Metrics:

• Integration of impact standards (e.g., SDGs, CIDS) into QF and retro mechanisms
• Community feedback and iteration on impact reporting tools (e.g., Karma, OSO, Divvi)
• Uptake of ETH FTW methodologies by other programs or chains

Satisfaction test
We believe ETH FTW will be a long-term win for the Ethereum ecosystem if it:

• Increases the number of sustainable development projects actively using Ethereum

• Grows the base of real users engaging with impactful dApps

• Attracts more institutions, developers, and capital into Ethereum’s ecosystem

If we meet these goals, ETH FTW won’t just be a one-off program—it will become a strategic pillar of Ethereum’s regenerative future.

Domain information

We propose the ETH For The World Domain for GG24 the Domain will focus on supporting proven real-world solutions to expand to new markets, develop additional features, and grow their revenue and impact, while supporting them with distribution and creating cornerstone resources that can be used to further fundraise for the ETH For The World Domain.

Domain Experts
Lead: Luuk Weber, serial web3 entrepreneur and founder of for-purpose venture studio Kolektivo Labs with 8+ years of experience in the Web3 space. Luuk has deep expertise in designing and operating funding and development programs. He leads Celo Public Goods and has experience working on projects with governments and development institutions.

Co-Lead: Erik Brinde, Head of Governance and BD at Avantgarde Finance, a DeFi-native Asset Management firm, and Advisor to UNDP. Erik has an MSc in Global Governance and previous research experience in public-sector blockchains, and is a member of the Celo EU DAO where he contributes to the UNDP Accelerator Program with Celo.

A group of 3-5 domain experts with synergistic skills will be involved in the program at a later stage to support with application and progress review, program fundraising, and distribution.

Round specification
This round is designed to support existing projects that are at the MVP stage or beyond and can propose a concrete plan that can be completed within six months from the start of the program. Applicants should clearly describe their current contributions to sustainable development and onchain growth, and estimate how the approval and completion of their For The World project plan will positively impact these metrics.

By comparing each project’s current impact to its projected impact post-participation, we aim to reliably estimate the outcomes resulting from the funding and support provided through the For The World program.

We plan to support 10–18 of the most promising projects with resources and funding ranging from $5,000 to $30,000.

Tools
Karma: Karma (GAAP) will serve as the backbone of the program, functioning as the registration, reporting, evaluation, donation, and payment layer. Karma is already widely adopted by existing Gitcoin grantees, and our team is a design partner for its upcoming release ahead of GG24.

Prosperity Pass: An onchain account that recognizes and rewards meaningful onchain contributions across Celo and the ReFi space is used to streamline the donor experience, combat sybil, and gain a deeper understanding of donor behavior. This Dune dashboard provides a breakdown of the Prosperity Pass accounts.

Mechanisms
1. Contribution-Based Quadratic Funding (50% of budget)
The program will launch with a QF-style allocation lasting 2–4 weeks. This mechanism will use Prosperity Pass levels and Self-verification to offer additional QF matching to individuals who have made meaningful contributions to onchain sustainable development.

Anyone can donate to the round using the Karma Donation tool. However, donations made through the Karma Donation Mini-App within the Prosperity Pass dApp will receive a matching multiplier based on the donor’s Prosperity Pass level.

2. Recurring Impact-Based Funding (50% of budget)
Following the QF allocation, projects will continue to share updates on their development and impact through the Karma dApp over the next 3–5 months.

At two key checkpoints, domain experts will assess project progress and allocate additional grant funding according to a to-be-developed methodological approach.

Potential for sub-domains
We expect this domain to consist of a single round in GG24, but see options for various sub-domains in the future, as the For The World domain and brand could be leveraged for a wide range of funding programs.

[owocki]

i am spiritually and ideologically aligned with this vision @LuukDAO @MontyMerlin

but i have to say, the following questions are existential and i think it is largely unanswered:

1. how do we raise the next $100k for Ethereum for the World?
2. then, how do we raise the next $1m for Ethereum for the World?
3. then, how do we raise the next $10m for Ethereum for the World?
4. then, how do we raise the next $100m for Ethereum for the World?

---

riffing on this a bit more:

i think there is more supply of web3-pilled impact creators than there is demand to fund it. what is the offering we’re providing here? what is the killer draw that is gonna raise the $$? who are the capital allcoator archetypes we should pursue first?

ofc, Gitcoin (and Celo, and the EF if we harangue them enouggh) can provide the initial funding.

But how do we nerdsnipe the next 10x of funding? then the 10x after that? then the 10x after that?

a big part of Ethereum for the World being viable IMO is showing where the money is gonna come from! id love to see a higher resolution piece of sensemaking about this bit.

[owocki]

tagging @omniharmonic - i think we could put our brains together on this!

also ethereum localism people like @exeunt @vengist and greenpill network friends @Oba-One @MattyCompost i think would have some good additions in how to orchestrate / fund more ethereum for the world

[LuukDAO]

Getting the next 100k and 1M seems very accomplishable if we create the best capital allocation program for stakeholders who are already convinced of the value prop of onchain development / PG funding as mentioned in the DDA report.

The right target from our POV and what we aim to proactively progress on is “How to get to a $10M multi-year program?” as this is the size required to have a serious and lasting impact on the World and the Ethereum ecosystem.

To get there, we have to make meaningful progress on solving the World’s biggest problems (as you also mentioned on your latest pod) and show our ecosystem’s ability to coordinate solution funding more efficiently than traditional mechanisms.

We’re coordinating with UNDP and have a list of 200+ real problems various countries (offices) are facing that could be solved with blockchain solutions, and we aim to include these challenges in the ETH FTW DDA.

Each year, over $200B in development funding is coordinated, with ~10x that amount needed to realize all development objectives. Our aim is for 0.1% of that funding (200M) to be allocated on Ethereum by 2030.

An ideal timeline to get there would be:
H2 2025 - Pilot cycle with ~0.5M program (kickstarted by Celo, EF, Gitcoin)
2026 - Full-year program with 1-2M in funding (attract 3-5 more co-funders such as Octant, World, Unicef Innovation, B4G, Whales)
2027-2028 - Multi-year program with 5M+ in resources from large institutions
2029 onwards - Ongoing, large-scale programs with nation states and multi-national entities.

I disagree with the take that there is an oversupply of web3-pilled impact creators, as there are thousands of traditional impact solutions that could benefit and increase their effectiveness by leveraging Ethereum; however, we lack the guidance and resources for (proven) teams to integrate and for existing teams to expand with development-focused offerings.

We need a better program and more resources to be able to attract high-potential/proven solution builders.

In parallel to the effort of increasing our resources for onchain development solutions, I’m also optimistic about the long-term potential of an ETH FTW Fund, comparable to the Gitcoin/Allo fund vision, which would provide an additional path to fund and further accelerate promising solutions.

If we manage to tie in the ETH FTW Program into new and existing development funding pipelines and create an ETH FTW Fund that ties into the growing Impact Investor ecosystem (1.5 T+ in assets management according to Global Impact Investing Network), we believe we can grow to 10M and even 100M a year.

Yet, it all starts with a first step now.

[exeunt]

Tl:Dr ETH FTW can maximize ROI on sector investment, attract interested capital and improve its branding/credibility by putting great attention to selecting for avant garde, future-coded sustainable development projects (projects that are structurally creative, ontologically imaginative, intellectually compelling, and cool).

In this essay from last year, I argued for three future-proof paths of Ethereum adoption:

• Make Ethereum Underground
• Make Ethereum Interspecies
• Make Ethereum Weird

(See bottom third of the piece for elaborations on each, but in general, they argue that Ethereum is adequate and relevant to underground/DIY values, important to any project of establishing political or economic stakeholder shift for nonhumans, and, as a network-economy framework, robustly capable of absorbing the implications of the many disruptive scientific breakthroughs (“ontological shocks”) on the horizon).

I see these as all apart of a general project of unlocking intellectual and cultural legitimacy for Ethereum that will go hand and hand with unlocking pools of capital.

There’s a reason why this kind of appeal is more salient than ever: personal wealth concentration accelerated greatly after covid, and has been solidified by Trump’s policies. And billionaires - unlike impersonal public funding bodes - want to be cool, to have interesting things to say at dinner parties. This means investing in things that are avant garde, have the sanction of an intellectual elite (whether of STEM or of the humanities), or are underground/cultural-avant garde coded.

Many note that “woke values” (which are underground values) are no longer attractive to capital, but I think this is a fakeout: the Trump right is fundamentally kleptocratic and hollow - they don’t believe in anything except short term wealth gain - and exhaustion from that will lead to a rediscovery of core progressive values in short order. At the same time, that rediscovery will be most intense to the many billionaires and private philanthropy outfits that were enriched in the last 5 years - all the moreso because public funding is now dead, and many will be looking to them to replace it. When this happens, the smartest of that money will recognize the call, but will be intolerant of the old guard of progressivism, seeking instead futuristic solutions: democracy without bureaucracy, agility without financial nihilism - all the things Ethereum offers as a third way from public administration and shareholder capitalism.

I would argue everything above aligns with ETH FTW…

• We need to market the Ethereum ownership economy as an alternative to streaming services, Shopify, and the dozens of other extractive middlemen that dominate the ethereum space. Content creation is a huge source of onboarding momentum to tech in developing countries and in impoverished elements of developed cities, and creators will understand the difference between value owned and value intermediated by corporations.

• Sustainable development means understanding the agency and rights of other species, of nature, as stakeholders and participants in human thriving. Terra0’s model of a self-owned forest won cultural legitimacy - here they are in LAS Arts Foundation in Berlin - that I know anecdotally was a major greenpill for ecological thinkers now working in the space. How can we identify and fund those who are thinking beyond the humanist lens, mixing ecological values with science fiction level futurism to shape the future of sustainable development? (And how can we ignore that those people are likely to be bright, charismatic, iconoclastic types that are not responding to the dominant narratives but shaping the future ones?) The academic community has been deadset on more-than-human governance for two decades - they’ve only had the buy in of the most imaginative, forward institutions. We can fill that vacuum.

• The larger point: Ethereum is an economic and governance framework from the future. It’s a third way. This is a marketing and adoption angle that also has the convenience of being true. How can we show that to the world, and especially to a new class of billionaires and private funds that are disenfranchised with the limitations of the private/public binary at the same time as they are greatly empowered to act on that disillusionment? How can we surgically identify next level sustainable development vectors, actors that will be natural allies to Ethereum because they are too underground, too posthuman, too weird to map on to the dominant institutional frameworks… actors that will attract capital exactly because of those qualities.

If I had to suggest something it would be this: Let’s put together a team to identify the most philosophically, politically, scientifically, strategically disruptive movements in sustainable development - esp. the ones that resonate with the horizontalist, p2p, networked, decentralist, technologically optimistic and pro-social values of ethereum - and fund them aggressively until the avant garde of this field is synonymous with support from and entanglement with Ethereum. In order to get the most for our dollar while attracting new capital, let state and tradfi money fund sustainable development of today while we focus on tomorrow.

[AC1706-67]

This resonates deeply with what we’re building through Recovery Commons — a decentralized, peer-led recovery ecosystem aligned with Ethereum values: community ownership, freedom from institutional gatekeeping, and technology as a tool for human dignity.

We work with people navigating incarceration, addiction, and systemic neglect, and we’re designing tools like zkProof logins, decentralized identity, token incentives, and trust-based coordination models to offer self-governed recovery systems. Not charity. Not bureaucracy. Community sovereignty.

Recovery is more than just health — it’s a frontier of governance, access, and cultural regeneration. We are building a post-institutional framework that can serve as a real-world use case of what Ethereum makes possible.

I’d love to be in conversation with anyone assembling this visionary team. Recovery Commons is ready to be part of this future-facing network. We’re already building it.

[LuukDAO]

After speaking with over a dozen stakeholders and incorporating the latest context from UNDP and the EF, we’ve updated the Sensemaking Report. We’re confident in our ability to raise over $125K outside of Gitcoin for this domain for GG24 — and we’re eager to make it a reality!