[GITCOIN 3.0] Gitcoin Grants 3.0: Strategy Sprint [OWOCKI EDITION]

🧙 🧙‍♀️ Ideas and Open Discussion
1

After a week of discussion about the [GITCOIN 3.0] Gitcoin Grants 3.0: Strategy Sprint, I’ve forked the sprint and put together the following strategy doc. This is meant to be additive to the scope that rena laid out, a YES AND.

Gitcoin Grants 3.0 Strategy Sprint [Owocki Fork]

Overview

Current efforts to evolve Gitcoin resemble incremental improvements (Gitcoin 2.3). To truly address our long-term goals, Gitcoin needs a deeper pivot: Gitcoin 3.0.

We strategically delayed GG24 by three months, moving it from August to October. Let’s utilize this additional time (May - July) for a comprehensive reset. We’ll deeply consider:

  • Technologies emerging between 2025-2027
  • Ethereum developments expected in 2025-2027
  • Next-generation capital allocation mechanisms
  • Emerging capital formation methods
  • First-principles thinking
  • Our rich Gitcoin legacy

The goal: Create the strongest possible foundation for Gitcoin 3.0.

Goals & Objectives

High-Level Objectives

Achieve a three-fold outcome:

  1. Relevance: Reestablish Gitcoin’s importance to key opinion leaders (KOLs).
  2. Software Quality: Build cutting-edge, high-quality onchain capital allocation software.
  3. GTC Utility & Longevity: Enhance Gitcoin’s relevance to Ethereum funders and ensure sustainable value creation for GTC holders.

Specific Objectives

Relevance

  • Develop and recommend a clear Sensemaking strategy for Gitcoin.
  • Define and recommend a Domain-Driven Allocation (DDA) structure, enabling effective identification and voting on domains.

Software Quality

  • Dramatically improve software delivery—achieving 5x quality and velocity at 1/5 the cost compared to Gitcoin 2.0 by leveraging decentralized developer networks.
  • Prevent monopolies from capturing funding flows by fostering competitive pressure through innovative mechanisms like those demonstrated by Bittensor (see Allo Arenas).

GTC Utility & Longevity

  • Clearly define how GTC holders can benefit from capital allocation mechanisms developed for Gitcoin.
  • Create a competitive, financially sustainable model ensuring Gitcoin gains upside from investments into capital allocation mechanisms rather than giving funding away.

Design & Strategy Considerations

Recommendations should explicitly address:

  • Identifying and making sense of Ethereum’s most significant challenges.
  • Clearly defining domains that align with these challenges.
  • Selecting effective providers for capital allocation and round operations tailored to identified domains.
  • Ensuring a competitive marketplace for continuous improvement of capital allocation mechanisms.
  • Designing arenas (like Allo Arenas) to maintain diversity, encourage competition, and prevent single-team dependence.
  • Ensuring mechanisms bootstrap effectively with equitable fees
  • Gitcoin securing investment upside in the projects it accelerates.
  • Gitcoin’s fundraising strategy in the future.

Design Priorities

We will design toward:

  • A modular arena model for domain-specific funding rounds
  • A competitive ecosystem of capital allocators and builders
  • A Gitcoin that can bootstrap, govern, and profit from the best capital allocation primitives in the ecosystem
  • Preventing centralization or monopoly by any single team or operator
  • Clear paths for evolutionary learning and improvement

Evaluate Strategic Providers

  • Infrastructure
  • Community partners
    • Regen Coordination
    • Greenpill.network
    • Celo
  • Other web3 crowdfunding tools
    • Giveth
    • Octant
    • Drips
    • 1Hive/Conviction Voting
    • Allo.Capital & Other Allo builders
  • Sensemaking tools
    • Simscore + other rnDAO ones
    • Signals Protocol
    • Pol.is
  • Capital formation tools
    • q/acc
    • Revnets
    • echo.xyz
    • Other solutions
  • Dda providers
    • Questbook
    • Grants Ship
    • Custom-built solutions
  • QF providers
    • Giveth
    • CLRFund
    • Custom built solutions
  • Retro funding providers
    • Agora
    • Easyretropgf
    • Custom gbuilt solutionms

Deliverables

The sprint’s primary deliverable will be the Gitcoin 3.0 Whitepaper, including:

  • Clear Vision Statement
  • Strategic Roadmap
  • Detailed Software & Process Specifications for:
    • Sensemaking
    • Domain specification
    • Round operations
    • Continuous learning
  • Comprehensive Staffing Plan
  • Budget Outline
  • Financial Models
    • Fee-based sustainability models for Gitcoin
    • GTC utility structures
  • Requests for Proposals (RFPs) covering:
    • Infrastructure Layer (including grants management and shared services)
    • Quadratic Funding (QF)
    • Retroactive Public Goods Funding (Retro)
    • Domain-Driven Allocation (DDA)
    • Sensemaking

Sprint Scope

This strategy sprint is Phase 1, tightly scoped to ensure timely and actionable outcomes for GG24.

In Scope

  • All strategic activities required for successful GG24 launch and Gitcoin 3.0 launch.

Out of Scope

  • Activities and tasks not directly influencing GG24 launch outcomes or Gitcoin 3.0’s foundations.

Activities, Methodologies, Timeline

(To be detailed further)

Team

(to be defined)

Resources & Pricing

(To be defined)

Next Steps

  • Define detailed timelines and responsibilities.
  • Schedule initial strategy workshops and meetings.
  • Initiate preparation of the Gitcoin 3.0 Whitepaper.

Reference Documents