Written by @nidiyia with help from @JamesFarrell and Devansh Mehta
TLDR;
Build a transparent & impact driven funding model for Web3 popups & residencies where each program is documented, evaluated & rewarded based on its contribution to Ethereum
Require popup cities & residencies to publish Hypercerts with clear costs & documented outputs. Calculate an impact score for each program to direct funds in proportion to impact generated.
Problem & Impact
Web3 popup residencies, ephemeral, IRL gatherings like Zuzalu, Edge City, and ZuBerlin, have rapidly become catalytic hubs for Ethereum’s ecosystem. They co-locate builders, researchers, and creatives, fostering innovation, cross-pollination, and collaboration across disciplines, essential for a remote first industry.
Yet despite their growing influence, these gatherings face systemic friction: lack of transparent budgeting, diffuse impact measurement, and opaque coordination, issues that directly hinder Ethereum’s core goals of efficient capital deployment, ecosystem resilience, and reputation.
The need to sustainably fund web popups & residencies is urgent because:
- Ethereum popup funding is under strain
Community building in Ethereum is critical. Web3 popup cities and builder residencies have emerged as valuable physical spaces bringing an internet first, remote industry face-to-face & seeding the next big ideas to move the space forward.
Despite being IRL gatherings, there is no standardized reporting and funders lack insight into how funds are used at these events, making resource optimization and shared learnings difficult. Reports note growing concern over “inconsistent evaluation frameworks” and transparency issues in Web3 grants, leading to inefficiencies in matching funding to outcomes (Francis, 2024).
- Evidence of opacity
Take Zuzalu (March–May 2023): a two-month popup city in Montenegro conceptualized by Vitalik Buterin. It brought together ~200 residents and up to 800 visitors, yet budget disclosures remain scarce (Bankless Report, 2024). Similarly, residencies like Edge City in Chiang Mai operated as live testing grounds ahead of Devcon but detailed cost breakdowns have not been publicly shared (Francis, 2024). Globally, 2024–25 has seen at least 10 to 15 major Web3 popup residencies, including MU Accra (2025) and ETHiopia but uniform outcome reporting is virtually nonexistent (TechCabal, 2025).
- Evaluation of popups is needed
Without transparency, funders may redirect capital away from community-driven innovation, and opt for more measurable, traditional paths. (SSSG, 2025, Binance). This post discusses the use of Hypercerts, on-chain impact certificates with cost and outcome metadata, to enable accountability and verifiability in the popup ecosystem funding. (Li, 2024).
Sensemaking Analysis
My entry into the web3 world was through the popup city Edge Esmeralda, where I spent a month in Healdsburg (April-May 2024). Since then I have participated in the Funding The Commons Residency in Chiang Mai (Oct-Nov 2024) where there was an archipelago of many popups happening simultaneously, ZuBerlin (2025) & also been on the organizing team for the IERR Residency in Iceland that just concluded on August 10, 2025.
Overall, I see popups not just as cultural experiments but as informal infrastructures where Ethereum’s global community tests ideas face-to-face. Yet without transparent costs or clear outcome metrics, they risk misallocating capital and eroding legitimacy
My understanding of the popup landscape draws heavily on each of these lived experiences as both participant & organizer of these events. Drawing on participant interviews, comparative analysis between popups and ecosystem research, I have come to the following conclusions
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Popups generate disproportionate intangible value (community cohesion, trust, cross-pollination of ideas) but lack mechanisms to prove or measure this.
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Financial opacity is widespread, most residencies do not publish budgets, leaving funders in the dark.
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Impact stories circulate informally through whisper networks, but without systematic capture they remain anecdotal, limiting their usefulness for allocation.
The remaining sections will tackle these issues, proposing a structure of hypercerts & benefit-cost scoring of popups that can provide a missing layer of impact legibility. This aligns with Gitcoin’s shift in GG24 toward radically transparent, data-informed funding.
The sensemaking shows that without structured evaluation, Ethereum risks undervaluing some of its most fertile cultural and intellectual spaces, or worse funding them blindly in ways that invite reputational risk
Gitcoin’s Unique Role & Fundraising
Gitcoin has a history of operating multiple Zuzalu-related rounds, demonstrating legitimacy to steward an IRL coordination domain at scale. This domain will build on this history by positioning Gitcoin as the leader converging standards for funding of these popup movement
Specifically, we propose keeping the following eligibility requirements
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Must have already hosted a popup or builder residency
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Must create a hypercert listing out the costs of their past residency with a transparent breakdown. Amount paid by participants must also be included so we can provide matching on top of what is contributed by attendees
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Must list outputs of the popup that can then be quantified to obtain its benefit-cost (BC) ratio. An example of how this might look can be seen here
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Must have confirmed location and dates for the next popup that funds will go towards supporting
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Must have cofunding from other funders for the next popup so that GG24 funding is less than 30% of total outlay
Success Measurement & Reflection
Six-month outcomes:
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Transparency baseline: Onboard 8 to 12 popups or residencies who mint a Hypercert of their past program with total cost and line-item breakdowns. Simply having the finances of past popups become transparent is a win in itself.
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Impact legibility: For every residency, ask for a submission of outputs that are attributable to them. Use these to compute a standardized Benefit–Cost (BC) ratio
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Funding routed by evidence: Channel funding to purchase hypercerts of these popups, with the support predicated upon receiving an impact evaluation score of their past residency and secured funding and dates for their next edition
At the end of 6 months, publish a Gitcoin-style round report card summarizing allocations, evidence, and learning.
Domain Information
Name : Outcome based Funding for Web3 Popups
Purpose : Residencies and popups that (1) publish transparent costs, (2) issue a Hypercert capturing outputs/outcomes, and (3) undergo impact evaluation (Benefit Cost ratio) so future funding routes toward the highest impact per dollar.
Mechanism : We propose a Dedicated Domain Allocation (DDA) track with appointed stewards that calculate impact scores of past popups, based on which funds get allocated.
Even past popups with a high impact score but unable to lock down dates or secured cofunding for their next edition will be rendered ineligible.
Structure :
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Transparency through Hypercerts: each residency or pop-up program issues a Hypercert for their past event. These must include a clear total cost & a breakdown of total costs. This ensures financial transparency, which is currently lacking, and creates a verifiable record of funding needs.
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Accountability through Impact Measurement: for each residency, we ask them to give deliverables that occurred from their residency. This is then used along with other information to calculate a standardized impact score using a benefit cost ratio calculator. We document and publish all:
- Quantifiable outcomes (e.g., number of participants, projects launched, protocols developed).
- Non-quantifiable outcomes (e.g., community cohesion, knowledge transfer, cultural impact).
This provides a balanced view of both tangible and intangible contributions & will feed into the calculation of benefits in the impact score. Anyone can also challenge these scores and give a better calculation of them.
- Funding Distribution: funds from the matching pool are distributed programmatically via impact score calculations. Additional cofunding is done by reachouts to potential donors to buy units of the hypercert or contributions by participants at the popup and local citizens who want more such events to be held in their city.
Timeline :
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Domain vote: Aug 22–29 (Snapshot).
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Domains announced: Sept 1.
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GG24 execution: September to January (hypercert onboarding, schema finalization, review committee, secured cofunding and dates for another popup by the applicant).