Polygon unlocks community grants worth $640 million for blockchain builders

Blockchain tech and gaming company Polygon announced that its community has voted to unlock the equivalent of $640 million worth of tokens for the purpose of community grants.

The community will unlock a billion tokens in POL/MATIC over 10 years, including 35 million MATIC ($27 million) during Season 01 to fund the best projects across the Polygon Layer 2 blockchain and the Ethereum landscape.

After community consensus, the Community Treasury has been created, with one billion POL unlocked over 10 years, with about 100 million POL per year—all for builders.

Season 01 of the Community Grants Program, overseen by the neutral Community Treasury Board, will distribute 35 million MATIC to projects building on Polygon.

$27M worth of MATIC for Season 01

The Community Grants Program will use funds in the Community Treasury for grantmaking. The Community Treasury accrues POL, but given the ongoing token upgrade from MATIC to POL, grants for Season 1 will be made in MATIC. Applications are open today.

An open, community-aligned funding framework will leverage professional Grant Allocators to distribute a portion of Season 01 funds. Builders are the heart of Polygon’s success.

They have shown up to hackathons and accelerators, poured out to global meetups and startup support programs. Over the last few years, it is builders who are developing Polygon and building with Polygon technology, becoming a pioneer at the forefront of global innovation.

Because of these developers, the Polygon landscape has exploded in growth across different protocols and technologies. It’s a thriving, multi-centered community focused on blockchain technology.

What began as Village Grants, focused only on grants from Polygon Labs, has evolved following community consensus to create the Community Treasury: Today, applications are open for the Community Grants Program (CGP).

Given the ongoing token upgrade from MATIC to POL (with POL designed to gradually replace MATIC over the next four years), grants for Season 1 will be issued in MATIC, with 35 million MATIC (currently equivalent to $22.7 million) allocated in the first season.

The inaugural season offers two distinct tracks for applicants. One for a general grant track, where anyone, anywhere, building whatever on Polygon can apply for. The other is a consumer crypto track, which focuses on projects and consumer-led use cases which may include gaming, gamified commerce, NFT innovations, content co-creation and more. The grants will be issued by professional Grant Allocators.

The grant program follows proposals to ensure that Polygon becomes a strong, community-governed aggregated network of chains.

Projects must be building on Polygon or willing to migrate to Polygon and building for the long term. A number of standout projects got their start with Polygon grants: Quickswap, Keom, Jokerace, and Intraverse, to name a few.

The inaugural season offers two distinct tracks for applicants:

General Grant Track: For anyone, anywhere, building whatever on Polygon—this is for you. The General Grants Track doesn’t impose strict limitations on eligible projects, but we are keen to see a few key focus areas, including developer tooling and libraries, protocol infrastructure, and any kind of dApp.

Consumer Crypto Track: This track focuses on projects that can drive crypto adoption. Consumer-led use cases may include gaming, gamified commerce, decentralized social, AI/blockchain integrations, NFT innovations, content co-creation, digital/physical intersections, and distributed communities (also known as scenecoins).

Community-first funding: Find support now, not later The framework for how treasury grant funds are deployed are open for community feedback, but the reasoning for this evolution is simple. At heart, we’re developers. We iterate and innovate and work collaboratively.

While the first season of CGP will focus on “consumer crypto,” the overarching goal is to support developers while they build. Waiting until a project has finished building and produces results misses a key piece of true innovation: The opportunity to take chances.