Polygon commits 35 million MATIC to nurture projects building on its network

Polygon has unveiled Season 01 of its Community Grants Program to bolster projects building within the Polygon and Ethereum ecosystems. 

According to a press release shared with crypto.news, starting Jun. 11, the project will allocate 35 million MATIC to developers working on Polygon.

For the first season, the funds would be distributed in MATIC due to the network’s ongoing token upgrade to POL. Subsequently, future grants will be distributed in POL.

For projects to be eligible, they must either be building on Polygon or willing to migrate to the network. One of the goals of the grant is to ensure long-term commitment to the network.

The grant approval would have an average turnaround time of four weeks, with applications being reviewed on a rolling basis. Every project can secure between 5,000 to over 50,000 MATIC in funding.

In the first season, up to 35 million MATIC will be injected into the network. Grant payouts would be scheduled for the first of each month following approval.

Applications would be categorized into two, namely, the General Grant Track and the Consumer Crypto Track.

The general grant track would be applicable for a wide range of projects and doesn’t have any serious limitations.

“For anyone, anywhere, building whatever on Polygon—this is for you,” the announcement said.

Projects in this category would focus on key areas like developer tooling, protocol infrastructure, and decentralized applications (dApps).

The consumer crypto track, on the other hand, will focus on projects driving consumer adoption of cryptocurrency. Key areas of focus include gaming, gamified commerce, decentralized social platforms, AI/blockchain integrations, NFT innovations, etc.

This categorization makes the application process streamlined and ensures appropriate support is provided to every applicant.

All allocations would be overseen by the Community Treasury Board, an independent body in charge of the allocation of funds from the Community Treasury. The board was introduced in April, with proposed members including Quickswap founder Roc Zacharias, Coinbase Wallet creator Peter Kim, and David Gogel from the dYdX foundation.

The board will be responsible for conducting monthly reviews of projects selected for the grant.

The Community Treasury will allocate approximately 100 million POL annually over a ten-year period, totaling 1 billion POL.

Several projects have already received funding from Polygon. Notable names include QuickSwap, a decentralized exchange on Polygon, which received a $1 million grant in 2021. 

Polygon’s Community Grants Program comes days after it acquired blockchain startup Toposware. With this acquisition, the entity behind MATIC aims to bolster its Zero-knowledge development.