Polygon launches new grants program with 1 billion POL

Polygon, the layer-2 scaling network, has announced a new Community Grants Program, with 1 billion POL tokens (rebrand of current MATIC) allocated to ecosystem developers over the next ten years.

Polygon Labs revealed on Tuesday its program is now live. Polygon Labs said in a blog post: “Following community consensus, the Community Treasury has been created, with 1B POL unlocked over 10 years, with ~100M POL per year—all for builders.”

Accordingly, Season 01 of the program is now open, with 35 million MATIC set for distribution to projects building on the L2 network. At current MATIC prices, that’s about $23 million set to benefit builders looking to expand Polygon’s ecosystem.

Distribution of the funds lies with “the neutral Community Treasury Board” the platform announced.

Polygon will also follow an open, community-aligned funding model, with professional Grant Allocators helping to allot the Season 01 funds.

Who is eligible?

Projects looking to benefit from the grants program have to meet at least two conditions:

One, they must be building on Polygon or if not, be willing to migrate their projects to the blockchain platform. Also important is that the projects must be in the business of building for the long term.

Polygon has opened two avenues for participating projects – the “General Grant Track,” targets builders eyeing developer tooling and infrastructure on Polygon.

Meanwhile, the “Consumer Crypto Track,” will focus on consumer-focused projects, including gaming, decentralized social, gamified commerce, AI/blockchain integration and NFT innovations.

Why the Community Grants Program?

According to Polygon Labs, CGP’s primary objective is to support developers. The best time to do this is as they build, not long after projects go live.

“Waiting until a project has finished building and produces results misses a key piece of true innovation: The opportunity to take chances. With Polygon CGP, dynamic early-stage builders can get the funding they need when they need it,” Polygon Labs wrote in the blog post.

Applications for Season 01 opened today, June 11 and will close on August 31, 2024.