What is an ecosystem grant in crypto?

Who gives grants

Several blockchain foundations run grant programmes. The Ethereum Foundation runs the Ecosystem Support Program (ESP). It gives "both financial and non-financial support" to projects that strengthen Ethereum and support builders.¹ The Solana Foundation and the Arbitrum Foundation run grant programmes too.^3,2 The Uniswap Foundation still listed grants in October 2026, but in November 2025 it said it would spend its remaining grants budget, about $100 million, and then close, with most of its team moving to Uniswap Labs.^4,5 Uniswap's token holders approved the plan in December 2025.⁶

Some grants come from a DAO instead. Ethereum.org describes a DAO as "a collectively-owned organization working towards a shared mission". Decisions are made by proposals and votes, and its treasury can't be spent without the group's approval.⁷ The Arbitrum DAO, for example, voted to launch a grant programme, which started in October 2023.⁸

What they say they fund

Each programme states its aims in its own words.^1,3,4,2

• Ethereum Foundation (ESP): "free and open-source public goods", with a focus on infrastructure, research, builder tools and community resources.¹ Its support is aimed at "enabling builders rather than end-users".⁹
• Solana Foundation: projects that "generate public goods for the community".³
• Uniswap Foundation: grants to speed up "the teams shaping tomorrow’s onchain economies".⁴
• Arbitrum DAO Grant Program (listed as complete in October 2026): more use of Arbitrum chains, stronger technical structures and lasting communities.²

Why public goods need help

Gitcoin, which has run crowdfunding rounds for builders since 2019, defines a public good as something people can't be barred from using, where one person's use doesn't take away from another's. Open-source code is often seen this way.^10,11

Public goods are hard to pay for. A 2018 paper by Vitalik Buterin, Zoë Hitzig and Glen Weyl says that relying on private giving "famously" leads to too little of them, because of the free-rider problem.¹² Each person counts only their own benefit, not everyone else's, so funding does not grow with the number of people who benefit.¹²

Optimism, which describes itself as a network of layer-2 chains, puts it another way. In November 2024 Optimism said its Retro Funding programme's job was to "correct possible market failures" by rewarding builders in markets that would otherwise not pay them.¹³ Its guiding idea was that positive impact on the Optimism Collective "should result in a reward to the individual".¹³ In January 2026 Optimism paused Retro Funding for at least 12 months.¹⁴

Growth, and strings attached

Not every grant is only about public goods. In October 2026, the Arbitrum Foundation listed a Stablecoin Growth Program for protocols that make USDG their main stablecoin on Arbitrum.² Its Security Program asks projects to sign a Commitment Agreement, which can include "exclusivity or other commercial commitments".¹⁵

The Solana Foundation's guidelines ask: "Why Solana?"¹⁶ These programmes say a grant should help the network that pays for it.^16,2

How big are they?

Each programme counts in its own way. These are the figures each one published, as we read them on 22 October 2026.^1,17,13,18,3