From Singapore to London and high schools to digital ad agencies, there has been an outpour of enthusiasm from the diverse UNI community applying for grants over the last month. In such a short amount of time, we've already learned so much about the greater needs and interests of the community, as well as what various archetypes of Uniswap user sees for the future of the protocol. As part of our commitment to the community in keeping UGP transparent, we wanted to provide an update to the status of UGP's applications, some insights, and steps we've taken.

We've compiled some quick stats to give a deeper look at the current state of applications below!

• Currently at 84 applications (~21/week)
• 45 were rejected within 7 days due to out of scope or low quality submissions
• 17 are currently being asked for more information
• 20 are in interview stages
  • estimated ~$600,000 in requested funding
• 2 projects has been already approved for a grant
  • while budgets are still being worked out, this is approximately ~$100,000
• 1 hackathon sponsorship with 3 bounties filled
  • $35,000 for ETHDenver - $13,000 of which for 3 bounties

Categories of Applications

• Usability - 20
• Community - 30
• Tooling - 13
• Other - 21

Themes

• Related to LPs - 51
• Education - 25
• Flash loans - 3
• Outside communities - 5

Although the range of applicants varied quite considerably, there was an overwhelming amount of interest in exploring greater utility with LPs (ease of management, LP discovery, liquid LPs, and more...). Surprisingly, when these applicants were asked what they felt was the biggest barrier to partaking in LPs, a lack of educational resources was cited more often than being priced out by expensive gas fees. Without a larger data set, this may just be self-selection for people who can generally afford higher fees, but it does reinforce the sentiment that proper educational resources are still desired for Uniswap.

Relatedly, it's been interesting to see how many teams have requested more than just financial support. More often than not, applicants asked for mentorship, technical guidance, and/or a tighter connection to the larger community. This demonstrates the need, and potential, for UGP to provide more for the Uniswap community than just funding. It is a call to empower builders, developers, and organizers alike, with validation to accept the freedom to build, the platform to coordinate with others, and the ability to enlighten the greater community with opportunities. One potential outcome is opening up a "fast track" category for smaller grant requests in addition to the larger grant waves (credit to Larry Sukernik for the idea!). More on this coming soon.

These applicants, regardless of outcome, are prime examples of how rapid experimentation and community support can eventually lead to sustainable innovation on a longer time scale. Starting with a small grant to build momentum provides teams the agency and necessary validation to keep pursuing their projects without the burden of other full-time engagements and distractions. However, these passive submissions aren't enough. While we are ecstatic at the current pace of submissions, more innovations and pressing improvements are needed to keep us moving forward.

To this end, UGP has curated a list of Challenges and Requests for Proposals (RFP) from around the ecosystem seeking to remedy certain issues or support more core initiatives. The hope with these targeted asks is that it helps to catalyze solutions for some of the greater needs for the growth of the protocol. If you have any thoughts or suggestions that would be impactful RFPs for UGP to include, please let us know by emailing us at [email protected] or tweet at us @uniswapgrants!