The Genesis Round
The inaugural DeSci Round in late 2022 marked a pivotal moment for those advocating for decentralized approaches to scientific research and was a fundamental milestone for the DeSci community.

With the support of notable partners like Protocol Labs, Vitalik Buterin, Stefan George, Ethereum Foundation, SCRF (Smart Contract Research Forum), Molecule, Orange DAO, GreenPillCN, AlchemixFi, and Springer Nature, the genesis DeSci Round during GG15 galvanized significant support, attracting 2,309 donors who crowdfunded $67.9k to support over 82 projects. Leveraging matching contributions from various partners, the total pool exceeded $567k. This initial round had a significant impact on many projects that used the funds to do research, grow their communities, and develop new tools and services. As highlighted in the DeSci Landscape Analysis, it also showed the need for more consistent funding streams, market fit exploration, and the desire to understand what other projects were building, so it would be easy to collaborate and grow the ecosystem together.

Vincent Weisser played a crucial role in initiating and executing the DeSci (Decentralized Science) Round during GR15. This effort was significantly supported by various key figures within the Gitcoin and DeSci communities. The notable contributors include Kydo, Shady, Erik, Eugene, Ben, Janine, Annika, Caro, J Ringo, Azeem, Carl, Vishnu, Sage, Umar, James, Scott, and Joseph Cook, among many others.

Gitcoin Beta
For the Gitcoin Beta Round, a community-led initiative emerged, spearheaded by Gitcoin’s previous DeSci lead, Boris Dyakov. Seeking to sustain the continuous funding of ecosystem growth in DeSci, Boris rallied previous sponsors to continue funding the efforts.

An onchain election using the Jokerace platform was established to elect 4 round stewards from the DeSci community including Boris Dyakov, Manuel Olariu from Deep Venture DAO, Sarah Rouse from SpaceBioDAO, Jelani Clark and Carolina Menchaca from DeSci World.

The DeSci stewards were elected to oversee decision-making and grantee review, securing sponsorship totaling $75K.

According to the reportcard, the Beta round attracted 267 donors who crowdfunded $18.6k to support these 65 projects.

After this last round in May 2023, Manuel Olariu continued to organize DeSci on Gitcoin while several community leaders stepped up to support this effort for sustainable ecosystem growth in Decentralized Science.

Celebrating Successes of GG20
With a matching pool of $25K, the #GG20 round supported 29 projects, attracting 250 individual donors who collectively contributed $8.5K in funding.

Ref:https://mirror.xyz/erinmagennis.eth/rSAHHVavkVHVqrKsp9C0w-GScJzKcJMnGxYBw0IrQUg