Oakland Local Round: For the People, by the People

In June of 2022, City3, OAK, and the Oakland Fund for Public Innovation, ran an ecosystem round in Oakland. This was one of the first QF experiments in the wild, demonstrating both to locals and to the Gitcoin ecosystem more broadly, how crypto could be implemented to support IRL communities. Leading up to the round, they organized educational onboarding events, during which they helped attendees set up their first wallets, preloaded with crypto, to empower them to participate directly in the quadratic funding process.

“Thanks to Gitcoin, we were able to bring 7 local organizations on-chain. Since that round, we've started focusing on deploying a local stablecoin commerce network. This will allow our community to generate its own yield which could be used to support future QF rounds.”

Darrell Jones, co-founder of OAK

Since the round concluded, they've been establishing a presence of volunteers at the West Oakland Farmer's Market, bringing the community on-chain, vendors and visitors alike, peer-to-peer, one at a time. Core to their philosophy is the belief that communities should be directly involved in deciding how and where funds are distributed. They are creating "money for the people, by the people."