Web3 grant glossary: 50 terms builders should know

Applying

• RFP (request for proposals): A published description of work a funder wants done, inviting teams to propose how they would do it, usually by a deadline. The Ethereum Foundation's Ecosystem Support Program (ESP) has accepted applications only against Wishlist and RFP items since November 2025. See Web3 RFP grants.
• RFGP (request for grant proposals): Another name for an RFP. The Aztec Foundation uses it for one-off calls posted on its forum.
• Wishlist: ESP's list of broad goals where you propose the approach, unlike an RFP's set deliverables. As of October 1, 2026, ESP had no Wishlist or RFP items open.
• Track: A separate lane inside one program with its own rules, budget or cap. Polkadot's treasury has six tracks set by amount, and the Stellar Community Fund's Build Award has Open, Integration and RFP tracks.
• Proposal: The document you submit to ask for a grant: problem, solution, team, milestones, budget and how success will be measured. DAO programs usually require it to be posted publicly on a forum. See how to write a Web3 grant proposal.
• Milestone: A checkpoint with defined deliverables and a payment attached. 55 of the 99 programs in the directory pay in milestone tranches. See milestone-based grants.
• Deliverable: A concrete output a reviewer can verify, such as released code, a deployed contract, a report or a published tutorial. A good deliverable is specific enough to get a clear yes or no.
• Impact metrics: The measures used to judge whether funded work mattered, such as users, transactions, TVL, downloads or dependent repositories. RootstockCollective asks for targets such as TVL and active wallets. See grant impact metrics.
• Open-source license: The legal terms under which others may use, change and share your code. Permissive licenses such as MIT and Apache-2.0 allow almost any use, and Filecoin Open Grants require dual MIT and Apache-2 licensing. See open source licenses for grants.
• Office hours: A non-financial call with a program's team for feedback or help finding the right track. ESP offers 20-minute Office Hours calls.

Governance and voting

• Treasury: Funds held by a protocol or DAO, often in its own token, that governance can spend. The Polkadot and Cardano treasuries pay grants directly by vote. See blockchain treasury funding.
• Treasury proposal: A request to spend from a treasury, put to a governance vote. On Cardano it is called a treasury withdrawal governance action. See how to write a DAO funding proposal.
• OpenGov: The on-chain governance system of Polkadot and Kusama, where any account can submit a referendum on a track and token holders vote, with no foundation or committee in between.
• Referendum: A formal on-chain vote on a single proposal. In OpenGov, each treasury spend is its own referendum.
• Temperature check: An informal early poll or forum discussion that tests support for an idea before a formal proposal or vote.
• Snapshot vote: A vote on Snapshot, an off-chain voting tool many DAOs use. Votes are signed messages weighted by token holdings, so they cost no gas, and the result is usually carried out separately afterwards.
• Quorum: The minimum participation, or minimum number of yes votes, a vote needs to count. Livepeer's treasury votes, for example, need a 33% quorum.
• Deposit: Tokens you lock to submit a governance proposal, which deters spam. Polkadot's decision deposit runs from 1 DOT to 1,000 DOT, and a Cardano treasury withdrawal needs 100,000 ada, refunded after the vote.
• Delegate: Someone who votes with tokens other holders have assigned to them. Cardano calls them DReps (delegated representatives), and a treasury withdrawal needs approval from DReps holding 67% of the active voting stake.
• Badgeholder: A voter chosen to judge impact in a retro funding round. In FIL-RetroPGF Round 3, a project needed at least 4 badgeholder ballots and 500 FIL of support to qualify for funding.
• Sybil resistance: Measures that stop one person posing as many to game a vote or a matching formula. Gitcoin's GG24 required donors to pass Human Passport checks before their donations were matched.

Payment and compliance

• Tranche: One installment of a grant payment. The Stellar Community Fund pays in tranches of 10%, 20%, 30% and 40%.
• Stipend: A regular living allowance paid to a person, usually monthly. The Bitshala Fellowship pays $500 a month.
• KYC (know your customer): Identity verification of an individual, usually an ID document plus sanctions screening, before a funder can pay you. See KYC for crypto grants.
• KYB (know your business): The same check for a company: registration documents, directors and beneficial owners.
• Grant agreement: The contract between funder and grantee that sets scope, milestones, payments, reporting, ownership and termination. See Web3 grant agreements.
• Clawback: A clause that lets a funder reclaim money already paid under defined conditions, such as misuse of funds or false statements. Not every agreement has one, so read yours. See do you have to pay back a crypto grant.
• Vesting: Releasing tokens on a schedule rather than all at once. Nym pays grants above 50,000 NYM through a vesting contract. See grants paid in tokens.
• Multisig: A wallet that needs several of its keyholders to sign before funds move, such as 3 of 5. DAOs use multisigs to hold and pay out grant funds, and Livepeer treasury grants usually go to a team's multisig.
• Escrow: Money held by a third party until conditions are met. The Monero CCS holds donated XMR in escrow and releases it as milestones are completed.

Programs and people

• Foundation: A nonprofit or similar entity set up to support a blockchain's development, often holding part of its token supply. Foundations run many single-chain grant programs. See who funds Web3 grants.
• DAO (decentralized autonomous organization): An organization run by token holders' votes, often through elected committees. 20 of the 99 programs in the directory are decided by token holders, a DAO committee or an on-chain vote.
• Grants council: An elected or appointed group that reviews and approves grants for a DAO. Optimism's Grants Council was dissolved by a Token House vote in July 2026.
• Allocator: A person or team given a budget to decide grants in one domain; the amount each receives is their allocation. The Arbitrum D.A.O. Grant Program, closed since March 2026, used elected domain allocators.
• Grantee: The person or organization that receives a grant and is responsible for delivering it.
• Ecosystem fund: Money a chain sets aside to grow its ecosystem. Some ecosystem funds pay grants, but many invest for equity or tokens, such as Injective's $150M Ecosystem Fund, a consortium of venture firms. See crypto ecosystem funds.

To see these terms on real program pages, browse the grant directory, where each program lists its model, payout currency and whether it pays by milestone.

FAQ

What is the difference between a grant and a bounty?

A grant pays for work you propose and scope yourself, usually in milestones over weeks or months. A bounty pays a fixed amount for a task the funder has already defined, often with a deadline and sometimes to whoever completes it first. Bounties are faster to win and smaller; Tether's tasks pay $1,500 to $5,000, while the median published grant ceiling is $50,000.

What is the difference between an RFP and an open grant application?

An RFP is a call for a specific piece of work the funder has defined, so you compete on how well and how cheaply you can deliver it. An open grant application lets you propose your own idea within a program's focus areas. Several funders shifted toward RFPs in 2026; ESP, for example, accepts only Wishlist and RFP applications.

Which Web3 grant terms should a first-time applicant learn first?

A first-time applicant should learn milestone, deliverable, tranche, KYC and grant agreement first, because nearly every program uses them in its application and payment process. Anyone applying to a DAO-run program should add treasury proposal, temperature check, deposit and quorum. Terms like convertible grant, vesting and clawback matter at signing, when they change what you actually receive.