Capital allocation is a simple concept: it’s the act of deciding how to distribute funding or resources. If you’ve ever paid bills, taxes, or repaid friends for a meal, you’ve allocated capital.
Capital allocation can become a full time job: governments and grant-making organi- zations spend vast amounts of time and money figuring out the process, logistics, and decision-making involved in allocating capital. At scale, capital allocation inevitably be- comes mired in gatekeeping, rivalrous decision making, and lack of transparency and accountability.
Crypto with its programmable smart contracts, present incredible advantages towards allocating capital in an efficient, effective, and transparent manner.

The internet revolutionized how information was distributed in society. If crypto succeeds in revolutionizing how society distributes scarce resources, it follows that it will upend, and improve, how we do capital allocation.
What if we could solve coordination failures with capital allocation? What if we could create better, more sovereign, collective action? How might we bring centuries old capital allocation strategies onchain? Can we invent new onchain capital allocation strategies that were not possible before Ethereum?
The next horizon is hard to see alone, but by exploring it together, we can grasp it.
This book is a celebration of the design space, and your no-hype resource to understand- ing the emergent pluralistic ecology of capital allocation developing in the web3 space. I’ve enjoyed putting together this handbook of the latest and greatest in what’s possible. It is my great pleasure to have a front row seat to this movement as a member of Gitcoin. My hope for this book is that I can pay it forward to you.