As of 2026, Octant's grant application process can no longer be understood through the traditional flow of "fill out a form, wait for review, receive money." An announcement from the Golem Foundation in July 2026 made one thing clear: Octant v1 epoch rounds have ended, and future funding distribution is shifting toward thematic rounds and direct giving, rather than the previous open-application, community-voting model. If you want to apply for Octant funding now, the first thing to confirm is whether there is currently an open application round, and what the theme and application method are for that round. As of the verification date of this article, Octant v2's voting app and contracts are live. Epoch 12 ran as the first full round of v2, but the application portal and eligibility criteria are set by each round's operator. There is no fixed, year-round application form.
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Eligibility: What Counts as a "Public Good," and Who Decides
Octant's definition of a "qualified project" has never been a hard rule, but rather a continuously evolving judgment. In early discussions, community members proposed criteria including: commitment to open-source technology, transparent use of funds, advancing freedom and privacy values, supporting decentralization, and having identifiable social proof. Exclusions were relatively clear: for-profit projects and financial products (loans, investments, trading) typically do not qualify.
But the more practical eligibility judgment happens in the thematic screening of specific rounds. The theme of Epoch 9 was "Ethereum Stories," which explicitly only funded creators who had already produced Ethereum-related content (not general crypto or DeFi content), in forms including documentaries, podcasts, long-form articles, short videos, and educational series. It explicitly excluded applications involving financial advice, price predictions, token promotion, and event organization as the primary deliverable. Epoch 7 was a climate-themed round, with review assistance from the Climate Coordination Network team. Review dimensions included past measurable impact, long-term potential impact, scalability, team background, and innovation.
This means eligibility is not about "whether you meet Octant's standards," but rather "whether your project matches the theme of the current round and the priorities of the reviewers." If you are working on a general-purpose open-source tool but miss a thematic round, you may need to wait for a better-matched round, or pay attention to the Golem Foundation's direct giving channel—the announcement mentioned that 5% of treasury yield will be used for direct Octant allocation, decided by the foundation based on the value of the work itself, independent of the round mechanism.
Materials: What Really Matters in an Application
From the application questions and review feedback of Epoch 6 through Epoch 9, material preparation has several recurring focal points.
Verifiable evidence of past impact. Epoch 9 required proof of past Ethereum content (videos, podcasts, articles, event records) and demonstration of its impact: audience size, engagement quality, influence. Epoch 7's review feedback was more direct: "Measurable and verifiable results matter." Many projects only described high-level impact without landing on specific metrics. If you write "helped many people" in your application, reviewers need to see specific numbers, links, screenshots, or on-chain records.
Plans for budget and funding scale changes. There was a specific question in the Epoch 9 application: What would you do if you received 0.1x or 10x the expected amount of funding? This question tests your judgment of project priorities—which parts are core and cannot be cut, and which parts can be adjusted as funding increases or decreases. Epoch 7 reviewers also emphasized that budgets need to include specific milestones and how Octant funds will be used.
Conciseness and specificity. One noteworthy point from Epoch 7 review feedback: applicants easily fall into "30,000-foot view" vision descriptions, but success lies in the details. Reviewers suggested that after writing a draft, applicants should go through each answer and shorten it to make the content more focused. If you use AI to assist with writing, do not let AI become the author—keep your own voice.
Round Verification: How to Confirm "Can I Apply Now"
Octant's round cadence during the v1 period was a 90-day Epoch, with a two-week allocation window after each Epoch ended. But v1 ended after Epoch 11, and Epoch 12 is the first full round of v2. The Golem Foundation's July 2026 announcement did not provide a fixed future round schedule, but instead said "the next round will run a 100 ETH matching pool" and that "more details will be shared in the coming weeks."
To verify whether there is currently an open application, the most direct path is to check Octant's official blog (blog.octant.build) and the Octant v2 app. The blog publishes each round's theme and application time window. For example, Epoch 9's application window was August 14–27, the review period was August 28–September 10, and the allocation window was October 8–22. If you cannot find an "Applications Open" or similar announcement on the blog, there is no open round right now. Do not submit materials or pay fees to any unofficial channel.
Additionally, if you learn about a certain "application opportunity" through community discussions or Discord, first cross-check with the official blog. Octant's round operators are changing (for example, Epoch 9 was in cooperation with the Ethereum Foundation's strategic grants coordination team), and the application portal and review process may vary by round. Third-party information can easily become outdated.
A Judgment That Needs Re-Understanding
If your impression of Octant is still stuck on "lock GLM, community votes to decide matching allocation," you need to update: that was mainly the v1 mechanism. The v2 voting app allows participation using Accrued Rewards or WETH in your wallet, but half of the WETH path is burned, and matching is not guaranteed—if the total demand in a round exceeds the matching pool, each project's matching amount will be proportionally reduced; if a project has only one supporter, its matching amount is zero.
For project teams applying for grants, this means that even if your project enters a round, the final amount you receive depends on the distribution of community votes and the size of the matching pool, not a fixed grant amount. The budget and fund usage plan you write in your application needs to account for this uncertainty.
My Judgment: Confirm the Round First, Then Prepare Materials
If you want to take action now, the first step is not to write an application, but to go to the Octant official blog to confirm whether there is currently an open round and what the theme is. When there is no open round, preparing generic materials has limited value because each round's questions and review priorities are different.
If a matching round is open, focus your energy on two things: verifiable evidence of past impact and plans for responding to changes in funding scale. The former proves what you have done; the latter proves you have thought clearly about what to do next. Octant's review feedback repeatedly points to these two directions.
If you are working on a general open-source public good but miss a thematic round, the Golem Foundation's direct giving channel is worth watching, but the announcement did not provide a public application method—currently, the foundation decides on its own. In this case, continuing to build and maintaining publicly visible impact is more effective than repeatedly submitting mismatched applications.
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References
- Octant Docs·Participating in a Funding Round (v2), page publication or update date: not indicated on the page; verification date: 2026-10-20.
- Golem Foundation·On the next chapter for Octant and the Golem Foundation, page publication or update date: 2026-07-31; verification date: 2026-10-20.
- Notion·Octant Project Standards and Epoch 6 Application Questions (community compiled), page publication or update date: not indicated on the page; verification date: 2026-10-20.
- Octant Blog·Epoch 9: Ethereum Stories applications, page publication or update date: not indicated on the page; verification date: 2026-10-20.
- Octant Blog·Epoch 7: Octant Review Reflections, page publication or update date: not indicated on the page; verification date: 2026-10-20.
- GitHub·Octant App Issue #160 (Epoch cycle and funding model overview), page publication or update date: not indicated on the page; verification date: 2026-10-20.
