Season 2 of our Thrive Polygon Funding Program has reached its initial end date, and we’re excited to share the results. By continuing to optimize funding through Thrive Protocol’s milestone-based model, we’ve maintained capital efficiency while driving measurable growth across the Polygon ecosystem. As of October 31, 2025, multiple projects have achieved full completion, with additional projects working toward year-end milestones.
Program Overview
In Season 2, we expanded our infrastructure with dual program tracks, funded high-potential projects across multiple verticals, and continued leveraging Thrive Protocol to ensure every dollar allocated delivers measurable value.
Season 2 Overview & Key Achievements
Two-Track Program Structure
Season 2 introduced a strategic dual-track approach to maximize ecosystem impact:
Boost Program Projects
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Folks Finance: A leading cross-chain DeFi lending platform, offering yield strategies and lending services on Polygon
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Hopscotch: A “decentralized Facebook Marketplace” leveraging on-chain trading mechanics for user-to-user transactions
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Unicorn.Eth: An on-chain account and membership platform for onboarding users and managing brand communities
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NGRAVE: A leading cold storage hardware wallet integrating Polygon token support.
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ChainWiki: An “RWA DeFi platform” and decentralized wiki for verifiable on-chain attestations and proof-of-reserve infrastructure
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Giveth Donation Agent: Decentralized fundraising and philanthropy, integrating AI-driven donation verification
Withdrew From Boost Program: DexGo
Launch Program Projects
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Guild: A creator-owned music platform, focusing on community engagement and monetization for artists
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Illumicati/MILK: A DeFi platform combining social token and memecoin elements with game-like dynamics
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Soundromeda: A hybrid music gaming and collectible platform, blending Web3 music with interactive gameplay and AI experiences
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Skybridge: A cross-chain bridging application for Polygon interoperability
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QSTN: Earn tokens for completing surveys, representing the data and market research vertical
Withdrew From Launch Program: Alignerz
Combined Season 2 Results:
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Projects Funded: 13 of 192 applications
- 7% acceptance rate demonstrates rigorous selection standards
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Projects Deployed on Polygon Mainnet: 13 of 13
- 100% deployment success rate
Total Expected Impact (if all year-end milestones completed):
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Total Transactions: 330,807+
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TVL: $4,725,000+
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Total New Wallets: 2466+
Demographic Breakdown:
Financial Overview (as of October 31, 2025)
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Total Budget: 2,400,000 POL
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Total Milestones Completed: 39 milestones
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Completion Rate: 75% (39/52)
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Total Milestones Expected (by year end): 48 milestones
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Expected Completion Rate: 92% (48/52)
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Expected Allocated (if all milestones are completed by year end): 1,872,000 POL (approx. $372,000)
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Total Returned To Polygon: 528,000 POL (expected)
Completed Projects (Full Milestone Achievement):
As of October 31, 2025:
6 of 13 projects have fully completed all milestones, unlocking 100% of their allocated funding
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Unicorn.Eth: 500+ unique wallet transactions, built comprehensive onboarding flow for Polygon ecosystem including POL staking, crypto purchases, and donations
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Soundromeda: ~900 unique wallets (180% of target), rebuilt authentication infrastructure
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Skybridge: ~$115K TVL (115% of target), native AVI Bridge Program launched with minimal outflows
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QSTN: ~650 wallets, ~5,500 onchain transactions on new platform
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Giveth Donation Agent: 104,107 transactions (104% of target), launched $40K QF matching pool with 40+ participating causes
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Folks Finance: Blew past TVL target of $500K currently at $3.61M TVL (722% of target)
Projects with Milestone Extensions (Through Year-End 2025):
Five projects have been granted extensions through December 31, 2025 to complete remaining milestones. Their current milestone impact is as follows:
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Guild: 10K lifetime passes distributed (50% of 20K transaction goal), creator token minting enabled
- Expected Allocation if Remaining Milestones Completed: 59,600 POL
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Hopscotch: Full Polygon integration complete, smart contracts deployed and verified
- Expected Allocation if Remaining Milestones Completed: 126,000 POL
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Illumicati/MILK: Optimized $MILK contract deployed on Polygon with bridge destination setup
- Expected Allocation if Remaining Milestones Completed: 115,500 POL
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NGRAVE: Developer build submitted for ZERO wallet and LIQUID app
- Expected Allocation if Remaining Milestones Completed: 126,000 POL
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ChainWiki: Enables fully decentralized documentation sites — a GitBook + Wikipedia hybrid with on-chain attestations. Serves as an RWA Verification Layer for data provenance and proof-of-reserve use cases. LIVE on Polygon
- Expected Allocation if Remaining Milestones Completed: 126,000 POL
Project Surveys & Success Stories
In September we surveyed our Thrive Polygon projects about their experience in our program. We are proud to report the results were exceptional.
Overall Sentiment
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Average Rating: 10/10
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Overall Satisfaction: Very Satisfied across all categories (Team Support, Grant Process, Communication, Timeliness, Platform Experience).
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Builders consistently describe Thrive as professional, supportive, and strategically aligned, highlighting improvements in speed, transparency, and ease of the funding experience.
Key Impact Themes
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Builders praised Thrive’s structured process, from application to milestone completion, as seamless and well-managed.
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Frequent mentions of clarity, responsiveness, and strategic alignment from the team.
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Thrive’s milestone-based funding model was highlighted as builder-friendly and effective for maintaining accountability.
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Thrive enabled new product launches and version upgrades that would not have been possible otherwise.
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Builders reported improved confidence in scaling projects within Polygon’s ecosystem.
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Speed & Efficiency: The 7–10 day decision cycle was repeatedly cited as a competitive differentiator.
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Transparency: Builders appreciated the dashboard for milestone and payment tracking, improving trust and autonomy.
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Human Support: Direct Telegram and email communication was described as “incredible,” “responsive,” and “compassionate.”
Project Success Stories
Below are two standout examples of projects with successful milestone completion:
Folks Finance:
Building Sustainable DeFi Infrastructure Across Chains
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Funding Amount: 180,000 POL
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Category: DeFi Lending & Asset Management Platform
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Total Impact: $3.61M TVL
Project Impact:
Folks Finance met their final milestone of $500K TVL within one month of launching, now far exceeding that milestone with a current TVL of $3.61M. The protocol deployed 100% of grant funds directly to community incentives, bootstrapping liquidity pools and creating sustainable, organic yield opportunities for Polygon users.
About:
Starting with lending and borrowing in 2022, Folks Finance expanded its offering to include debt segregation, liquidity aggregation, swaps, margin trading, liquid staking, and innovative composite features like leveraged liquid staking. After raising a seed round from Coinbase Ventures and others, Folks Finance became a cross-chain protocol generating sustainable revenue. This financial stability enabled them to take an atypical approach to grants, one that sets them apart from most DeFi protocols.
“We have a very atypical approach with economic support from foundations,” DeFi Lead, Zeno Auersperg, explained. “Our approach is not to monetize from grants or use them for development or team costs. What we thought was the best approach is to be very community-centric, which means that all the grants we received were 100% allocated to our community through targeted incentive campaigns, bootstrapping new liquidity pools, and so on.”
Folks Finance deployed their 180,000 POL allocation using a highly analytical, data-driven approach. They adjusted incentives weekly based on market conditions, pool utilization rates, and user behavior, strategically boosting APYs to attract liquidity. The goal was to initiate sustainable economic flywheels.
“Once you attract a certain amount of POL in a lending pool and you have liquid staking tokens listed as collateral, those LST holders are incentivized to loop their LSTs and maximize yield,” Auersperg described. “Once this starts, the incentives are not mandatory anymore because there’s organic, sustainable, long-term yield coming from borrowers. The end goal is long-term sustainability.”
On the Thrive Experience:
"We really enjoyed the support received from Thrive. Compared to other programs, there is much more support from the Thrive team. It’s a very active relationship, which is not always seen in this space. All the processes are quite smooth, and the mechanisms are smoother than other programs. I feel they are also fair and efficient.”
QSTN
Empowering Users to Monetize Their Data
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Funding Amount: 149,000 POL
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Category: Data Monetization & User Insights Platform
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Total Impact: 5,500 Transactions, 650+ Users
QSTN successfully launched their V2 platform on Polygon, achieving ~650 new users who signed up and performed actions, generating ~5,500 onchain transactions. The platform enables users to monetize their data through surveys and social media connections, with all rewards distributed via Polygon’s efficient, low-cost infrastructure.
The Story:
After launching their survey platform in October 2024 and reaching 10,000 users across 130 businesses, QSTN was ready to expand with V2: a social media data monetization platform. But taking the risk to launch a new product line required capital that a self-funded startup couldn’t easily spare. That’s where Thrive Protocol and Polygon came in.
“We’ve been big fans of Polygon. We have Polygon integrated in the survey platform, to have it in this new social media monetization platform was better. This grant really allowed me to take a risk and to release another product without hurting our bottom line,” CEO Orin Campbell explained.
The 149,000 POL funding covered critical development costs for smart contract deployment, legal updates for terms and conditions, leaderboard integration, and referral incentives. Polygon’s low gas fees proved essential for QSTN’s business model. “It’s cheap. It’s cost-effective. It’s scalable. We don’t have to spend a lot in gas fees to pay our users out,” Campbell noted.
On the Thrive Experience:
“I really like what Thrive is doing. I’ve gotten grants from a number of chains, and I feel like working with Thrive was one of the most streamlined processes,” Campbell shared. "What’s cool about Thrive is it’s solely focused on the merit of your project, whether or not it aligns with what they’re looking for and what they need for their ecosystem partner. Payments were streamlined, very quick, for onchain proof. Normally within 24 to 48 hours, we were reviewed and we were paid out to the wallet that we specified. It honestly changed my view on grants. This is the future of grants.”
Conclusion and Long Term Impact Assessment
Polygon entrusted Thrive Protocol to continue expanding the Polygon ecosystem through Season 2’s dual-track funding program. We accepted this responsibility with the same commitment to capital efficiency and measurable outcomes that defined Season 1.
Through rigorous application review, milestone-based funding, and industry-best verification, we expect to allocate over 1.8M POL in funding to 11 high-potential projects, with six already demonstrating significant traction and verified completion.
With an expected milestone completion rate of over 92%, 13 new projects deployed to Polygon, over $3.6M in TVL on Folks Finance alone (and growing), integration with NGRAVE, one of the top hardware wallets in crypto, and thousands of new unique wallets onboarded across projects like Soundromeda, Unicorn.Eth, and QSTN, we believe the long-term impact of Season 2 will deliver substantial ROI for the Polygon ecosystem.
Key Season 2 Achievements:
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Introduced dual-track structure (Boost + Launch) to serve both established and emerging projects
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Maintained 100% milestone-based payment verification through Thrive Protocol
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Achieved measurable ecosystem outcomes: TVL growth, user onboarding, transaction volume, and infrastructure deployment
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Conserved capital through performance-based releases, only paying for verified results with 528,000 POL being returned to Polygon
We’re proud of what we’ve built together and look forward to continuing to help build a more thriving Polygon ecosystem in the future.