[jwarden]

Here's a very brief summary of what Quadratic Funding is (which is distinct from Quadratic Voting):

Quadratic Funding is a mechanism where individuals voluntarily contribute funds for some public good (e.g. an open source software project), and then these are matched such that the total funding amount is equal to the square of the sum of the square roots of the individual contributions. Under certain assumptions, this formula results in an optimal outcome, where each individual contributes an amount that maximizes their individual utility (given what others are contributing), and total utility for society is also maximized.