Gitcoin: Web3.0 Opensource On Steroids

A fundamental and critical piece of a decentralized future of the internet public good, and services lies in the architecture on which it is built.

In the case of distributed ledger technologies, multiple projects are getting built with different philosophies and methods. Nonetheless, decentralization and decentralized protocols are the “acclaimed” end target.

However it goes, the most successful projects, in the end, would be the ones that are open-sourced, and well funded by the community, making it easy to onboard builders and developers.

In this publication, I review Gitcoin, a project making it easy to build and fund Web3 applications and services.

These topics are discussed in this publication:

• What Is Gitcoin?

• Gitcoin’s Features.

• The Gitcoin $GTC Governance Token

• Why Gitcoin?

• Getting Started On The Gitcoin Platform.

• Projects and Developers Using Gitcoin.

  
  

Key Points

• Decentralized protocols need to be open-sourced for longevity.
• Gitcoin is an Ethereum-based crowdfunding platform built to foster open source contributions to developing projects.
• Gitcoin features include grants, hackathons, kernels, and bounties.
• The Gitcoin $GTC token is used for governance on the platform.
• Contributors get to learn, earn, contribute to projects and get hired on/through Gitcoin.
• Gitcoin uses a quadratic funding mechanism to ensure more funds go to projects the community cares about the most.
• Wallet Connect, Uniswap, Arweave, The Graph, The BNB Chain, and many other popular blockchain-based projects have used Gitcoin for their development.

What Is Gitcoin?

Gitcoin is an Ethereum-based crowdfunding platform designed to aid opensource contributors in capturing part of the value their projects create in the global economy by empowering communities of builders to connect and work together to create the future of the open web open economy.

Numerous open-source projects often get discontinued and abandoned by developers and contributors due to a lack of funding. Billions of dollars are created from the utility open-source projects provide, and barely any amount of this goes to project contributors; this shies many developers away from the thought of contributing to open-source projects.

Gitcoin was founded in 2017 by Kevin Owocki. The platform pays developers working on open-source technologies, creating a space for them to earn, learn, connect, build and raise funding.

Gitcoin can be said to be an “Internet of Jobs” platform running on the quadratic funding (a system of democratic funding) model.

Gitcoin Features

• Gitcoin Kernel is a learn and build program aiming to connect communities of open-source developers.

• Gitcoin Bounties connect open-source developers to bug bounties and other meaningful projects.

• Gitcoin Hackathons are designed to aid open-source contributors in earning by working on tasks as specified by the sponsors.

• Gitcoin Grants provide an avenue for the web3 community to fund open-source projects for public benefit.

  
  

The Gitcoin platform also gives organizations an avenue to hire vetted developers to work on their projects, collaborate and raise funding.

The Gitcoin $GTC Governance Token

At the center of the Gitcoin ecosystem is the GTC token. GTC is a token on the Ethereum network and is used as a medium of governance for the Gitcoin DAO.

The Gitcoin DAO is a step taken by the developers of Gitcoin towards the decentralization of the platform.

$GTC DATA

• Total Supply → 100,000,000 GTC
• Exchanges → Binance, Kucoin, Uniswap e.t.c
• Contract Address → 0xde30da39c46104798bb5aa3fe8b9e0e1f348163f
• Uses → Governance and proposals
• Current Market Capitalization → $87,965,356

You can get more information about $GTC here.

Why Gitcoin?

The Web3 space is just getting started and contributing to open source while getting incentives is a good way to level up and gain new skills and experiences.

Gitcoin Contributors get to:

• Learn

• Earn

• Contribute to the development of Opensource technologies

• Get hired

  
  

The quadratic funding mechanism Gitcoin uses ensures that more funds are allocated to projects the majority of the community cares about.

Getting Started On The Gitcoin Platform

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-gkxBG84TI

Getting started with contributing to open-source on gitcoin is easy.

Steps

1. Create an account on Github.
2. Sign in to Gitcoin using your Github account.
3. Connect to your Ethereum wallet (Metamask) for funding-related purposes.

Projects and Developers Using Gitcoin

Gitcoin has been pivotal to the development of many solid blockchain projects, not just on Ethereum.

Projects using Gitcoin:

• Uniswap.

• Arweave.

• Near Protocol.

• The BNB Chain.

• The Graph.

• Wallet Connect.

• Trust Wallet and so many others...

  
  

Open source has played a great role in the development of the technology ecosystem and the same can be seen in the Web3.0 ecosystem, with platforms like Gitcoin empowering developers to build without boundaries.

The future of jobs would be autonomous and decentralized; maybe just like the Gitcoin model, only time will tell!