Gate.io Blog What is Gitcoin?

What is Gitcoin?

21 August 22:28

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![](https://gimg2.gateimg.com/image/article/168862686611.jpeg)
## [TL;DR]

Gitcoin is a crypto platform where coders and developers can be compensated for their efforts on open-source software written in various programming languages.

Users can also use the Gitcoin platform for crowdsourcing funding from contributing donors for their project ideas.

Aside from direct community crowdfunding, Gitcoin uses a unique system known as quadratic funding to help match community funding efforts to accelerate the development of the most popular projects.

Overall, Gitcoin is a platform designed to encourage the creation of meaningful, open-source projects while better aligning donors and developers' and developers' interests.

## Introduction
![](https://gimg2.gateimg.com/image/article/168862689612.png)
<a href="/price/gitcoin-gtc" target="_blank" class="blog_inner_link">Gitcoin</a>.co

The crypto market is never short of altcoins, with more being created daily. In this melting pot of projects and ideas, what a company does to differentiate itself can be as interesting as its products — technological innovation, financial decentralization, or distinctive branding. Gitcoin (GTC) is a decentralized crypto platform that distinguishes itself by investing in open-source projects. The native coin GTC is currently trading at $3.24, with a trading volume of $11.49 million and a market capitalization of $46 million.

## What is Gitcoin?

Gitcoin is a crypto platform launched in November 2017 to foster collaboration on open-source software projects. It accomplishes this by motivating developers with reward payments and grants to take on development projects. Because open-source software is free and open, many developers contribute to them with little to no direct compensation. However, Gitcoin became a compensation system to galvanize developers who want to contribute to meaningful open-source software applications.

The primary niche and focus of the Gitcoin platform are "public goods" products intended to benefit everyone without necessarily competing with one another. Projects related to clean air, infrastructure, and privacy are examples of public goods projects. It is noteworthy that most Gitcoin-funded public goods projects address blockchain within the <a href="/price/ethereum-eth" target="_blank" class="blog_inner_link">Ethereum</a> ecosystem. There are ongoing projects,

Gitcoin aims to attract talented developers by providing financial incentives to participate in hackathons, bounties, and funded community grants. Developers who want to work on a project can submit it to the Gitcoin platform and crowdsource funding from other contributors directly, as well as participate in quarterly opportunities to earn funding through the innovative mechanism known as quadratic funding.

## Features/ Open-source usage in Gitcoin

### Quadratic funding
Through a democratic and proprietary system known as quadratic funding, <a href="/price/gitcoin-gtc" target="_blank" class="blog_inner_link">Gitcoin crypto</a> funding is directed to public goods projects. Quadratic funding is a crowdfunding campaign in which individual donations are matched with corresponding amounts of funding from larger pools of funds provided by more prominent donors. Rather than a 1:1 ratio, funds are "matched" according to a proprietary formula. The formula has been tweaked to reward projects that receive more community support. For instance, if a grant receives 100 individual $1 USD donations, it will receive more in matched funds than a grant that receives one $100 donation.

### Developer Grants:
Developers with a goal can use quadratic funding on the Gitcoin platform to fund their projects. Users who submit their grants must create a clear project title and de_script_ion and specify whether they want contributors to donate funds in a specific ERC-20 token (Gitcoin supports all ERC-20 tokens). Gitcoin has provided over $50 million in funding for open-source projects across the tech industry, assisting approximately 50,000 funders and close to 250,000 developers. With more than300,000 developers visiting Gitcoin's web domain monthly, the platform is active and famous in the crypto community.

### Gitcoin Bounties:
Gitcoin allows users to crowdsource support from available developers on the Gitcoin platform to fund specific technological development issues. A user would have to create an issue on GitHub and fund the issue on Gitcoin (specifying project details, a completion timeline, and other expectations or relevant information). The contributors may submit a short form to express their interest in completing the issue. The bounties can be permissioned, requiring funder approval before beginning work, or permissionless, allowing anyone to complete the bounty at any time. Funders can choose workers at their leisure, set deadlines, and cancel at any time using Gitcoin bounties.

### Hackathons:
These are events organized by Gitcoin, where programmers come together to try to create a working software project from scratch in a short period. These competitions can be designed as a motivational or trust-building exercise for the sake of professional interest, or they can be for practice.

### Community governance through Gitcoin Token (GTC):
A DAO governs Gitcoin, and users can participate in platform governance by proposing and voting on various proposals using their Gitcoin tokens (GTC). The platform is gradually transitioning to complete decentralization, with the community eventually taking over all platform governance. The goal of the GTC token distribution is to reward both early Gitcoin platform users and future contributors. 15% of the GTC is distributed in a retroactive airdrop to platform users, 35% to existing stakeholders, and 50% to be distributed by Gitcoin's DAO. The retroactive airdrops were distributed to early platform users who participated in activities such as opening a bounty, submitting work to a bounty, opening a grant, or contributing to a grant, among others. The founders, investors, employees, and strategic partners received most of the GTC distributed to stakeholders. The GTC tokens reserved for the Gitcoin DAO are managed by a community-led treasury. They will be released in equal monthly installments until all 50 million GTC tokens are unlocked in May 2023.

## How Does Gitcoin Work?

Gitcoin democratically funds open-source projects, seeking ways to contribute to the digital space while adhering to the core values of decentralized finance (Defi). The platform naturally and practically fosters relationships between funders and developers, utilizing the techniques mentioned above to provide funds to those most deserving.

The platform primarily fulfills these functions through Github, founded in 2008, and has since grown to become one of the Internet's primary hosting platforms for coding projects. In this case, however, Github serves as Gitcoin's primary interface, hosting various programs and projects to achieve the cryptocurrency company's stated objectives.
![](https://gimg2.gateimg.com/image/article/168862697513.png)
github.com

## Conclusion

Gitcoin takes an unprecedented approach, relying on open-source projects to achieve the company's goal of complete decentralization.

Although Gitcoin and GTC's recent price performance is not uncommon in the crypto world, it is still concerning. Nevertheless, from a broader perspective, Gitcoin's approach has the potential to impact the world of cryptocurrency trade in general, and it allows for experimentation with a wide range of intriguing ideas. With the evolution of the Metaverse and the larger Web 3.0, innovative companies such as Gitcoin may eventually propel the crypto world and the decentralized web to new heights of prosperity.
<div class="blog-details-info">
<div>Author:** Mashell C.**, Gate.io Researcher
<div class="info-tips">\*This article represents only the views of the researcher and does not constitute any investment suggestions.
<div>\*Gate.io reserves all rights to this article. Reposting of the article will be permitted provided Gate.io is referenced. In all cases, legal action will be taken due to copyright infringement.
</div>

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