Gitcoin Grants 20 Minimalist Guide

Author: Shouyi, Core Contributor of Biteye

Editor: Crush, Core Contributor of Biteye

Gitcoin is a donation platform for open-source software, allowing users to support various decentralized open-source projects. Early-stage projects can also receive donations on Gitcoin to sustain their operations.

Well-known projects such as Uniswap, 1inch, MaskNetwork, and ENS have participated in Gitcoin Grants, which is why Gitcoin is also referred to as "the armory of Ethereum."

In each round of Gitcoin Grants, in addition to receiving donations from users, Gitcoin also allocates funds from the Ethereum Foundation to quality projects using a quadratic funding model. This allocation method has been recognized by Vitalik Buterin, greatly enhancing the community impact of Gitcoin Grants.
Quadratic Funding: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJljTtLnymE

To date, Gitcoin Grants has conducted 19 donation events (17 rounds + Alpha Round + Beta Round), helping projects grow while also providing donors with rewards such as token airdrops. More and more users are entering the world of Web3 through Gitcoin.

Gitcoin has been exploring more efficient donation methods, aiming to transition from centralized grants (i.e., QF) to GitcoinDAO: creating a decentralized and customizable grant protocol.

Through the Gitcoin Alpha Round in January 2023 and the Gitcoin Beta Round in April, Gitcoin has refined its donation methods. From April 23 to May 7, 2024, the first donation event of this year: Gitcoin Grants 20 officially begins.
https://www.gitcoin.co/blog/announcing-gg20

Next, Biteye will briefly introduce the differences of Gitcoin Grants 20 compared to previous donations and has carefully selected some quality projects while providing convenient donation pathways.

01 Introduction to Gitcoin Grants 20

In the guides written for previous donation rounds, we introduced Gitcoin's donation philosophy, round composition, and prize pool amounts. However, as a minimalist guide, it should be as easy to read as a 140-character tweet 📖:

⏰ Gitcoin Grants 20 starts at 20:00 Beijing time on April 23 and ends at 8:00 on May 8.

💰 Gitcoin's donation rounds are divided into planned rounds (OSS Program rounds) and community rounds (Community Rounds). The $1 million funding for the planned rounds comes from the Gitcoin Foundation, while the $500,000 funding for the community rounds is self-raised by partners/communities.

This time, Gitcoin will conduct donations on Arbitrum, and users' Passports will be automatically verified, eliminating the need to receive a Stamp as in the past. Users with rich transaction records on the mainnet will receive higher matching donation weights.
https://grants-portal.gitcoin.co/passports-model-based-detection

02 Gitcoin Grants 20 Donation FAQ

Q1: Why do I need to participate in Gitcoin donations?

A1: Gitcoin donations are a good on-chain interaction behavior. Optimism and Celestia have considered "users making Gitcoin donations on the mainnet" as one of the weights for airdrops. Donations are also a low-cost way to improve Passport scores.

Q2: How much should I donate?

A2: Although Gitcoin does not have a limit on donation amounts, the minimum amount for each project is at least greater than 1U. On the other hand, due to ETH price fluctuations, you can choose to donate using DAI; if donating with ETH, considering price volatility, it is recommended to donate at least 0.0005 ETH. (Note: Some projects only airdrop based on whether a donation was made, while others will weigh the donation amount.)

Q3: When should I make a donation?

A3: Donations should not be made too late, as network congestion in the last few days can lead to missing the donation deadline. This time, Passport verification is automated, so users can directly use wallets with mainnet transaction records to donate and gain weight. You can also visit Passport.gitcoin.co and connect to Eth Activity Stamp for viewing.
Passport: http://passport.gitcoin.co/

Q4: Can I use multiple accounts to gain airdrop benefits?

A4: Unfortunately, Gitcoin's airdrop expectations and benefits are not as high as before; now it is more of "one of the weights" for airdrops from other projects. According to the explanation of this round's witch detection, we recommend that users with multiple accounts focus on diversity when donating. You can adopt a 2+1 donation method, which means 2 target projects plus 1 random project, and avoid overly regular amounts and donation times.

Q5: What tools can I use to check my donation status?

A5: Users can check project statuses by donation amount and number of donors through Chaineye, and can also use MiniBridge to transfer funds to the ARB chain for donations, which can minimize network fees.

(Source: chaineye.tools/gg20)
Chaineye: https://chaineye.tools/gg20 MiniBridge: https://minibridge.chaineye.tools

03 Gitcoin Grants 20 Donation Tutorial

Overall, Gitcoin donations are not very difficult and can be divided into three parts:
(1) Obtain funds

Transfer funds to Arbitrum; here we can use MiniBridge to transfer ETH from other chains. For small interactions like Gitcoin, using MiniBridge can achieve faster arrival speeds and lower cross-chain rates.

(Using MiniBridge for cross-chain transfer)
(2) Choose a project

You can see the donation status of all sections on the donation homepage:
https://explorer.gitcoin.co

Select any section, for example, Web3 Infrastructure, where you can see that there are currently 63 projects in this section with a prize pool of 300,000 USDC.

(View the status of various sections in the planned rounds)

We can search for the project name to find the donation target, for example, search 🔍 Minibridge, then click the shopping cart at the bottom right of the project, and check out at the shopping cart in the top right corner.

(Searching can help find donation targets faster)

Enter the amount you wish to donate, and you can click Apply to all to apply it to all donation targets. On this interface, you can see the anticipated matching donation amount. For example, if I choose to donate 0.005 ETH, based on the current pool's matching situation, MiniBridge can receive $864 in matching donations. Click submit to complete the donation! ✅

(Wallets with mainnet records can receive higher weights)

04 Introduction to Gitcoin Grants 20 Donation Projects (Continuously Updated)

(1) Web3 Infrastructure

This category aims to strengthen the infrastructure of the Ethereum ecosystem by supporting developments focused on scalability and security, particularly in the areas of privacy, interoperability, and user experience.
https://explorer.gitcoin.co/#/round/42161/26

1. MiniBridge
https://explorer.gitcoin.co/#/round/42161/26/26

MiniBridge is a "zero-fee" cross-chain tool that supports multiple chains and offers fast confirmations, developed by the Chaineye team for small user transfer scenarios. Chaineye was a winning project at the 2023 Shanghai Ethereum Conference, receiving funding support from Gitcoin, Optimism, and Arbitrum. In the user experience ratings on dappsheriff.com, MiniBridge ranks first among all cross-chain bridge projects.

2. Facet
https://explorer.gitcoin.co/#/round/42161/26/51

Facet is a secure, decentralized, and cost-effective computing protocol that can reduce Ethereum transaction costs by up to 99% without changing the Ethereum protocol itself.

3. L2 BEAT
https://explorer.gitcoin.co/#/round/42161/26/66

L2 BEAT is a dedicated analysis and research platform for L2 scaling solutions, proposing various important metrics and thoroughly analyzing each L2 project to understand its internal workings and associated risks.
(2) Decentralized Applications (dApps & Apps)

This category aims to accelerate the growth and widespread use of dApps and applications. It focuses on supporting dApps and applications that optimize Web3 accessibility and provide financial inclusion, educational opportunities, and create positive social impacts.

1. Hey.xyz
https://explorer.gitcoin.co/#/round/42161/25/1

Hey.xyz (formerly Lens ter) is a decentralized, permissionless social media application. Hey.xyz runs on the Polygon network, allowing users to interact seamlessly with dApps without incurring any fees, and no one can remove any content from the application, not even administrators. Hey.xyz is powered by Lens Protocol, a decentralized social graph established by Aave.

2. Revoke.cash
https://explorer.gitcoin.co/#/round/42161/25/25

A one-stop platform for revoking authorizations, allowing users to quickly use Revoke to cancel token authorizations upon receiving attack reports.

3. JediSwap
https://explorer.gitcoin.co/#/round/42161/25/96

JediSwap is a DEX built on StarkNet—StarkNet is a Validity Rollup on Ethereum that achieves unlimited scalability for Web3 while relying on Ethereum's security. JediSwap is a fully community-driven project, and anyone can start contributing to JediSwap by joining the JediSwap Discord.

4. IDriss
https://explorer.gitcoin.co/#/round/42161/25/92

Building tools like IDriss Book to make it easier for ordinary people to access Web3. IDriss Book is a decentralized Web3 address book where users can link their Twitter names, emails, and phone numbers to public wallet addresses for easier and safer interactions.
(3) Developer Tooling and Libraries

Funding to improve developer efficiency in open-source software (OSS) and the Web3 ecosystem. Seeking support for the creation of development environments, frameworks, testing tools, and libraries to enable secure and efficient smart contract development.
https://explorer.gitcoin.co/#/round/42161/27

1. OpenZeppelin Contracts
https://explorer.gitcoin.co/#/round/42161/27/41

Helping users build secure smart contracts in Solidity by using standard, tested, and community-reviewed code to reduce the risk of vulnerabilities in applications. Since the early days of Solidity in 2016, OpenZeppelin Contracts has been the preferred library for smart contract development. Today, it is used by development teams of the largest projects that trade billions of dollars daily, as well as individuals building blockchain applications.

2. Gaslite
https://explorer.gitcoin.co/#/round/42161/27/4

Gaslite is a project focused on gas optimization, aiming to help protocols build a more efficient on-chain experience.

3. WAGMI
https://explorer.gitcoin.co/#/round/42161/27/30

Wagmi is a React Hooks and VanillaJS library for Ethereum, widely used by ENS, Optimism, Coinbase, Stripe, Shopify, Farcaster, Zora, PancakeSwap, Gitcoin, and others.

4. Blockscout
https://explorer.gitcoin.co/#/round/42161/27/12

Blockscout is a fully-featured open-source blockchain explorer that helps users perform deep searches, interact with contracts, and verify contracts on EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) blockchains.