What Is Gitcoin (GTC)?

Gitcoin (GTC) is a blockchain-based platform and a community of builders, creators, and protocols working together to shape the future of the open internet. Gitcoin's mission is to build and fund digital public goods. 

Today, the internet has unlocked a world of possibilities for collaboration and creation. Technologies like open-source protocols and decentralized blockchains enable businesses to take that co-creation to a new scale. Thus, the Gitcoin community makes use of these technologies to fund and create digital public goods projects that benefit everyone and provide immediate solutions to their problems.

Open-source software is considered the critical component of software development and modern computing. This software provides users with the source code that anyone can check, modify, and enhance. Therefore, as stated in the whitepaper, Gitcoin aims to promote the collaboration of open-source software projects. But, as open-source software is free and open by nature, many developers contributing to these projects receive little or no compensation in return. To overcome this issue, Gitcoin seeks to provide financial incentives and grants to developers who embark on development projects.

Another important feature offered by Gitcoin is Quadratic Funding. This is a patented democratic approach adopted by Gitcoin through which crypto funding is directed to public goods initiatives. Quadratic Funding offers a structure where individual donations are matched with an equivalent amount of funding from larger pools of funds provided by bigger donors. The mechanism amplifies the contributions made by large communities over the donations made by a small group with high-paying capacities. The matching of funds is done using a proprietary formula, which is then optimized to benefit projects with more community support.

Additionally, Gitcoin offers bounties, which allows users to crowdsource support from accessible developers on the Gitcoin platform to fund certain technological development issues. To fund a bounty, a user must first create an issue on GitHub, then fund it with Gitcoin (specifying project specifics, a completion deadline, and any other relevant information), following which contributors can fill out a simple form expressing their interest in resolving the issue. Gitcoin bounties can be permissioned, requiring funder consent before starting work, or permissionless, allowing anyone at any time to finish the bounty. Using Gitcoin bounties, funders can choose workers at their leisure, set deadlines, and cancel at any time.

Gitcoin's native token is named GTC, which is an ERC20 token with no economic value. This implies the token has no financial rights. It is primarily used to administer the Gitcoin ecosystem. The primary focus of the token is to allow communities to create and fund open-source projects. Moreover, the GTC is used by Gitcoin's decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) to decentralize and govern the platform by putting the future of the platform in the hands of the community growing around it. 

Gitcoin has also introduced a Stewards Delegation Program. Voting rights for GTC holders are proportional to the number of tokens they own. They can delegate their voting rights to community stewards so that they can vote on their behalf, without giving up their tokens. Stewards are individuals of the community who actively participate in governance. The community has a direct impact on their influence. The more voting rights they have, the more the community trusts their stewardship. Anyone can become a steward by simply agreeing to the voting rights.

History of Gitcoin (GTC)

Kevin Owocki and Scott Moore are the founders of Gitcoin, which was founded in November 2017. Owocki is the CEO, and Moore is the technical growth lead and the director of research at Gitcoin.  

Owocki completed his BS in computer science from the University of Delaware and worked at several renowned companies like Barclays and Vanguard. Similarly, Moore completed his bachelor’s degree in mathematics and political science from the University of Toronto. Before joining Gitcoin, he worked at a number of reputable companies, including Bell, Picolo Research, and others.

Gitcoin’s DAO and governance token was launched in May 2021.

How Many GTC Coins Are There?

The total supply of GTC coins is capped at 100 million GTC

How to Buy GTC Coins

Users can easily buy Gitcoin (GTC) at several exchanges like Coinbase, which safe, secure, and easy to use. GTC is available on Coinbase.com as well as Coinbase app.