Gitcoin Grants 20 (GG20) The New Premier Guide in 2024

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

Well-known projects such as Uniswap, 1inch, MaskNetwork, and ENS have all participated in Gitcoin Grants, earning Gitcoin the nickname “the arsenal of Ethereum.”

In each round of Gitcoin Grants, besides receiving donations from users, Gitcoin also utilizes a Quadratic Funding model to allocate funds from the Ethereum Foundation to high-quality projects. This allocation method has also received recognition from Vitalik Buterin, greatly boosting the community impact of Gitcoin Grants.

To date, Gitcoin Grants has conducted 19 rounds (including 17 rounds of Alpha and Beta Rounds), not only helping projects grow but also providing rewards such as token airdrops to donors. More and more users are entering the world of Web3 through Gitcoin.

Gitcoin has been exploring more efficient donation methods, transitioning from centralized matching donations (known as QF) to GitcoinDAO: creating a decentralized and customizable donation protocol.

Through the Gitcoin Alpha Round in January 2023 and the Gitcoin Beta Round in April, Gitcoin has refined its donation process. From April 23 to May 7, 2024, the first donation event of the year, Gitcoin Grants 20, officially commenced.

Introduction to Gitcoin Grants 20 (GG20)

In the guides written for the past few rounds of donations, we introduced the donation principles, round structures, and prize pool amounts of Gitcoin. As a concise guide, it should be as readable as a 140-character tweet:

• Gitcoin Grants 20 starts at 12:00 UTC on April 23 and ends at 00:00 on May 8.
• Gitcoin’s donation rounds are divided into Planned Rounds (OSS Program rounds) and Community Rounds. The $1 million funding for Planned Rounds comes from the Gitcoin Foundation, while the $500,000 funding for Community Rounds comes from partners/community self-raising.
• This time, Gitcoin will conduct donations on Arbitrum, and users’ Passports will be automatically verified. There is no need to collect Stamps as before. Users with rich transaction records on the mainnet will receive higher matching donation weights.

Gitcoin Grants 20 Donation FAQ

Q1: Why should I participate in Gitcoin donations?

A1: Gitcoin donations are good on-chain interactions. Optimism and Celestia have regarded “user donations on the mainnet through Gitcoin” 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 donation amount limit, the minimum amount for each project is at least greater than 1 U. Alternatively, due to ETH price fluctuations, you can choose to donate in DAI. If donating with ETH, considering price fluctuations, it is recommended to donate 0.0005 ETH or more. (Note: Some projects airdrop based solely on whether a donation is made, while others use the donation amount as a weight.)

Q3: When should I donate?

A3: Donations should not be made too late, as donating in the last few days may encounter network congestion, leading to missing the donation window. Passport verification for this donation is automated, so users can donate directly using wallets with mainnet transaction records to obtain weights, or they can go to Passport.gitcoin.co and connect Eth Activity Stamp to check.

Q4: Can I donate through multiple accounts to maximize airdrop profits?

A4: Unfortunately, Gitcoin’s expected airdrops and profits are not as significant as before, and they are now more of a “weight” for other project airdrops. According to the instructions for this round’s witch detection, we recommend that multi-account users focus on diversity when donating. You can adopt a 2-1 donation method, donating to 2 target projects and 1 random project, and avoid regularity in donation amounts and times.

Q5: What tools can I use to view donation status?

A5: Users can use Chaineye to view project status by donation amount and number of donors. Alternatively, you can use MiniBridge to donate funds to the ARB chain, minimizing network fees.

Gitcoin Grants 20 Donation Tutorial

Overall, Gitcoin donations are not too difficult and can be divided into three parts:

1. Obtaining Funds

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

2. Selecting Projects

You can see the donation status of all sections on the donation homepage:

Choose any section, such as Web3 Infrastructure. You can see that there are currently 63 projects in this section, with a prize pool of 300,000 USDC.

You can search for the project name to find the donation target, such as searching for Minibridge, then click the shopping cart in the lower right corner of the project, and then settle the payment in the shopping cart in the upper right corner.

Enter the desired donation amount, and click “Apply to all” to apply to all donation targets. In this interface, you can see the announced matching donation amount. For example, if I choose to donate 0.005 ETH, according to the current pool’s matching donation situation, MiniBridge can receive a matching donation of $864. Click submit to complete the donation!

Introduction to Gitcoin Grants 20 Donation Projects

1. Web3 Infrastructure

This category aims to strengthen the infrastructure of the Ethereum ecosystem by supporting the development of projects focused on scalability, security, privacy, interoperability, and user experience.

MiniBridge

MiniBridge is a “0-fee” cross-chain tool that supports multiple chains and offers fast confirmations. Developed by the Chaineye team for user small-scale transfer scenarios, MiniBridge received funding support from Gitcoin, Optimism, and Arbitrum. In dappsheriff.com’s user experience rankings, MiniBridge ranks first among all cross-chain bridge projects.

Facet

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

L2 BEAT

L2 BEAT is a dedicated analysis and research platform for Layer 2 scaling solutions. It proposes various important metrics and thoroughly analyzes each L2 project to understand its technical workings and related 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 positive social impact.

Hey.xyz

Hey.xyz (formerly Lenster) is a decentralized, permissionless social media application. Hey.xyz runs on the Polygon network, allowing users to seamlessly interact with dApps without paying any fees, and no one can delete any content from the application, even administrators. Hey.xyz is supported by Lens Protocol, a decentralized social graph established by Aave.

Revoke.cash

A one-stop platform for revoking authorizations, allowing users to revoke token authorizations immediately upon receiving attack reports.

JediSwap

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.

IDriss

Making it easier for ordinary people to access Web3 by building tools such as IDriss Book. IDriss Book is a decentralized Web3 address book where users can link their Twitter names, email addresses, and phone numbers to public wallet addresses for easier and safer interactions.

3. Developer Tools and Libraries

Supporting the efficiency of developers in open-source software (OSS) and the Web3 ecosystem. Seeking support for the creation of development environments, frameworks, testing tools, and libraries to achieve secure and efficient smart contract development.

OpenZeppelin Contracts

Helps users build secure smart contracts in Solidity by reducing the risk of vulnerabilities in applications through the use of standard, tested, and community-reviewed code. Since early Solidity in 2016, OpenZeppelin Contracts has been the preferred library for smart contract development. Today, it is used by development teams from projects with billions of dollars in daily transactions to individuals building blockchain applications.

Gaslite

Focused on Gas optimization, Gaslite aims to help protocols build a more efficient on-chain experience.

WAGMI

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

Blockscout

Blockscout is a full-featured open-source blockchain explorer that helps users deeply search, interact with contracts, and verify contracts on EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) blockchains.