Why And How to Donate on Gitcoin Grants?

In case you haven’t heard of it, Gitcoin Grants is a crowdfunding program hosted by Gitcoin — a platform supporting open-source software development. It holds recurrent funding rounds for Web3 startups in several categories. GG18 is the currently active round. Take a look at all the amazing projects out there.

Why would you be interested?

It’s a good initiative. Gitcoin Grants aims to provide sustainable funding for digital public goods that contribute to Web3 ecosystem growth. So, by donating at Gitcoin you would be involved in The Independent Web evolution, no less. Web3 is at the beginning of its journey and the most exciting part of it is the one yet to be built. Hundreds of applications are being created right now to transform how humanity interacts through technologies. Their developers need support, and if this doesn’t sound like an exciting opportunity, reading further would probably be a waste of time.

The joy of belonging aside, Gitcoin Grants implements an interesting mechanism to amplify the value of individual contributions. It is an algorithm for fair allocation of investments, proposed by Vitalik Buterin and called Quadratic Funding. In simple terms it works like this: in addition to the donations of private contributors, there is a shared pool, provided by Gitcoin partners. At the end of the round, it is distributed among the participating projects in proportion to the number of private contributors, regardless of the raised total. E.g., a project with a hundred 1$ donations gets much more than the one with ten donations of 100$ each. Essentially, it’s a voting system. You get a vote no matter the amount of coins you give. Currently (GG18) the minimum donation is equivalent to $1. So, it is cheap for you, and your voice does make a difference.

How to donate?

Be warned: the preparation is not for the faint of heart. That is if you are new to Crypto. If you aren’t — you should be fine.

1. Explore the projects

Head over to https://grants.gitcoin.co/ and look through the list of active rounds.

Each has a specified theme, like Web3 Open Source Software, Climate Solutions etc. and its own matching pool — this is the money to be distributed among the applicants according to Quadratic Funding algorithm we have described above.

So, choose a round and explore the projects. There are dozens in each round, reading through all of them might take a while. You are allowed and encouraged to vote for multiple projects.

2. Have a wallet

Now to be able to chip in for the projects you liked you need a crypto wallet. Hit Connect Wallet button in the top right corner.

Gitcoin allows a few different options, the most common being Metamask.

If you don’t have one, go to https://metamask.io/ and download a browser extension or a mobile app. The setup takes a few seconds (just don’t forget to write down Recovery Phrase). And if you get into trouble, Metmask has a Getting Started guide.

Confirm the sign-in. With a wallet connected you can donate, but…

3. Verify Gitcoin Passport

If you want your donation to count as a vote for the matching system, you need to create and verify a Gitcoin Passport. It is Gitcoin’s tool to identify a user as a unique person. It’s important to prove you are, given the machining mechanism (every voice count). You can donate without it, but then it’s just a donation.

Note: the official tutorial states that upon connecting a wallet to Gitcoin Grants, the page should display a banner with a reminder to create and verify a Passport. Unfortunately, it may not work as promised. So be vigilant.

Go to Gitcoin Passport page and click Sign-in with Ethereum.

This will connect Gitcoin Passport to your wallet again. Refresh your Stamps. Stamps are verification methods. There are about 25 of them, including Web2 identity providers, like Google and Facebook, and several decentralized applications.

Each has its value toward the final score. And some provide different values depending on your activity with that technology. Say, Ethereum network can be used for verification with at least one outgoing transaction, no matter the size. If that transaction is over a month old, you get more points. Then, the more ETH you own, the more points you get.

The goal is to collect 20 points. Verify your Gitcoin Passport with as many different accounts as you can. It takes a few clicks for each method: hit Connect Account, select the criteria you can pass, hit Verify, review, and confirm permissions, sign it in Metamask. The steps vary slightly but in general it’s a simple process.

But hitting that score of 20 points — isn’t. We created a fresh wallet and here’s the list of the Stamps we had to collect to achieve the score:

• Facebook — a profile with photo
• Google — just being logged in is fine
• Twitter — more points for an old account
• Discord — just log in
• GitHub — the account is old, but not very active, only one criteria passed
• Coinbase — just log in
• ENS — our test subject bought a name in .eth domain for $5 for 1 year
• ETH — fresh wallet with few USD worth of coins, made one 2$ transaction. If you are an active Ethereum user, you get much more points from this method
• NFT Holder — automatically acquired the NameWrapper NFT by buying ENS name

So, we made two small transactions $7 total. And we’ve spent $15 as gas fees.

There are many other options, you might have previously used some of the available decentralized identification tools and make it to 20 for free.

4. Make sure you have all the right coins available

Next thing to keep in mind — GG18 is deployed on Optimism, which is a second level network based on Ethereum Blockchain. It is a good thing because gas is significantly cheaper on it. You won’t have to spend $20 on gas making a $1 donation. But first you need to transfer some ETH to Optimism. This process is called Bridging.

To bridge coins from Ethereum to Optimism you have two options.

1.   Open Metamask, choose Bridge. You will be redirected to a dedicated page. Select Optimism as a receiver network. Put in the sum of ETH to transfer and confirm.

2.   The other option for bridging is available at Optimism homepage. First connect your wallet. The rest of the interface is nearly identical to Metamask Bridge.

In both cases Ethereum gas fees apply.

5. Donate

The rest is a breeze. Go back to https://grants.gitcoin.co/. Click Add to Cart directly in the list of projects or from the individual project page. If you donate to multiple projects, better do it in one transaction, so you pay for gas only once.

Go to Cart, review, and checkout.

Sign the transaction in Metamask. Tweet and be proud.

If you have read this far, go ahead and try using your newfound knowledge. You may even consider expressing your gratitude for the tutorial by donating to Eppie. Because it’s awesome! Eppie is a decentralized email, where users are the true owners of their accounts, their addresses, and their data. It’s also backwards compatible with traditional email, and just as easy to use. Anyone who can use email, can go crypto!

Here is the project page on Gitcoin Grants Web3 Open Source Software round.

Farewell tip: gas fees are usually the lowest at 1:00 to 2:00 UTC and 9:00 to 11:00 UTC.