I propose that we earmark* 6.9m GTC to go to Gitcoin Citizens rounds for the next 4.20 years. These tokens will be deployed on Allo to build the Allo ecosystem, building an upward spiral of innovation around Gitcoin.
- earmark = social understanding that this amount of tokens will go to Citizens. Future proposals will be submitted with specifics about how they will be allocated.
My fellow Gitcoin Citizens,
We have come a long way over the past 3 years, and once again, Gitcoin sits at an important juncture.
We have had some limited success with our current operating model and momentum. Notably, almost $5m in GMV in 2024 [source]. I want to thank everyone who has supported that success so far. At the same time, I want to recognize that what got us there will not get us there.
Where is “there”?
That opportunity ahead of is capital allocation, starting with grants. As the EVM eats the world, $trillions will become tokenized. This will create enormous opportunities for Gitcoin to deploy flavors of Quadratic Funding, Retroactive Funding, and other capital allocation strategies to everyday communities. A core human need in the 21st century is Funding What Matters. The TAM for this is all of humanity.
The moment is now. As more & more communities go onchain in the coming decade, we will upgrade the way these communities coordinate. We will empower them to allocate capital in a more scalable, precise, decentralized, and effective manner. This will enable them to work together bottoms-up to address 2030-era coordination failures.
TLDR - We want to be the Allocation layer of the post-tokenization internet.
I believe that this trillion $$$ opportunity can not be attained with the current operating model, which relies too heavily on Grants Lab. Grants Lab is doing a good job, but I think that by activating the power of citizens, Gitcoin (including Grants Lab AND citizens) can do a great job. There is asymmetric upside in disrupting our operating current model and seizing the enormously wide opportunity ahead.
How do we do this?
If you’ve read my latest book, the “Exploring the design space” section, you know that I am bullish on relying on the broader Ethereum community to explore the design space with us. The community is bubbling with talent, gumption, and ambition to build cool funding tools.
We have not yet activated this community at any meaningful scale yet.
But there are glimmers of activation. Just look at all of the innovation we’ve gotten by partnering with talent builders!
(Note GMV = Gross Marketplace Value, basically how much $$$ went through that tool?)
Wow! It seems to me that many great builds are happening on Allo outside of Grants Lab.
This is a meaningful insight.
And a window of opportunity.
We have discovered something extremely important/meaningful for Gitcoin & its mission and attainment of the trillion $$ market opportunity we see ahead of us…
We’ve learned to empower external builders with Allo, instead of just building on Allo ourselves. By doing so we can capture more GMV + explore a broader set of use cases with higher ROI. I mean just look at the GMV/$$$ metric (a measure of how much gitcoin spent in $$$ to develop a product vs how much GMV, Gross Marketplace Value, its generated).
- Trad Grants Stack QF = 0.92 GMV/$
- EasyRetroPGF = $25 GMV/$
- REDACTED = $1000 GMV/$ *potential GMV
I think we should scale the lessons that got us here. I propose we update how Gitcoin allocates capital. I think that
- Grants Lab should double down triple down on empowering Gitcoin Citizens to build on Allo.
- Starting now + until Devcon/Ethdenver, Grants Lab focuses primarily on building developer tools that the developers (both internal + external) love.
- At Devcon, we announce
- 6.9M in funding from GitcoinDAO has been earmarked towards Allo/Citizens Builds. If ratified, an open community-driven Allo/Grants Ships round to be run to determine how to allocate it.
- AlloKit, Allo 2.1, and other various dev tools, to enable builders to build dApps that Fund What Matters.
Why do this?
- Because Gitcoin needs to become (a) more successful in the market + (b) more DAO-like.
- This direction is already proven at small scales + therefore significantly derisked (just look at the chart above).
- Gitcoin has 24.5m GTC and ~50(ish) months left of runway at current market levels. Our data above shows that the rest of the GTC should be spent WAY MORE on Citizens. This is a test of that direction. And a disruption of the current implicit status quo of that $$ being earmarked for Grants Lab.
- This is a true pilot for creation of the Gitcoin Citizens Value Flows.
Implementation Details
- [Grants Lab] Allo Kit, Allo 2.1 to be built by Grants Lab before Devcon
- [Grants Lab] Grants Lab leaders are rebuilding the Grants Lab product organization after the move to multi-mechanism (and the move from Grants Stack to Allokit + similar tools) created some talent turnover.
- [DAO] Kevin + other Gitcoin stewards to explore how to create long term economic partnerships with Allo builders.
- [DAO] We ALL become live players + build Gitcoin 2.2 together.
- [Foundation] Mathilda is currently stewarding Gitcoin Citizens. We all need to rally around & empower her to be successful in navigating forward! Starting here.
Vote
- Earmark 6.9M to GTC Citizens
- Do Not Earmark 6.9M to GTC Cititzens
- Abstain
Feedback welcome!
Comment below.
Here is some feedback I’ve gotten so far from sharing this post while it was in draft mode.
I think well want to see these things solved BEFORE actually letting much of these earmarked funds actually start to flow. And we should scale funding with our ability to solve these problems. Each stepwise increase in solved problem should equal a stepwise increase in funding! (eg We should gain confidence in these progressively as progressively more funds start to flow. )
- validate allokit + the allo stack - to make sure they are good to build on first, before we add token incentives to build on it.
- imo the north star here is “what would have to be true for a medium-skill-level hackathon developer to get up and running on allo in < 3 mins? and productive in < 30 mins?”
- validate citizens rounds. - how that citizens can be held to high standards in citizens rounds?
- how can they be accountable to generating value for gitcoin? how can gitcoin compete with other incentive programs out there for talent/attention?
- create alignmentwe might want to partially lockup some of these payouts to create longer term alignment between gitcoin/the citizens. long term (3,3s) create Upward Spirals
(thanks @meglister for gibbing me this feedback. feedback is a gift!)