Gitcoin, the decentralized funding platform for years, has coordinated the distribution of grants to open-source projects in the Ethereum space. It does this through grants, virtual events and hackathons, and an incubator. By organizing grant rounds and raising matching funds, it’s helped get projects like decentralized exchanges Uniswap and 1inch off the ground.
Recently Gitcoin raised $11.3 million in an investment round led by Paradigm, the crypto venture capital fund founded by Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam and former Sequoia Capital partner Matt Huang. Additional investors included 1kx, Electric Capital, IDEO, The LAO, and MetaCartel Ventures, as well as angel investors Naval Ravikant and Balaji Srinivasan.
The funding is enough for Gitcoin to spin out of Ethereum studio ConsenSys and become more decentralized. Now, one of the Ethereum ecosystem's biggest funders is setting its path to spearheading a range of tools for the network’s move to Ethereum 2.0 and bringing together open source communities.
To achieve this vision, Gitcoin has joined hands with EPNS to launch a pilot program that will entail exploring possible integration in upcoming Gitcoin Grants rounds and features. The partnership greatly helps in taking EPNS to new levels, while bringing new communication channels to Gitcoin to grow Open Source Software. Some ideas include:
- better notification channels for interesting grants to fund during a Grants round,
- ways for grant owners to engage with their donors, and
- other mechanisms to connect funders and builders in Gitcoin’s ecosystem.
About Ethereum Push Notification Service EPNS):
EPNS is a decentralized notification protocol that enables users (wallet addresses) to receive notifications. Using the protocol, any dApp, service or smart contract can send notifications to users in a platform-agnostic fashion (mobile, tablet, web, user wallets, etc).
More about the partnership here: Gitcoin Growing Open Source with Web3 Notifs | by Richa | Ethereum Push Notification Service | Apr, 2021 | Medium
