This proposal is now live on Snapshot ready for voting: https://snapshot.box/#/s:gitcoindao.eth/proposal/0xfe763827c432492c9280eaef057698b1455e989b4ea18da7f9333a73bf82a111
I am also hopeful that even with the sunk cost, there are ecosystem-wide ādividendsā for the future generation of capital allocation tooling by studying what worked well (and didnāt) with Grants Stack. Here are a few looking outside-in:
- Keep workflows decoupled: Donāt tightly link application, discovery, and allocation processes.
- Adopt open standards: Use frameworks (e.g., DAO-IP5) so tools can interoperate and best-in-class modules can be swapped easily.
- Expect a learning curve: Every new allocation mechanism (beyond QF and Direct Grants) will go through its own Forming ā Storming ā Norming ā Performing cycle.
- So avoid locking in too early: Prematurely hardening technical choices can freeze the system into patterns that may not fit once mechanisms mature.
3 Likes
iād add
- build something people want
- donāt miss the market (grants stack was so focused on QF but didnt deliver it until 2023 when the market was moving on)
- iterate quickly
- staff your product team with people who are lean, hungry, and 0 to 1 minded. you must hit 0 to 1 before 1 to 10.
- use your product yourself, eat your own dogfood.
- build for modularity/composability so others can extend your software
2 Likes
Looks great to me, I vote yes, thank you @MathildaDV for putting this together and to the Gitcoin team.
I tried voting, but it tells me I donāt have enough GTC. However, I have over 100 GTC on mainnet, is there a minimum threshold that Iām not meeting?
You need to have this GTC delegated to you. If you didnāt delegate it before the vote went live you wonāt be able to vote. In the future for support requests, please reach out to support@gitcoin.co or contact me directly on TG!
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Oh I see, thanks, will reach out in the future.
Thanks for the feedback.
I think there was a massive demand for this, but we eroded our own user base with at times decisions that were not value-aligned, and by not really prioritizing what our user base was saying/shouting. But the mantra Iāve always heard is that we just needed to get through this: we were building Allo & GS for generations to come, and the road to full decentralization is painful. I got this, so I kept spreading this gospel, to our users and our ambassadors.
I think GS became a kickass product in the end. Easy to check out, across chains, across rounds, credibly neutral, built on a fully decentralized protocol. Giveth does not have this. Neither does Optimism or Protocol Guild.
It is not so much the money we spent I care about, I care about the users who built communities, and I care about the product they could as of now use without any centralized intervention. People could now fund what mattered to their community.
So I think we did this. But yes, we iterated too slowly. And the team was not always very lean or open to feedback, even to feedback from within, which I can state as a very active user of the platform myself (ao with Gitcoin Citizens).
I donāt think we missed the āmarketā. I think the market isnāt even there yet.
And wrt profit: building profit models for public goods is tough. Itās one of the reasons Gitcoin has and had its place in the grants ecosystem.
In any case, I hope at some point some project will pick this back up. Thatās why I was hoping Gitcoin could at least pay for the hosting costs to keep it online, even if it was just as an artefact, for communities to link to what they did instead of getting a 404 (or a link to buidlbox 
).
It could be a starting point for whatās next, and an invite for future do-gooders to pick up the challenge while Gitcoin continues to build what you believe needs to be built next.
Seeing this made me really happy, so thanks Giveth & thanks @divine-comedian for keeping the dream alive. Maybe Gitcoin could fund Giveth to keep this live, as it seems Giveth is struggling to cover these costs?
In any case, itās okay if you interpret this as āan ex gitcoiner venting some frustrations being held ontoā and itās okay if your gut feeling is āhelp build solutions or gtfoā. Iāve seen these reactions, and I understand them. Iām always in awe of what you do and what Gitcoin continues to accomplish, so I will always be here to support, in some way.
So Iām taking the time to write it down anyway as a plea to maybe at some point to put GS (fully) online again, even if itās just as a read-only version to inspire future builders.
We did a lot, and Iām personally proud of it.
2 Likes
In the end, I think only a small subset of the market demanded a fully decentralized protocol and wanted QF. IMO what happeend is we got outcompeted by structures that had less high cost of R&D and were post-QF. IMO protocol guild is plenty decentralized/capture resistent. And they ate our lunch (just look at their latest funding numbers). But it turns out that only a small percentage of customers actually cared about that.
There were signs of increased competition years ago ( Web3 Crowdfunding Tool Competitive Landscape ) but we didnt respond fast enough. I also think that in hindsight, spending $300k - $1m/mo on product and operational costs (against almost $0/mo revenue) was completely insane. It was a mistake not to diversify the treasury when GTC was $15. I am also disappointed to see that some IP that we put millions$$$ into was stolen from gitcoin in the 2.0 era, a costly principal agent misalignment that set us back years in terms of achieving financial sustainability.
If you have further comments on what we can learn from the 2.0 era, would love to get more comments on
@divine-comedian i wonder if giveth would be interested in taking this. most of the costs of keeping GS online were borne in the form of gettting the indexer online (which youāve already done!)
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Please note: due to changes in funding commitments, this proposal has been amended. The updated version and new vote are here: [Amended Proposal]: GG24 Domains and Gitcoin Matching Pre-Ratification (Revision)
1 Like