Authors: Treasury Diversification Working Group
As outlined in this forum post, the Treasury Diversification Working Group is proposing that Gitcoin diversify $15 million of its treasury into stablecoins. Please refer to the first forum post for more on the diversification and the rationale for it.
This post is intended as a primer on what the Gitcoin team is looking for in strategic partners with this diversification.
To express interest in participating in the diversification, please fill out this form, and optionally, share your interest on this forum post.
Why Collaborate with Gitcoin
Gitcoin is a pillar of the Ethereum ecosystem, comprising key infrastructure and tooling that facilitates ecosystem growth, protocol / project development, and talent discovery.
Strategic partners may find Gitcoin appealing for the following reasons:
- One of Ethereum’s most premium and well recognized brands
- A source and funder of the space’s most innovative and valuable projects, Gitcoin stands to be a rich ground for the best talent, up-and-coming protocols, and top developer opportunities
- Through the impact DAO framework, Gitcoin will accrue project tokens derived from its funding operations, becoming a valuable metagovernance entity
- An ever-growing crucial tool for protocol expansion and growth, Gitcoin’s horizontal scaling can take projects from ideation to successful communities
- High integration and stickiness - Gitcoin partners with projects across multiple development touchpoints: accelerator, compensation tools, talent sourcing, bounties / bugging, and more
Characteristics of Ideal Strategic Partners
Our goal with this treasury diversification is not only to add stablecoins to Gitcoin’s treasury, but also to get $GTC tokens in the hands of long-term, high value-add partners.
With this diversification, we are looking to add a cohort of strategic partners. Below, we’ve attempted to paint a picture of what ideal strategic partners for Gitcoin look like.
DAO-Native & Mission-Aligned
Ideal strategic partners deeply understand Gitcoin and its mission. The best strategic partners are those who are already active in the DAO ecosystem and are DAO-native. At the same time, the optimal partners are thoughtful and open-minded and can provide helpful feedback and outside perspective to Gitcoin as it continues to grow.
Strategic partners should be long-term thinkers who see the relationship with Gitcoin as a true partnership. All parties should be aligned and work together to ensure Gitcoin can continue to be a pillar in the DAO ecosystem not just for the months ahead but for years into the future.
High Integrity
Partners must operate with the highest integrity. The DAO and community will consider the partner’s track record in past deals. Would Gitcoin be proud to announce a partnership with the candidate? Have they conducted themselves with high integrity in the past?
Value-add
The ideal partner also has a clear value-add to Gitcoin. How have they helped drive their communities, portfolio companies, or DAOs forward? Have they partnered with other DAOs in the ecosystem? Will the partner be active in future governance at Gitcoin?
Beyond those high-level questions, we have three partner traits we are specifically seeking with this diversification:
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Public-Goods-Native: Partners who themselves have already expressed a track record or a clear interest in funding public goods for the long-term
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Advocates: Partners with a platform who want to grow the narrative of public goods and can help storytell & advocate for the work we are doing at Gitcoin
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Mechanism Designers: Partners who can help with protocol development and/or exploring novel mechanisms of regenerative crypto economics
Strategic partners may vary. While we would like the diversification to be as DAO-native and DAO-friendly as possible, we’re open to any type of partner so long as they meet the criteria above. Partners can consist of other DAOs, VCs, or individual contributors.
How to Express Interest in Becoming a Strategic Partner
If you think you’re a good fit to partner with Gitcoin, please fill out this form. Optionally, you may also respond to this forum post with a comment. Your comment should include:
- Who you are
- Why you’d make a good strategic partner for this diversification, including:
- What value can/will you provide to Gitcoin?
- Do you have a track record of being a value-add investor or partner?
- What ‘characteristics of ideal partners’, as outlined above, do you have?
- What involvement have you had with Gitcoin thus far?
- Any additional information that’s relevant
Logistics of the Diversification
Llama will build the smart contracts necessary to complete the treasury diversification. We’re still in development, but contracts should:
- Allow the working group to whitelist partner addresses
- Allow partners to deposit DAI
- Allow the working group to set the vesting schedule for $GTC tokens
- Delegate $GTC voting power to partners while the tokens are still vesting
- Allow Gitcoin’s treasury to withdraw stables
Conflicts of Interest / Ethics Policy
After collecting responses from potential strategic partners, the working group will have a Google Sheet with the list of candidates. Members of the working group will disclose any conflict of interest or financial interest in a strategic partner to the forum and recuse themselves from evaluation of said partner in cases of serious conflict.
Additionally, no member of the working group (or Llama) will buy or sell GTC tokens until the treasury diversification is complete. In cases where such an action is unavoidable, the working group member will disclose the trade to the forum at least 24 hours before making the trade.
Updates on the Process
As noted in the first forum post, we want this process to be done as transparently and with as much community input as possible, while still being thorough and efficient. At a minimum, we’ll share weekly updates on the original forum post about what we’ve accomplished and what our plans are for the upcoming week. We’ll also seek to get the community involved wherever possible - this may include running Twitter Spaces to get feedback on the process or to give partners a space to share their thoughts.
Disclaimer: This post has been provided for informational and discussion purposes only. It is not intended to, and does not, constitute legal, financial, business, or tax advice. This post should not be relied upon to provide any form of protections or business advice. No decision to buy, sell, exchange, or otherwise utilize any digital asset is recommended based on the content of this framework. Everyone is strongly urged to do their own research.
). I am optimistic that a few more folks may jump into the pool as most folks who have shown interest have said they want to see final numbers once the pool is established. Universally Gitcoin is loved, and our mission is appreciated.