While reading through this thread, I organized my thoughts by putting together an analysis of the web3 crowdfunding landscape.
I am sharing it in case it is useful to others in the DAO. Hopefully this helps inform some of the conversations on the governance forum about Gitcoin’s competitive positioning. (NOTE: It is unclear to me how much these tools will compete vs cooperate as the market matures )
It’s really helpful to see all of these metrics side by side.
I’m curious about Giveth Total Impact #. In the post you link, @griff says they’ve done $1.1m in the last 11months. I imagine their total lifetime value is larger than this.
Great work. I’m not sure I would put the USP exactly that way. For me - when Gitcoin was running rounds - it was more about the largest & most secured rounds without requiring KYC. Others in Gitcoin’s MMM and elsewhere could word that better. Now that Gitcoin is rapidly becoming a protocol it is attempting to both deliver the best protocols & related software (like passport) to enable a community to fund its own needs AND to also deliver to these communities attention from supporters and funders. A good example is the just launched Unicef round: https://go.gitcoin.co/blog/unicefs-alpha-round-grantee-showcase
Do you think that there may be winner take all dynamics here? For example, thanks to a double side market - and Gitcoin possibly being ahead in delivering high-quality protocols plus having a huge community of supporters?
I do think Gitcoin does have a huge community of supporters but I do not think Gitcoin is ahead in delivering high quality protocols. Most of the competitors in this list have protocols that have done higher volume of support for public goods than Gitcoin’s protocols have (in some cases much higher).
CLRFund is ahead on privacy aware quadratic funding, and Giveth has more advanced mechanism design & faster shipping than Gitcoin does.
Feel free to fork my post and update it where you think I got it wrong! As a GTC enthusiast, I would find comfort in the idea that people who work on GitcoinDAO are taking their competition seriously!
I don’t want Gitcoin to be to web3 crowdfunding what MySpace was to social networking (an early market leader that could not keep up with an evolving market).
the way they reward compensation peer 2 peer feels very similar to how quadratic funding works IMO. peers vote on who gets funded, and then there is an airdrop. but the things they fund are people, not causes (grants)
I do think most people are missing the bigger picture which is that these are all tools for us to make group decisions that are immediately reflected in the payment action. We are trying to find ways for groups of people to decide how to (re)distribute some amount of funds.
This is why I believe sybil defense is our most important investment after the protocol launches along with DevOps. To have fair collective decision making, you need to be able to trust that there aren’t fake ballots and you need a community of analysts and builders to continually identify and validate problem and build solutions.
I’m thinking more and more that GTC should either be used to make the Gitcoin identity as strong as can be (cheaper to defend than to attack) OR strictly for governing the DAO & Grants program. The latter option is still difficult because there is a lot of resistance to the DAO investing in business on the protocol rather than only giving grants.
this is more of a mechanism not determined by QF but by the community itself and there isn’t any donor amplification; their POD is more in shifting the way orgs think about compensation and providing tools to do so, not the actual funding mechanism; very values aligned with Gitcoin though
Also think it’s important to also consider web2 tools here - more traditional ones that could potentially incorporate new funding mechanisms down the line; also, web2 crowdfunding platforms have users who would potentially be interested in switching to Gitcoin if the interface were easy enough
Here was some early competitive analysis MMM did from a marketing/positioning standpoint: Grants Protocol Positioning
Other competitors to consider - Republic, Radius, Questbook
One note on Mirror - feels like an outlier because of their creator content focus; including it would suggest need to include other creator content driven platforms
In my opinion this feels like a distinction without difference.
Grants protocol (and it’s associated round manager protocols; which could be QF or QV or any other type of voting mechanism) and CoordinAPE are both ways to distribute tokens within a ecosystem to those who are delivering the most value to that ecosystem.
The competition is zero sum in that a token that goes through coordinape does not go through Gitcoin + visa versa.
And CoordinAPE is already being used by hundreds of project already. Whereas Grants Protocol is used by 1 or 2.
Can you elaborate? Isnt this similar to what Gitcoin does?
Where can I read more about the decision for the DAO to not invest in projects? Is decision that why the Mutual Grants thread went dead?
Gitcoin Grants has many notable and very successful alumni. It would be something to add to the Bull Case for Gitcoin if Gitcoin got upside in future alumni.
As I mentioned, Gitcoin and Coordinape are very values and visions aligned, and at the high level yes they distribute value in an ecosystem, but the tools are very different.
Coordinape’s facilitate the distribution of funds within a community - compensation tools for specific projects (or “epochs”) defined and budgeted for by the community.
Gitcoin’s program and now protocols foster new, more democratic funding opportunities - enabling program managers to run and scale their own grants programs end to end, encouraging donors to discover projects to invest in, and empowering builders/project owners to build reputation and apply for funding. Yes, the tools are similar in that they make coordination easier, but you would not use them for the same objective.
I would use Coordinape if I’m a contributor to a DAO and want to get paid (again, this is current state Coordinape tools - as they expand their offering this might change), whereas I’d participate in Gitcoin Grants (or in future, a program operated on the protocol) as a donor if I want to invest/signal my support, as a builder/project owner if I want to get my project funded, or as a round operator if I want to run my own round. Plus our protocols being open and permissionless make it possible for devs to build on top of them.
Additionally, our protocols have been in closed beta - but more than hundreds of projects have gone through our program (most notably Uniswap) and we’ve facilitated $72MM in funding.
@a33titude
Thank you for sharing this informative post about the competitive landscape of Web3 crowdfunding tools. It’s interesting to see how these platforms are evolving and catering to the unique needs of the decentralized ecosystem.
I appreciate the detailed comparison and analysis of various crowdfunding tools like Gitcoin Grants, GnosisDAO, and others. It’s helpful to have an overview of their features, benefits, and limitations.
I also agree that it’s crucial for these platforms to prioritize security and transparency, as trust is paramount in the crypto space. It’s good to see that many of these platforms are implementing measures such as smart contracts, audits, and community governance to ensure the integrity of their platforms.
Overall, this post provides valuable insights for anyone looking to explore the world of Web3 crowdfunding. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and expertise on this topic!
