What is Gitcoin (GTC)?

Deep Dive

1. Purpose & Value Proposition

Gitcoin exists to solve the chronic underfunding of public goods—projects that benefit everyone but lack a traditional profit model, like open-source software. Its core mission is to empower communities to fund what matters. The primary vehicle is the Gitcoin Grants Program, which uses a quadratic funding mechanism to democratically allocate capital. This model amplifies the impact of many small donations, ensuring funding flows to projects with the broadest community support. To date, it has directed over $60M to more than 3,700 projects.

2. Tokenomics & Governance

The GTC token is the engine of Gitcoin's decentralized governance. Holders use GTC to vote on key decisions, such as treasury management, grant disputes, and protocol upgrades, through the Gitcoin DAO. A second major utility is within Gitcoin Passport (now Human Passport), a decentralized identity tool. Users can stake GTC as a "proof of humanity" to collect verifiable credentials, helping projects prevent Sybil attacks and ensure fair distribution of resources.

3. Key Differentiators

Gitcoin's standout innovation is its implementation of quadratic funding, which is designed to be more equitable than simple donation-matching. The project is evolving from a single platform into Gitcoin 3.0, a "coordination layer" that fosters a network of independent funding domains and experiments. This "sensemaking" approach aims to fund the most critical ecosystem needs based on deep community input, not just trending topics.

Conclusion

Fundamentally, Gitcoin is community-operated infrastructure that channels Ethereum's collective resources toward its own sustainable growth. How will its evolution into a pluralistic funding network reshape support for the next generation of builders?