ShapeShift couldn’t be more proud to partner with Gitcoin to continue building the ultimate open-source public good in the Web3 ecosystem. Community-owned public goods benefit enormously from grants such as those curated by Gitcoin to keep building and pushing forward publicly accessible–and decentralized–innovation. Supporting public goods such as ShapeShift is essential to building a decentralized Web3 ecosystem that benefits everyone.
When one thinks of public goods, Web3 and crypto are probably the last things that come to mind, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. The larger Web3 ecosystem relies on public goods like ShapeShift’s decentralized open-source software, and supporting these resources is essential to building a decentralized and equitable global future.
What is a Public Good?
Public goods are resources available to everyone and are non-excludable, meaning that it is impossible to exclude anyone from using them once provided. Permissionless, decentralized, open-source software (like ShapeShift) is a perfect example of a public good. It’s available to everyone, and its source code is freely available for anyone to modify and improve. Open-source public goods like ShapeShift are critical for the growth of the Web3 ecosystem and community, as they provide the foundation for new innovations, applications, and access.
It’s Not Easy Being Free
Building and maintaining fully decentralized public goods is not easy nor cheap. It requires a significant investment of time and resources from an international army of passionate and dedicated contributors. It can be challenging for platforms and protocols to raise operational funding. Gitcoin Grants provide a platform for accredited projects to receive funding for their work, enabling them to continue building public goods and contributing to the growth of the Web3 ecosystem. Not only does Gitcoin allow a project to fundraise through donations, but Gitcoin also has a quadratic matching program. Click here to learn more about quadratic funding.
To qualify for quadratic fund matching on Gitcoin, users who donate must complete their Gitcoin Passport to a score of 15 or higher. Gitcoin Passport is a powerful decentralized digital identity tool for verifying the identity of individuals within the Gitcoin ecosystem–ensuring that each user is unique and that they have not created multiple accounts to game the system. This is particularly important when it comes to Gitcoin's quadratic funding mechanism, which allocates funding based on the number of unique contributors to a project.
TLDR: Gitcoin Passport is a critical decentralized identity tool for maintaining the integrity of the Gitcoin Grants platform and ensuring that funding goes to deserving and engaged projects.
Decentralized Pubic Goods
As one of the most decentralized open-source public goods in the Web3 ecosystem, ShapeShift’s free non-custodial platform allows users to buy, sell, track, trade, and earn with over 10,000 cryptocurrencies across 12 chains without having to trust a centralized exchange or entity with their funds. ShapeShift can maintain this essential service thanks to programs like Gitcoin Grants and donations locally on our platform.
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