Sustaining ourselves to sustain open source

Open source software creates a lot of value for the world; but open source projects are not famous for their ability to capture the value they create.

Gitcoin is no different. We’ve been live since 2017, and have done over $1mm in platform value since then. We famously did not do a token sale and have been operating on a super lean basis while we work through potential business models. As months have passed, and Gitcoin has proven out it’s worth, we’ve decided on a 10% fee on bounties as a start. (this does not apply to Grants/Kudos). Part of helping the community sustain itself involves keeping the lights on for our team as well.

A 10% Bounty Platform Fee

We’re rolling out a 10% platform fee for posting issues on the Gitcoin marketplace. This will be charged when the bounty is posted on the funder side.

How The Bounty Fee Works

In practice, this means that there will be two MetaMask transactions to approve when funding an issue; one to approve the bounty amount, and one to approve the fee that helps keep our lights on.

Thanks for growing with us as we aim to make Gitcoin a sustainable set of tools which the community can use to grow and sustain their open source communities. We will continue to experiment with interesting ways to fund and sustain Gitcoin, and feel the future is brighter than ever for open source companies.

As always, let’s grow open source, together.

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Thanks to Frank.