Gitcoin’s Kevin Owocki on Changing the World With Web3

Gitcoin founder Kevin Owocki talks quadratic funding in Web3, tokenizing optimistic impression with NFTs, and extra. 

Introducing Gitcoin 

Kevin Owocki is simply in regards to the reverse of the “crypto bro” stereotype. A Colorado native who prefers to spend his time within the mountains to any concrete jungle, he comes throughout as somebody who’d slot in higher at a distant hippy gathering than something to do with cash—even when it’s the digital variety. 

When Crypto Briefing met him on the primary day of Consensus 2022 in Texas’ hippy assembly spot turned tech hub capital, he turned up in a tee and shorts, contrasting the handfuls of audio system that sat on panels in costly fits and excessive heels. After we escaped Austin’s 100 diploma warmth to discover a discrete cafe for our dialog, he eliminated his sandals to sit down cross-legged on the couch, nearly as if he was training a yoga place whereas we chatted. 

Most individuals wouldn’t be capable of guess that Owocki works in blockchain, however because the founding father of one among Ethereum’s most important initiatives, he’s each bit as crypto because the dollar-eyed tech lovers the house is commonly related to. In actual fact, he’s nearer to the cypherpunks that impressed Bitcoin than any of crypto’s newer Silicon Valley entrants, although he describes himself as a “solarpunk” given his love of the outside. 

His predominant enterprise, Gitcoin, is among the most profitable initiatives within the blockchain ecosystem, answerable for supporting Ethereum mainstays like Uniswap by its groundbreaking neighborhood grants program. 

Gitcoin is finest described as a funding platform that helps the open Web, a world crypto natives like Owocki check with as Web3. It leverages the Ethereum blockchain to lift funds to assist speed up the expansion of public items. So far, it’s raised over $63 million from the crypto neighborhood. 

Open Supply Maximalism 

Owocki got here up with the thought for Gitcoin after spending a decade in software program engineering for so-called “Web2” expertise startups. After seeing how recruiters would extract worth when sourcing expertise, he discovered his means into crypto—particularly Ethereum. The concept of making a brand new model of the Web that wouldn’t be managed by Fb or Google fitted completely with what Owocki needed to attain. “I began Gitcoin to disintermediate recruiters,” he stated. “Principally, we’re serving to builders discover alternatives in Web3 and get cash.” 

Owocki believes that crypto networks present the proper solution to help open supply initiatives that change the world for the higher, a lot in order that he describes the rising expertise as a instrument for a societal revolution. “The magical factor about crypto is that we are able to program our values into our cash so if we worth open supply and public items then we are able to construct financial methods that help these issues,” he stated. 

“The magical factor about crypto is that we are able to program our values into our cash.”

Gitcoin is an Ethereum challenge, however not like lots of crypto’s foremost evangelists, Owocki insists that he’s blockchain agnostic. Slightly, he and Gitcoin wish to help builders to assist the entire pie develop greater. As Ethereum has the largest mindshare within the house in the present day, it simply so occurs to be one of the best one for Gitcoin to run on. “I’m an open supply maximalist, I wanna see folks engaged on highly effective impactful initiatives, and Ethereum has the best community impact to make that occur proper now,” he defined. 

Gitcoin launched on the top of a retail-driven mania interval for the cryptocurrency market in late 2017. Whereas sketchy initiatives had been utilizing Ethereum to lift funds by crypto crowdfunds often called preliminary coin choices, Gitcoin set out on its mission to help the builders that had been starting to seem within the ecosystem. It discovered success early on. The Ethereum Basis funded the challenge’s first seven grants rounds, earlier than key decentralized finance initiatives like Yearn.Finance got here on board to help its subsequent funding rounds. 

The Energy of Quadratic Funding 

Whereas Web-based crowdfunding is nothing new, Gitcoin works otherwise to Web2 platforms like Kickstarter and GoFundMe—and never solely as a result of donors need to ship Ethereum tokens. It pioneered quadratic funding, an idea coined by Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin, Zoë Hitzig, and E. Glen Weyl. In conventional funding, initiatives typically have massive supporters that improve the full funds raised by matching the quantity donors have dedicated. Quadratic funding, in the meantime, makes use of an identical pool based mostly on the variety of donations quite than the scale of them. In different phrases, a challenge that receives $100 value of grants from 100 donors will obtain multiple that receives a single $100 grant from one donor. “Quadratic funding optimizes for the preferences of the various quite than the wealthy few,” Owocki stated. 

“The following 1 billion folks utilizing Web3 will use it for the Web of jobs.”

Eschewing the established order of the standard system in favor of “the various” sums up Owocki’s whole outlook on crypto. Whereas Web3 is at the moment identified for speculative hype cycles which have enriched the savviest DeFi and NFT customers, Owocki thinks that decentralized expertise may supply the world greater than ponzinomics and monkey photos. He says he’s enthusiastic about serving to common folks earn a greater residing because the house heads towards mass adoption. “I believe the subsequent 1 billion folks utilizing Web3 will use it for the Web of jobs,” he stated. “I purpose to create a world wherein DAOs are augmenting earnings so now we have a systemic incentive to work on the commons and our communities.”

Whereas Web3 nonetheless will get a foul rep from Huge Tech entrepreneurs, Bitcoin followers, and blockchain skeptics alike, Owocki argues that it improves on the Web of in the present day as a result of it helps create a extra pluralistic world. “We’ve cash legos we are able to construct on, so there are much less of the sharp elbows present in Web2,” he stated. “It’s like being in a backyard collectively the place we share the soil and the air and composite components.” 

The newest Web3 growth was led by an explosion of curiosity in art-based NFT initiatives like CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Membership, however with ETH at the moment round 75% down from its highs, a lot of the speculative hype that characterised 2021 in crypto has died. Nonetheless, Owocki says this doesn’t matter for Gitcoin. “Everybody within the house, whether or not it’s a growth or bust cycle, wants software program builders,” he stated. “Gitcoin occurs to be in a great place as a result of it’s serving to these builders discover these ecosystems, so we’ve acquired a fairly wholesome enterprise.” 

Supporting Impression DAOs With Gitcoin

In addition to Gitcoin, Owocki is most taken with crypto initiatives which have optimistic externalities and improve their assets over time. He namechecks the common fundamental earnings challenge Proof of Humanity and the decentralized carbon-based token initiative KlimaDAO as examples of what he calls “impression DAOs”—teams often called decentralized autonomous organizations which have demonstrated a dedication to making a optimistic impression on the world round them. 

“Gitcoin funds all these sorts of initiatives and we’ve been serving to them discover one another, change assets, and concepts,” he stated. “The potential of that is the place impression DAOs increase each earnings on the planet to assist everybody help their communities and make ends meet.”

Owocki thinks that impression DAOs may leverage NFT expertise to fulfil their missions, however not essentially by digital artwork JPEGs. As an alternative, he envisages a world wherein DAOs problem tokenized “impression certificates” to unfold their message. “What if we may tokenize that impression and say you take away 10 tons of carbon from the environment, otherwise you take 10 youngsters out of poverty, otherwise you fund open supply initiatives for a 12 months?” he contemplated. “We are able to create a certificates you could add to your stability sheet.” 

Owocki says that impression certificates may create a enterprise mannequin for DAOs by providing rich donors an opportunity to sign advantage and flex about spending on essential causes. “A very powerful factor is that when persons are creating worth for the world, they will receives a commission for that worth,” he stated. 

“Impression DAOs may increase each earnings on the planet.”

Crypto has lengthy rewarded customers for doing good. Early challenge supporters typically obtain governance tokens for bootstrapping liquidity, and lately Ethereum initiatives like Optimism have allotted token airdrops to Gitcoin donors. Owocki applauds the dozen or so initiatives which have rewarded loyal Gitcoiners. “It creates a suggestions cycle the place it’s like ‘oh wait, doing good is nice karma and it comes again to me’,” he stated. 

Whereas Gitcoin has loved success over its early years, Owocki is simply as excited for the challenge’s subsequent part. The corporate is at the moment shifting towards a decentralized construction that can unwind its present hierarchy with the top objective of placing the challenge’s improvement and economics totally within the fingers of its neighborhood DAO. He additionally says that he’d prefer to see the challenge obtain recurring contributions quite than one-off donations. And he’s extra satisfied than ever that it may play a necessary function in supporting the fast-growing decentralized ecosystem. “As soon as Web3 is sufficiently big to take over the world, we’ll be capable of go into adjoining classes of doing grants and hackathons for everybody,” he stated. “However for now, it’s area of interest Web3 initiatives.” 

Disclosure: On the time of writing, the writer of this piece owned ETH, GTC, and a number of other different cryptocurrencies. Additionally they had publicity to UNI in a cryptocurrency index and have beforehand contributed to Gitcoin Grants.