This document is version 0.1.0 + should be considered a "rough draft". The version numbers will increment to v0.2., v0.3., and so on... until an endgame plan is accepted by DAO governance (version 1.0).

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Warning: This resource describes planned functionality and processes that has not been implemented and is not part of any official roadmap. Be aware that parts may be inaccurate or out of date. This document should not be relied on for financial, tax, business, or any other type of advice. This document is not legal advice, please consult your own lawyer .

Early Game

Familiarize yourself here with the contours of the Gitcoin's early game here:

TLDR

Gitcoin was founded in 2017 with the mission of "Push Open Source Software Forward". The mission has since evolved to "Fund What Matters". The initial product was bounties, but by 2020 Gitcoin Grants, Gitcoin Hackathons, and Gitcoin KERNEL became the products. Hackathons + KERNEL spun out, and Gitcoin was launched as a DAO. It has evolved from a company to a decentralized political economy that consists of Allo Protocol, Grants Stack, Passport, PublicGoods.Network, and GTC. To date, Gitcoin has done $50m worth of impact. [source] (opens in a new tab)

Mission History

We’ve always been Mission-first, and open source (later all public goods) have always been at the heart of Gitcoin's ethos. Here is the evolution of our articulation of our mission.

2017 - Push Open Source Forward
2018 - Grow Open Source
2019 - Support Public Goods
2020 - Build & Fund the Open Web
2023 - Build, Fund & Protect What Matters

View the visual history of the mission here (opens in a new tab) and the latest ratified version of our mission is here (opens in a new tab).

Corporate History

Gitcoin was founded in 2017.
Gitcoin was a company from 2017-2021 and became a DAO in 2021.
The DAO evolves every quarter since then.

Gitcoin's history is embedded in the history of the ecosystem from which it was borne. Gitcoin evolved within Ethereum and

was conceived and launched in a bull market - 2017
when it had to evolve or die in the bear market of 2018-2020, it pioneered Gitcoin Grants, Gitcoin Hackathons, Gitcoin DAO, and KERNEL.
in the 2021 bull market it grew in contributor size and evolved a lot.

Gitcoin Hackathons + KERNEL spin out in 2022, and the primary thing that "is Gitcoin" becomes Grants & the DAO.

when it had to evolve or die in the bear market of 2022-??, it pioneered Grants Stack/Allo Protocol/Passport/PGN.

Team History

Gitcoin was a team of 5-12 2018 - 2020.
That team turned over in 2021 (opens in a new tab).
The Gitcoin Holdings Inc. team grew to 30 & the DAO grew to ~ 65 full time contributors.
The Gitcoin Holdings Inc team disaffiliated from the DAO (opens in a new tab) in 2022.
That team turned over in 2022-2023 (opens in a new tab).
Current team size as of 8/2023 is about 40-50 people. More here (opens in a new tab).

You can read about the history of the cofounding team at Gitcoin here (opens in a new tab).

Product History

Gitcoin Bounties (later evolved into Gitcoin Hackathons) 2017 - 2022.
A bunch of product experiments 2018-2022 (Gitcoin Labs, Gitcoin Kudos, Codefund by Gitcoin, Gitcoin Quests, Coordination Kit) that mostly didnt work out except for one (Gitcoin Grants).

Gitcoin Bounties/Hackathons spun out in 2022 to become buildbox.io (opens in a new tab)
Gitcoin KERNEL spun out in 2022 to become KERNEL (opens in a new tab).
Gitcoin Labs, Quests, Kudos, Codefund all eventually became inactive.

Gitcoin Grants starts as a subscription service where you can subscribe to your favorite OSS projects using EIP 1337 (opens in a new tab). It launches in Jan 2019 but does not get traction in market.
Gitcoin Grants is reconceived as a Quadratic Funding Tool in Feb 2019 and Gicoin Grants Round 1 ($25k match) launches.
Gitcoin Grants evolves every quarter and grows most quarters to $8m funding/quarter in 2022. You can follow the evolution here (opens in a new tab) and here (opens in a new tab).
In ~ 2020 we realize that public goods funding tools should be decentralized & that a company is not the right model for Gitcoin Grants. On May 25 2021 Gitcoin DAO launches.
In 2021, we begin work on a new tool called dGrants and it almost ships in Dec 2021 (opens in a new tab).
In early 2022, dGrants doesnt work out and Gitcoin Grants 2.0 is conceived (opens in a new tab)
In early 2023 an alpha (opens in a new tab) and a beta (opens in a new tab) ships.

In mid 2023, the old centralized Grants program, cGrants, sunsets (opens in a new tab).

In 2022, Gitcoin Passport ships and Gitcoin enters the sybil resistence identity game (passport could be big imo (opens in a new tab)).
In 2023, publicgoods.network launches (opens in a new tab) to solve the race to the bottom (opens in a new tab) of public goods funding.
In 2023, Allo protocol v2 launches (opens in a new tab) as does Grants stack (opens in a new tab).
As of 8/2023, current primary offerings:

Allo Protocol - protocol for capital allocation
Grants Stack - web UI for allo protocol
Passport - sybil aggregator
Publicgoods.network - layer 2
GTC - Governance token

DAOs are like slime molds (opens in a new tab), and like many complex adaptive systems or organizations with big missions, there is a tree structure to Gitcoin's product evolution that has evolved over time + we've made decisions about where to double down & where to reduce resource consumption so we could create focus elsewhere. Here is a visual overview of the launch, lineage, & evolution of Gitcoin's major products.

2017                      Bounties
                              |                                                   
                              |                                                   
2018                      Bounties    Ethical Ads          Kudos       Labs          Quests
                              |              |             |           |              | 
                              |              |             |           |              | 
2019         Grants       Hackathons  Ethical Ads          Kudos       Labs          Quests
                |             |              |             |           |              | 
                |             |              |             |           |              | 
2020         Grants       Hackathons        (shut down)  (shut down) (shut down)   (shut down)
                |  \             \       \  
                |   \             \       \  
2021 GTC     cGrants   dGrants  Hackathons KERNEL
      |         |          \           \          \
      |         |            \           \          \
2022 GTC     cGrants       (shut down)   (spun out)   (spun out)
      |         |   \ \ \
      |         |     \   \   \
      |         |      \     \     \
      |         |       \      \        \
      |         |         \       \         \
2023 GTC     (shut down)  Allo  Grants Stack  Passsport       PGN

Fundraisings, controversies, & other fun weird or noteable events along the way

SACKS https://twitter.com/owocki/status/1398003164645789698 (opens in a new tab)
Moonshot bots - https://decrypt.co/79606/moonshot-bots-nfts-gitcoin-ethereum-grants-1-8-million/ (opens in a new tab)
AKITA - https://www.bankless.com/500m-in-meme-coinsnow-what (opens in a new tab)
Iran grant controversy - https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2021/12/20/another-ethereum-education-initiative-canceled-over-iran-sanctions-fears/ (opens in a new tab)
Gitcoin impact report NFT - https://www.coindesk.com/web3/2023/03/09/gitcoin-and-metalabel-vitalik-nft-collection-takes-top-spot-on-opensea/ (opens in a new tab)
Greenpill book launch - https://owocki.com/greenpill-podcast-book/ (opens in a new tab)
Attempt at funding Ethereum's public goods - https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-1890 (opens in a new tab)
Conference series evolution: SustainWeb3 (opens in a new tab) which later evolves to Schelling Point & later Schelling Point Sessions.
Visualization of the growth of Gitcoin's economy here (opens in a new tab).