Dialogue with Gitcoin DAO Strategic Partner OKX: How to Better Stand Together with Global Developers?

Author: Gitcoin CN

The mission of GitcoinDAO at its inception was to fund open-source software developers who can create value. Through an innovative quadratic funding (QF) method (proposed by Vitalik Buterin, Zoë Hitzig, and E. Glen Weyl), Gitcoin established a donation platform and allocated funds based on the collective wisdom of the community.

Some of the earliest Gitcoin Grants-funded projects have grown into very well-known success stories within the Ethereum ecosystem, including Uniswap, WalletConnect, POAP, Yearn, Ethers.JS, Bankless, and more. As Gitcoin has developed, GitcoinDAO and several industry leaders reached a strategic partnership last November to jointly promote funding for open-source projects in community governance.

Gitcoin's main partner OKX is the second-largest cryptocurrency trading platform in the world and a leading web3 ecosystem. Collaborating with them can expand Gitcoin's global influence and more effectively serve the Asia-Pacific region and other emerging markets. OKX's commitment to user safety, transparency, and product innovation is crucial for Gitcoin and all developers. Through OKX's existing suite of decentralized Web 3 products, Gitcoin can advocate for funding public goods to promote open-source crypto innovation to a broader audience.

We took this opportunity to have an in-depth conversation with Gitcoin Steward Bob Jiang and Jeff Ren, head of OKX Ventures. Bob Jiang has been involved as a Steward in Gitcoin's community governance and is one of the most active voices for Gitcoin in the Asia-Pacific region. Jeff Ren is a well-known tech investor in Hong Kong, deeply rooted in the cryptocurrency space for many years, empowering dozens of top projects.

They systematically discussed the prospects of the collaboration between Gitcoin and OKX, shared deep insights into industry trends, and explored collaborative prospects for promoting the Asia-Pacific developer community, hoping to inspire everyone.

Main Text

1. What is the starting point for Gitcoin to expand so many community governance strategic partnerships at this time? How does this help the development of GitcoinDAO?

Bob Jiang: Let me briefly introduce the focus of GitcoinDAO's upcoming development. After initiating some restructuring plans this year, we will focus on building the Grants Protocol, which has three main roles in the fundraising activities of this public goods project: project parties, donating users, and matching partners.

Since the second half of this year, market sentiment has been sluggish, and we hope to become a beacon for developers in the industry, providing more confidence and support to project parties. Introducing collaborations with more industry leaders at this time can help the Gitcoin community operate better, maintain community health, and thus meet the needs of more project parties.

Previous collaborations were primarily at the product cooperation level, such as product development and resource exchanges for developers. This time, for example, with OKX, in addition to the underlying technological innovations, we can have some entry points for promoting the Grants Protocol. More projects and users within the OKX ecosystem will have the opportunity to learn about and participate in Gitcoin's activities, and we are also looking forward to the ecological donation round led by OKX and OK Chain.

2. What considerations are behind OKX joining Gitcoin as a community governance advocate?

Jeff Ren: As one of the longest-standing cryptocurrency exchanges in the industry, serving users is our primary principle. In addition, we are also developing a series of decentralized Web3 products. Throughout this process, we have a deep understanding of developers' experiences and market pain points. The construction of Web3 infrastructure is integrated with our native ecosystem. Based on this point, we have been focusing on how to continue supporting and improving the construction of the Web3 open-source community, providing more help and guidance for product development to more developers.

Since 2020, we have held many developer community events, such as the "Decentralized Application" hackathon initiated by the OKC chain in 2020. Currently, we have hosted Demo Days in Silicon Valley, Boston, Hong Kong, and Singapore, providing the community with opportunities to learn from each other and exchange ideas on product innovation. Gitcoin has continuously injected vitality and fresh blood into the Web3 world through crowdfunding donation activities over the years, which aligns perfectly with OKX's core philosophy and development path. We hope to join forces with Gitcoin to serve a larger developer community.

3. As a builder of the open-source community, Gitcoin, and as a deep cultivator in the cryptocurrency industry, OKX, what message do you have for developers in the current market environment, and what strategies do you foresee for the future?

Bob Jiang: Personally, I have been attracted to Gitcoin's vision since 2018. Kevin Owoki, the founder of Gitcoin, discovered that developers in the open-source community were not receiving the compensation they deserved and devised a series of methods to address this issue. So from the very beginning, Gitcoin was engaged in bounty activities, and starting in 2019, it began matching donations. With the adoption of quadratic funding, project parties can receive community support along with other funding matches.

Thus, Gitcoin has always been an opinion leader in the developer community, helping to address the issue of fair compensation for developers. Regardless of the past, present, or future, our primary direction is to support the open-source community and public goods.

In the last couple of years, we have also gradually expanded our focus from "digital public goods" to all public goods, such as climate change, peace, education, etc. Recently, we reached a new matching donation agreement with UNESCO, aiming to use the power of Web3 to positively impact the world.

Kevin has written two books, one is "Green Pill," and the other is "Impact DAO," both emphasizing positive impact, positioning Gitcoin as a positive platform connecting people from different fields. In this process, the abilities and voices of developers in the cryptocurrency space will also be heard by a larger world.

Jeff Ren: Since its founding in 2017, OKX has experienced several market fluctuations. We believe that we should not lose confidence in blockchain technology due to market volatility. The recent fluctuations were influenced by a few bad actors. In the face of black swan events, we, as an industry, need to continuously improve and enhance ourselves. For example, through technological improvements, on-chain data audits, market education, and community co-construction of on-chain products, some risks can be exposed early.

This incident has also strengthened our focus on product technology as ecological participants, risk awareness, and increased attention to decentralized blockchain projects participating in the ecosystem. We also want to invite quality projects and developers to co-build the ecosystem with us. In a sluggish market environment, we hope to be a compliant, stable, and innovative presence, providing support to developers with similar values. We have just announced a joint initiative with the OKC public chain to launch a $100 million project ecosystem support plan. To promote the healthy development of the industry ecosystem, OKX will provide support in ecology, technology, liquidity, and more to eligible projects.

4. The Gitcoin community integrates 300,000 developers from all over the world. In this environment, how is the participation of different communities (e.g., Europe and America, Asia-Pacific, South America)? What are the pain points?

Bob Jiang: We once conducted a survey on the distribution of participants in donations, and the Asia-Pacific region is actually ranked third or fourth. In the Asia-Pacific region, especially among project parties in China, there are about 100 projects. This includes very successful projects like Mask Network, which transitioned from being a project party in Grant 4-5 to now giving back to Gitcoin as a matching donor, which we find very gratifying. There is also the donation round supported by Plancker DAO and Scroll_ZKP in the Greater China region, which achieved great success in August.

However, overall, the number of participants from the Asia-Pacific region in Gitcoin is relatively low, especially the number of independent developers participating in bounty activities. Currently, in the developer community in Europe and America, project parties and matching donor community offline interactions are more active. We hope that in the coming year, the voices from the Asia-Pacific region can be heard, and through more online and offline activities, Gitcoin can become a bridge connecting Asia-Pacific developers with other regions.

5. OKX has made significant investments in funding technological innovation and community building. What are the current effects? What industry feedback and next steps are planned?

Jeff Ren: In addition to continuously improving the user experience of centralized exchanges and technological innovation, we are also actively developing Web3 products and have built a project library covering OKC chain, Web3 wallets, NFT markets, and DeFi. Among them, OKC is one of our main bridges in the Web3 community. The introduction of EVM virtual machine technology and the Cosmos-compatible IBC cross-chain solution from OKC shows that its purpose is not to replace any chain but to achieve open-source interoperability and co-prosperity. Projects developed on the OKC chain can efficiently realize value interoperability, user interoperability, and application scenario interoperability.

From the development roadmap perspective, OKC is still continuing to improve during the development process. We welcome the existing 200+ projects and interested ecological participants to provide feedback and suggestions, allowing us room for improvement. We will continue to provide opportunities for communication and learning for the community at our Demo Days and hackathons around the world.

6. Given that OKX will start participating in GitcoinDAO, what future collaboration directions can be explored?

Bob Jiang: I am very much looking forward to our close cooperation with OKX in the future. From my perspective, there are two major collaboration directions.

1. Deepen cooperation with more developer communities. Let more developers from Gitcoin join the OKX ecosystem and develop their products using the OKX ecosystem. OKX and Gitcoin can help developers promote and develop their products through offline hackathons and online seminars.
2. Highlight OKX's advantages and global influence to help Gitcoin reach more developers and project parties. Especially in the Asia-Pacific region, beyond the Greater China region, there can be more in-depth community collaborations in Japan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia. We hope that participants from both ecosystems of Gitcoin and OKX can take this opportunity to learn from each other, communicate, and achieve closer connections.

Jeff Ren: We hope to convey a positive signal to the broader developer community through this opportunity. Collaborating with Gitcoin allows more users and projects within the OKX ecosystem to actively participate in Gitcoin's fundraising and various activities. Through a series of online collaborations and offline events, we aim to help Gitcoin promote and publicize itself more widely around the world, enhancing the developer community's understanding of Gitcoin.

At the same time, we also look forward to becoming an active contributor to the DAO and a reliable ecological partner. We will participate in forum discussions and community governance regularly, assist in proposal and budget management, and fully support and promote various initiatives within GitcoinDAO.