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Vivek Singh, community builder at Gitcoin, recently announced the alpha release of Gitcoin Requests. This feature will allow members in the community to request bounties for certain GitHub issues and propose how much they should be funded, though Singh suggests at least $40 an hour for developers. After the request is submitted, the core Gitcoin team will evaluate it to determine if it makes sense to fund the issue (funding comes from the Ethereum Foundation, Ethereum Community Fund, and Stable Fund).

Gitcoin aims to build what it calls a double-sided marketplace, one “where both Gitcoin funders and Gitcoin developers have a voice” regarding the issues they would like to work on and how much they want to be paid. Singh maintains that developing this feature is important for the community’s path toward “building a platform that maximizes freedom.”

In fact, Gitcoin is founded on this ethos. In its quest to “grow open source,” the team adds monetary incentives and facilitates the reward process so that community members can continue to work on the projects that matter to them. Singh indicated that the Gitcoin crew believes this system “could lead to an influx of full-time work in the open source space and a new model for supporting the ecosystem, while retaining the original ethos of the ecosystem.”

As an extension of this mission, Gitcoin did not hold an ICO, and is holding off on releasing its own utility token unless and until it creates a product that warrants one. In the meantime, the crew is exploring monetization strategies, such as non-fungible ERC721 tokens, ERC948 (or subscription services via blockchain technology), and EIP 1081 (the bounty standard).

Although the release marks v0.1 of Gitcoin Requests, Singh noted that the team has “high hopes for the future of the product.” The development of the feature can be followed through GitHub issues 1694 and 1855 (MetaMask required to fully access the latter). Because the feature is a work in progress, the team welcomes feedback via its Slack channel.

The Gitcoin team has been busy lately. On August 9, for example, Dean Eigenmann, a dispute resolution researcher and developer with the Ethereum Name Service, announced that Gitcoin would fund bounties to encourage Dapp developers to make their software compatible with ENS names.

Daniel Putney is a full-time writer for ETHNews. He received his bachelor’s degree in English writing from the University of Nevada, Reno, where he also studied journalism and queer theory. In his free time, he writes poetry, plays the piano, and fangirls over fictional characters. He lives with his partner, three dogs, and two cats in the middle of nowhere, Nevada.

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