Product strategy & platform repositioning for a decentralized funding platform.
What is Gitcoin?
Gitcoin is a decentralized platform that helps fund open-source software and digital public goods, connecting developers with creators and community donors through hackathons, bounties, and grants.
It has done so since 2017 — helping kickstart projects like ENS, Uniswap, 1inch, and yearn.finance, routing over $63 million to more than 3,700 open-source and decentralized projects.
The Challenge
Gitcoin became too institutional and lost a lot of the startup and grassroots vibe, as well as credibility with the community that originally built it. The brand looked like an enterprise SaaS company, not a public-goods funder.
The Solution
Turn Gitcoin into the knowledge layer: the premier place where Ethereum funds solutions to its most important problems, and where the team curates the funding landscape.
The work, on screen
Search
The header search bar lives next to the primary nav — visible on every page. A ⌘K shortcut summons a global overlay that floats above the page. Ask AI is one tab away, for when the answer isn't an article title.
Tree Sidebar
A file-explorer sidebar mirrors the repo. Campaigns · Research · Apps · Mechanisms · Case Studies — each folder opens to its children, with the current page highlighted. Contributors orient immediately; first-time visitors browse the funding landscape the way they'd browse a codebase.
Breadcrumbs & Header
Every article carries its full lineage — Home → Mechanisms → Aqueduct — so readers never feel lost. The header keeps the wordmark, nav, search box, and the Partner CTA in the same place on every page. Time-to-read sits directly under the lede.
Edit on GitHub
At the bottom of every page sits a single luminous button: Edit on GitHub. It opens an issue or PR against the page's source — turning the whole site into a contributable repository. The glow is the only place the lunar-punk language allows itself to actually glow, saved for the one moment that signals participation.
Generative asset system
I have created a generator for hero art + Open Graph images using Three.js, a JavaScript library for 3D.
Consistent at scale. Reduces and democratizes asset production time, in the spirit of open source software.
It's packed with features and very customizable. If you just want a quick image, hit "randomize all" and you get an image. Instructions and shortcuts are also built into the generator.
Open generator
Outcome
By the end of April, the repositioned Gitcoin experience showed clear movement across primary and secondary acquisition signals compared with the start of March after relaunch.
Active users reached 11,038, up +138% WoW and +41% versus the Q1 2025 average. Sessions reached 11,772, up +145% WoW and +24% versus the Q1 2025 average.
Organic social reached 518, up +1,892% WoW. Organic search reached 1,227, up +376% WoW.
Returning users reached 408, up +232% WoW. AI referral traffic reached 118, up +462% WoW, and GitHub referral traffic reached 38, up +533% WoW.