Bessie Liu

Gitcoin, an open-source software funding platform, has announced it will shift focus away from public goods funding and towards enhancing grants infrastructure designed for the Ethereum ecosystem.



Since its launch in May 2021, Gitcoin&#8217;s organizational hierarchy has been relatively flat, with no CEO calling the shots. Workstreams, or focused groups dedicated to specific tasks or projects within the organization, have always required budgets to be approved through community voting — an often time consuming process.



As the DAO has evolved, however, it morphed from an impact-focused organization to something more technology-centric. Gitcoin executive director Kyle Weiss told Blockworks in an interview that this did not align well with the existing DAO structure.



“It was too disjointed,” said Weiss. “In a DAO environment where everyone is fully remote, we have folks contributing from nearly every continent — stability, operations, and software development is really important, you need a core group of individuals who have context.”



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/gitcoin-kevin-owoki-returns">Gitcoin’s co-founder wants to return from the sidelines</a>



As part of the new restructuring plan, two business units have formed within Gitcoin. One unit will focus on coordinating product-specific work, while a subDAO will manage matters of community and governance.



Weiss noted that over the years, the company has experimented with various products. He said that some of these have been distractions, while others have been valuable to its growth.



“A lot of 2024 is focusing on grants. We want Gitcoin to be much more associated with grants, whereas right now, our narrative has been around public goods funding, and that shift is because we’ve moved from being an impact organization to a technology organization,” Weiss said.&nbsp;



For this reason, Weiss explained the DAO will transition from independent workstreams towards a structure more akin to a “Labs” structure. This is something that is common among existing protocol development teams, similar to how Uniswap has Uniswap Labs or how Optimism operates with OP Labs.



“We want to make sure there is stability in the software development side and then give the DAO material scopes of work to own,” he said.



Weiss says that by granting software development teams greater leadership and more defined decision-making powers, the community can remain concentrated on achieving results through the grants programs via token voting.



“I don&#8217;t know if the token holders are the right people to decide on multi-year roadmap decisions on the technology side,” Weiss said. 



Gitcoin co-founder Kevin Owocki shared this sentiment.



“It’s not proven that DAOs can develop software, so the Labs team is designed to recognize that in our organizational structure, and make sure that we’re building world-class software.”



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Gitcoin is restructuring to focus on grants for the Ethereum ecosystem

Blockchain infrastructure provider Skip Protocol has released a new software development kit (SDK) aimed at giving block builders modular control over the order of transactions.



Named The Block SDK, the new toolkit features a set of primitives for the Cosmos SDK and ABCI++, which allows chains to customize their blocks.&nbsp;



Cosmos chains today rely primarily on a conventional block construction method called CometBFT which has limited applicability.



The typical implementation of CometBFT block construction faces vulnerabilities linked to maximal extractable value or MEV. This presents challenges like transaction frontrunning and sandwich attacks.&nbsp;



The Block SDK is designed so that individual blockchains can turn their blocks into so-called lanes, each with its own unique functions, according to Maghnus Mareneck, the co-founder of Skip.



“The lanes have their own verification, inclusion and ordering rules.They can be tailored towards transactions related to MEV, Oracle updates, light client updates [for example], you can configure each lane to treat transactions differently, and you can order lanes relative to each other,” Mareneck told Blockworks.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Building blocks</h2>



Usually, when using a blockchain, a transaction is submitted from the frontend, orderflow, or relayer and stored in the mempool.&nbsp;



The mempool is eventually executed as a block, wherein the transaction will be iterated in order and executed against the transaction.&nbsp;



According to Mareneck, it’s at the mempool layer that Skip’s new kit has an impact.&nbsp;



A transaction that comes into the mempool layer is normally added to the end of a long list of transactions, he explained. With The Block SDK, transactions are filled in different places and matched to different lanes.



“The mempool then becomes a block proposal and sent to all validators. Because the validators have the same sort of mempool structure, they can see if the proposer did the right thing with each transaction,” Mareneck said.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Orienting block space for apps</h2>



The overall purpose of this new SDK, Mareneck argued, is to accelerate the thesis that app chains are powerful, especially when compared to monolithic blockchains wherein all functionality exists on the base layer.



“[App chains] can orient their block space to their application,” he said. “If you’re a super high-speed order book chain, you might require a different mempool structure than a generalized smart contract chain [for example].”



The Block SDK is live on mainnets among several smaller blockchains in the Cosmos ecosystem, according to Mareneck.



He said the Skip team is also in conversation with larger app chains on Cosmos, including Cosmos and Neutron, about adapting its toolkit.



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Skip introduces a new way to build blocks on Cosmos

Shalini Nagarajan

Payments giant Visa is looking to add backend developers to its crypto team — particularly those savvy with public blockchains and stablecoins.



Cuy Sheffield, Visa’s vice president and head of crypto, tweeted the vacancies on Thursday, saying the roles would help drive mainstream adoption of the technologies.



Visa is specifically seeking individuals who have worked with cutting-edge AI-assisted engineering tools like Github Copilot to develop and debug smart contracts.



The <a href="https://usa.visa.com/en_us/jobs/REF023955W" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">job listing</a> separately states that Visa is looking for engineers who are “passionate about the Web3 stack of technologies.”



Expected experience includes testing frameworks such as Truffle, Mocha and Hardhat. Visa prefers hearing from candidates who have a good understanding of Layer-1 and Layer-2 solutions, as well as working knowledge of writing smart contracts using Solidity, Ethereum&#8217;s programming language.



They should also have an understanding of public and permissioned distributed ledger technology, security protocols and the new Ethereum account standard, <a href="https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-4337" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ERC-4337</a>.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">We have an ambitious crypto product roadmap <a href="https://twitter.com/Visa?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Visa</a> and just opened a few reqs for senior software engineers to help us drive mainstream adoption of public blockchain networks and stablecoin payments. <a href="https://t.co/UQRJNcOJtB">https://t.co/UQRJNcOJtB</a>&mdash; Cuy Sheffield (@cuysheffield) <a href="https://twitter.com/cuysheffield/status/1650533302724591616?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 24, 2023</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Public blockchains refer to networks which don’t require prior authorization to join as validators, with Bitcoin and Ethereum the two most prominent examples. Permissioned blockchains differ in that vetted operators control most of the functions on the network.



In February, Visa <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/visa-reaffirms-crypto-strategy-mastercard-touts-blockchain" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">rejected</a> reports stating it would halt crypto activities after the collapse of high-profile companies across the ecosystem. Sheffield said on <a href="https://twitter.com/cuysheffield/status/1630600554069082112" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Twitter</a> that the company continued to work with crypto firms to provide fiat on- and off-ramps and said its view on the potential of crypto has not changed.



A Visa spokesperson at the time confirmed to Blockworks that the company was keeping close tabs on the industry and regulatory developments, saying it was committed to expanding offerings in the space.&nbsp;



The firm <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/visa-launches-crypto-advisory-unit" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">set up an advisory unit</a> in late 2021 to help those interested in crypto explore opportunities. Direct rival Mastercard had months earlier <a href="https://www.mastercard.com/news/perspectives/2021/why-mastercard-is-bringing-crypto-onto-our-network/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">flagged</a> intent to adopt crypto on its payment network, starting with stablecoins.



Visa has also recently explored the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/visa-eyes-high-value-usdc-settlement-payments-on-ethereum" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">conversion of digital assets</a> into fiat payments, similar to its existing currency conversion services.&nbsp;



Sheffield revealed at the StarkWare Sessions 2023 event in Tel Aviv that Visa has been testing settlement payments in stablecoin USDC on Ethereum.



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Visa Hiring More Crypto Developers To Drive Mainstream Adoption

Jacquelyn Melinek

<div id="highlights-block_61f991c634137" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>“We have high conviction that we made the right move,” Cheng said</li>
 <li>Since leaving, the co-founders had “technical breakthroughs” that Cheng says they wouldn’t have had if they stayed at Meta</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Fed up by the red tape of Big Tech, four former Facebook employees banded together and created a startup focused on Web3 and blockchain infrastructure. Now, they’re planning to launch a blockchain in the near future.&nbsp;



The co-founder and CEO of Mysten Labs, Even Cheng, spent the last 16 years at tech companies, namely Apple and Facebook, now known as Meta.&nbsp;



He and three other ex-Facebook employees — Sam Blackshear, Adeniyi Abiodun and George Danezis — worked together on Meta’s Novi Financial team to help develop the Diem blockchain and Move programming language, a cross-platform smart contract language that helps developers secure against exploits.&nbsp;&nbsp;



But they felt there were too many restrictions at their previous employer, so they turned to their own devices.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow"><cite><meta charset="utf-8">“Some of our dreams couldn’t be realized at Facebook due to regulatory pressure and the company being unable to adopt cutting edge technology aggressively,” Cheng said. “So, we thought about doing a startup because we’ve done work in the space and want to share it.”&nbsp;</cite></blockquote>



Mysten Labs partnered with 0L Network on Tuesday, an open, permissionless version of Diem’s blockchain, to expand the Move smart contract programming language.&nbsp;



“We have high conviction that we made the right move,” Cheng said. “We are able to accelerate our development pace by an order of magnitude and make decisions faster as we’re free of the handcuffs that slowed us down.&#8221;



The startup was founded in November 2021, and a few months later <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/facebook-led-crypto-project-diem-to-be-sold-off-for-200m-report/">Diem was sold for $200 million</a> to Silvergate Capital Corp in late January. The firm focuses on building new blockchain infrastructure to scale the Web3 space.&nbsp;



“We are building our own blockchain that will be comparable to Ethereum, Solana and so on, but we want the capability to go beyond that,” Cheng said.&nbsp;



The blockchain will be launched in late March and will have a test net, beta net then go to mainnet later this year, he added. The company anticipates developer activity on-chain and building by April or May.&nbsp;



Since leaving, the co-founders have had “technical breakthroughs” that Cheng says wouldn’t have happened at Meta. “We’re driving toward something concrete and able to come across fundamental solutions, even in a short amount of time,” he said.



Meta was not available for comment Tuesday.&nbsp;



“A lot of it is continuing the research we started [at Meta] and bringing it to the marketplace,” Cheng said. “We need to overhaul the infrastructure because there’s interesting projects out there that aren&#8217;t having their needs met by current blockchain technology.”



Going forward, the company’s focus is on continuing to create solutions for “pain points” in blockchain technology through smart contract developments, utility-focused infrastructure for crypto assets and practical self custody, Cheng said.



“Changes by Web3 will happen sooner than people expect,” Cheng said. “Developers&#8217; eyes light up as they discuss the possibilities with us and that’s tremendous.”&nbsp;



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