[Guide] Potential Airdrop? Don't Miss the Latest Gitcoin Grants!

A new round of Gitcoin Grants has started and will be running through September 22nd, 2022. If you have never heard of Gitcoin Grants, it is a quarterly fundraising event launched by Gitcoin, which allows individuals to get funding for a public goods project they are working on. The grant is backed by the support of the Ethereum Foundation and other matching partners. Normal individuals who have no projects can participate in this event by donating crypto to the projects, and grant a chance of a potential airdrop if the donated project successfully launches in future. Even if there is no return in the end, at least we did a good deed for the crypto community, right?

In today’s guide, I will walk you through the whole process step-by-step and donate via zkSync, to save up on transaction fees. Without further ado, let's begin!

Create a Gitcoin Account

1. Visit https://gitcoin.co/ and click “Sign In”.

2. Click “Create an account”.

3. Enter your details and proceed.

4. Enter the verification code.

5. Click “Authorize gitcoinco”.

Create a Gitcoin Passport

1. Click “Connect Wallet”.

2. Select MetaMask.

3. Click “Passport”.

4. Click “Make a Passport”.

5. Click “Connect Wallet”.

6. Select MetaMask and sign the transaction.

7. Connect and verify as many accounts as you can. Selected are some of the most common ones.

8. Visit https://gitcoin.co/ and click “Explore Grants”.

9. Click “Verify”.

10. Click “Submit Passport”.

11. Sign the transaction.

12. Done!

Choosing Projects

1. Visit https://gitcoin.co/grants/ and click “View All Grants”.

2. You can pick projects from either “Weighted Shuffle” and/or “Trending”.

3. Click “Add to Cart” for the projects you wish to donate.

4. Click the cart icon and checkout.

5. A $1 donation would be sufficient, click “Apply to all” and it’s now ready to checkout. There are a few payment options. Standard ETH Mainnet charges the highest gas fee while Polygon and zkSync charge lower. I would recommend using zkSync with a few steps extra to save up a few dollars.

Access zkSync Wallet & Swap Crypto

1. Open a new tab and visit https://wallet.zksync.io/ . Click “Ethereum Wallet”.

2. Select MetaMask.

3. Click the question mark icon.

4. Click “Deposit”.

5. Enter the amount you wish to top up, depending on the amount of your total donation. It’s $10 in my case, but I am topping up a little bit more just in case.

6. Confirm the transaction.

7. Top-up is successful.

8. Click “Home” and “Swap”.

9. You will be directed to a DEX. Select ETH/DAI pair.

10. Connect your wallet.

11. Enter the amount and click “Sell ETH”.

12. Sign the transaction. Notification will pop up on the right bottom corner once the sell order goes through.

13. You may check your zkSync wallet and the fund is ready.

Checkout via zkSync

1. Back to the checkout page and click “zkSync Checkout”.

2. Click “Proceed”.

3. Select “DAI” and click “ETH connect”.

4. Select MetaMask.

5. Select the wallet that you top up with the fund just now.

6. Sign the transaction.

7. Click “Complete payment”.

8. Sign the transaction.

9. Done!

10. You may visit https://gitcoin.co/ and click on your profile icon to check out the grants.