An Architecture That Describe How An Integration Between Gitcoin And Btc-relay Would Work.

Emmanuel Jacobson
3 min readAug 13, 2018

What Is Gitcoin?

Gitcoin is a decentralized app for value creation and value capture. Gitcoin was created by the community found in Boulder Colorado that thrives on the tech scene. The goal of the project is to combine the give first mantra of the community with capitalistic incentives to come up with great software. The platform allows developers, Repo maintainers, and financiers to find each other allowing for the growth of an open source software.

How Gitcoin Grow Open Source Software For Tips & Rewards Works.

Gitcoin is built upon the ethereum network and uses the solidity smart contract programming language. The ethereum network provides opportunities that allow the actors of the platform to align their incentives. By the programming of stakeholder’s rights into the smart contracts, actors are incentivized to give value. Additionally, the edge cases are handled without the need to involve legacy legal enforcement methods.

What is Btcrelay and How it works.

BTC Relay is an Ethereum contract that stores Bitcoin block headers. BTC Relay uses the block headers to build a small version of the bitcoin blockchain. The method is also used by Bitcoin Simplified Payment Verification (SPV), a scheme described in section 8 of the original bitcoin white paper. Relayers send the block headers to BTC Relay. When a transaction is verified in the block, or the header is retrieved, Relayers are rewarded a fee. The fees are sent when transactions are verified in the block or the header is retrieved. The Relayer of the header earns a fee that is usually specified when the Relayer submits the header. The cycle of Relayers submitting headers — then applications processing bitcoin payments and rewarding Relayers with fees — enable the system to be self-sustaining and autonomous.

An Open Source Project.

ConsenSys launched BTC Relay in May, describing it as an open source project allowing Ethereum-based networks to interoperate programmatically with the bitcoin network, and eventually integrating with other Ethereum and bitcoin-based systems. BTC Relay does not grant special privileges to any party, ConsenSys noted in a press release. Ethereum developers can use BTC Relay to implement a “pay with bitcoin” button in Ethereum-based decentralized applications, enabling bitcoin holders to interact with decentralized applications and smart contracts on the Ethereum platform. Ether, a decentralized exchange, has added BTC Relay as a mechanism for exchanging bitcoin with Ether without any counterparty risk. Another use is issuing an Ethereum-based BTC token (ETHBTC) based on locking BTC tokens in a multisig on the bitcoin protocol, a bidirectional bridge between ETHBTC and BTC. BTC Relay was funded and conceived under the Ethereum Foundation.

Integrating Gitcoin with Btcrelay.

Since Gitcoin is built upon the ethereum network and uses the solidity smart contract programming language. it will be more easier for Gitcion to be be integrated with Btcrelay because Btcrelay is an ethereum contract that allows ethereum users to pay with bitcion. since bitcoin and btcrelay is a success story, then Gitcoin can also be.

More Innovation Expected.

“BTC Relay is a building block and I look forward to the infrastructure, applications, and innovations that BTC Relay helps enable on and off the Ethereum platform,” Chow said. “The possibilities are exciting.” Vitalik Buterin, the inventor of Ethereum, said he was excited to see BTC Relay provide the first-ever production release of such cross-blockchain communication of this kind. He said he hopes to see it set an example for interoperating cross-blockchain applications, whether between Ethereum and bitcoin, other blockchains and Ethereum and public and private or consortium chains. Joseph Lubin, founder and CEO of ConsenSys, called BTC Relay a powerful tool enabling Ethereum smart contracts to serve as SPV wallets for other Ethereum-based networks or blockchain-based systems in permissioned, or open permissionless implementations. With this capability, Ethereum, on account of the stateful, computational power of its smart contract and EVM capabilities, can serve as a substrate for many “glue” protocols that will join blockchain networks and other decentralized services into an Internet of decentralized systems.

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