StarkWare Sessions #6 | Open-Source Funding with Gregoire of Only Dust

Sometimes, the frontier is at a crypto conference. We’re returning from our adventures in Tel Aviv with nine exclusive interviews with some of the key players in the StarkNet space. Wish you could make it to all the crypto conferences, but don't have the time? Don't worry, Bankless brings the frontier to you. In this episode, we’re talking to Gregoire Gambatto, co-founder of Only Dust, the platform for open-source paid contribution. If you’re a budding developer with dreams of impacting the StarkNet ecosystem, this app is for you! ------ 📣 MetaMask Learn https://bankless.cc/metamaskshow ------ 🚀 JOIN THE NATION: https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/subscribe ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/kraken 🦄UNISWAP | ON-CHAIN MARKETPLACE https://bankless.cc/uniswap ⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum 🚁 EARNIFI | CLAIM YOUR UNCLAIMED AIRDROPS https://bankless.cc/earnifi 👻 PHANTOM | CROSS-CHAIN WALLET https://bankless.cc/phantom ------ Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 3:10 Only Dust 4:20 Open Source Devs 5:45 Independent Funding 7:25 Using Only Dust 10:00 Get a Project ----- Resources: Only Dust https://twitter.com/OnlyDust_xyz StarkNet https://starkware.co/starknet/ ----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research. Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02David Hoffman?

  Welcome to Bankless, where we explore the frontier of internet money and internet finance. And sometimes, that frontier is at a conference. Like last weekend, where over 1,000 developers, founders, builders, and investors attended the Starkware Sessions in Tel Aviv in order to participate in growing the Starknet ecosystem. This is Bankless' Starkware Sessions series, which are nine bite-sized episodes interviewing the founders, builders, and ecosystem developers of Starknet. Every once in a while, in the crypto world, a conference happens, but not everyone is available to attend. Don't worry, Bankless has your back, because I go to basically every conference that's out on the frontier, and I bring an entire podcast studio in tow with me, in order to make sure that the Bankless Nation stays on the frontier of what's happening in crypto.

• 0:45David Hoffman?

  In this interview, we are talking to Gregoire from OnlyDust. Now, OnlyDust is an application on Starknet to help developers start building in Starkware using Starknet. It's like a developer bounty board, a kiosk. There's jobs for you to go do. And this is perhaps an entry point for getting started in building in the world of Starknet. There is money associated with this. So if you are a developer looking to make money while also growing your knowledge base about Starknet, this episode is for you. So let's go ahead and get right into it. But first, a moment to talk about some of these fantastic sponsors that make the show possible. Kraken has been around for almost as long as crypto itself. As crazy as crypto is, Kraken has remained a rock for its clients, building out a platform designed to stand

• 1:28David Hoffman?

  the test of time. Kraken is all about proof, not promises, which is why they've pioneered a proof of reserves, a system that lets Kraken's customers verify for themselves the solvency and responsibility of the Kraken exchange. And for this reason, and many more, we've chosen Kraken as Bankless' strategic sponsor for 2023. And once you're done using Kraken to get your dirty fiat money into pristine crypto assets, perhaps you should check out Arbitrum, where so much of the frontier of crypto innovation is taking place. Arbitrum just announced their Stylus Initiative, which is their brand-new programming environment that lets developers deploy apps using their favorite programming languages like Rust, C, C++, alongside regular old solidity EVM apps. Stets can use any coding language they like, and it's simultaneous. drops Layer 2 fees by an order of magnitude. It's a big deal.

• 2:13David Hoffman?

  So many of your favorite DeFi apps have already deployed to Arbitrum, like Uniswap. But did you know that Uniswap isn't just for ERC2 tokens anymore? Uniswap is also an NFT aggregator too, to make sure that you are getting the best price on your NFC purchases. Uniswap gives NFT collectors and traders powerful tools, all from the cozy, comfy Uniswap interface. By the way, it's also got a native fiat on-ramp. It's also deployed on like every Layer 2 and it's got this nifty cool thing called a universal router that ensures that you always get the best price on your trades. Crypto protocols like Arbitrum and Uniswap are becoming super powerful. So make sure that you're also using a wallet that's equally as powerful, or else you'll be missing out. If you're looking to upgrade your wallet experience, check out Phantom, the number one wallet of Solana, which has recently come to both Ethereum and Polygon.

• 2:56David Hoffman?

  Phantom has native NFT support, giving you your own NFT gallery from inside the wallet. Phantom is both a browser extension and a mobile wallet, and is also the only wallet to span both the Solana and Ethereum ecosystems. Check it out at phantom.app. And now, let's get into the interview. Bangs station, we are back in Tel Aviv for the Starkware Sessions. And today, we're talking with Gregor of, uh, what's your project called?

• 3:18Speaker 01

  Only Dust.

• 3:18David Hoffman?

  Only Dust. How did you come up with Only Dust?

• 3:20Speaker 01

  I think to create stars, you need Only Dust. So it's like all developer of a committee are just little, just dust. But with them, we can create stars, we can create new ecosystem and just wonderful. And you, it's a little joke because it's like an OD, you know, so overdose. And in French, it's Poudre de Perle en Pimpin'. It's a private joke for French, but yes.

• 3:43David Hoffman?

  Okay, so what does Only Dust do?

• 3:45Speaker 01

  Only Dust, it's a peer-to-peer grant platform. So we have the money of the foundation within Only Dust, and all developer can grant each other. So it's not like a committee, a borrowing committee with some paperwork. It's a developer with like, okay, I like your job, I want to grant you. So all developer are granting each other and it's very, very effective. And it has a very strong network effect because developer onboard their friends, who onboard their friends and it's working very well and it's all transparent. So we have no fraud on the platform, it's just completely amazing, completely community driven.

• 4:19David Hoffman?

  So this is perhaps a little bit like Gitcoin in the sense that it's a grants platform, but it's different from Gitcoin in that projects on Starknet are giving grants to other projects on Starknet?

• 4:30Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. And in the same repository on GitHub, a project can give grants to other contributors. And a lead can, for example, if a developer sees an amazing opportunity with a good developer, he can grant another developer, and this developer can grant developer on his repository. So it's just contributor granting contributors, yes.

• 4:50David Hoffman?

  So if a developer is interested by Starknet, but they don't know where to go, perhaps this is a place to get started? Is that fair?

• 4:56Speaker 01

  Yes, I think it's the best place. And we are working right now, we will work with Ethereum Foundation. And a lot of other blockchain are coming to us because we have a very, very strong growth and it's working very well. So I think when we were talking with Foundation, a lot of Foundation were like, "We don't want to have a grant program because it's not effective, it's not cost efficient." And when we see our results and our community are like, "I want to do this, I need this." And for example, it's a bit strange because I was in a meeting with a big foundation and we are like, so we have a business model, we have a take rate on all grants. And we are like, "You are nuts. You need to increase your price." I'm like, "What the fuck?" Like, "I have a 50% take rate."

• 5:40Speaker 01

  But like, "No, 20 or 25 minimum." So yes, it's amazing to see this kind of product market thing because grant program has the longest story of failure, according to me. And we are reinventing this with the community for the open source, so it's very cool.

• 5:53David Hoffman?

  Okay, where does the money come from for the grants?

• 5:56Speaker 01

  A foundation of companies. For example, Starknet Foundation is the biggest grant right now. And we are very happy to work with them. And for example, a company like Cartridge, so I think you have interviewed them, they are like, "Okay, we can give you some money because we want to support this kind of open source projects." For example, Teodo is another sponsor of this event. They are like, "Okay, we will give you 100 or 200K for this kind of projects." So we have private company and we have big foundation.

• 6:24David Hoffman?

  Okay, so is this a way for... This isn't really... This is not specific to the Starknet Foundation, right?

• 6:30Speaker 01

  No.

• 6:31David Hoffman?

  So you guys are your own independent company?

• 6:34Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 6:34David Hoffman?

  That's meant to facilitate grants inside of the Starknet ecosystem?

• 6:38Speaker 01

  Yes, it's an open-source ecosystem. So, right now it's Starknet, but open-source. If it's open-source, it can be funded. For example, the Starknet Foundation, right now, with us, is funded. Non-Starknet project, because we think it's interesting for the public goods. So it's a new way to fund public goods, we think.

• 6:55David Hoffman?

  But a lot of the money for grants does come from the Starknet?

• 6:59Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, right now it's okay, yes.

• 7:02David Hoffman?

  Okay, and so it's a way to distribute value from the Starknet Foundation to the rest of the Starknet ecosystem?

• 7:07Speaker 01

  Yes, totally, yes. On a scale, it's very, very well.

• 7:11David Hoffman?

  And so, teams inside of the Starknet ecosystem can get bootstrapped? Because they're getting financial resources from the Starknet Foundation, but it's getting allocated by OnlyDust?

• 7:22Speaker 01

  Yes, it's not by OnlyDust, it's with OnlyDust platform.

• 7:25David Hoffman?

  Right, yes.

• 7:26Speaker 01

  Yes, but by developer, yes. Exactly.

• 7:28David Hoffman?

  Okay, so say I'm Argent. How would I use OnlyDust? And what would I use it for?

• 7:34Speaker 01

  They come to us and say, "Okay, for this type of project, for this type of feature, it's open-source. We want to have contributors." And they're like, "Okay, let's go." We push the project on our platform. We have a lot of contributor, or like, "I want to work on this project." We present, we introduce them to Argent. They begin to work on GitHub. And at the end of the week, the lead of Argent, we say, "Okay, I want to pay this contributor, this kind of, one grand or two... One thousand dollars, two thousand dollars, this one, two hundred, this one." Exactly, and all week he's doing that. And at the end of the budget of the Argent, there are some developer were saying, "Okay, what we are doing with Argent and other contributor on this repository, it's so cool.

• 8:19Speaker 01

  We want that they are... They need to have more money." So they click on a button on our product, and they have more money, and more money, and more money. And if it's not cool, if it's not useful, and if other contributor think that it's not very well-executed, for example, they have no more money. So it's very, you know, it's very violent because sometimes the project just ends because there is not enough quality, not enough value for the ecosystem.

• 8:45David Hoffman?

  And so how do, how do teams like Argent or other like projects that are building on Starknet, how do they get money from the foundation? Do they have to apply for a grant from the foundation?

• 8:54Speaker 01

  No, they, they can, sometimes they are direct talk with the foundation, but when they talk with us, they just have to talk with other developer. So they don't talk to the foundation. So we have some, for example, Teodo or Quadratic, they are building on Starknet and they didn't talk to a member of the foundation. They are just talking with developer of the community. So for the foundation is very cool because they don't have to talk to every company. And if they want to have a specific interaction with the company, they contact them, but normally they don't have to talk to the foundation.

• 9:25David Hoffman?

  Wait, okay, but the developers don't have to talk to the foundation, but someone talks to the foundation.

• 9:29Speaker 01

  Us.

• 9:30David Hoffman?

  Just you?

• 9:30Speaker 01

  Because, yes, we have, we have an annual contract with the foundation and we have a dashboard with all the results, all the developer, all the contributors, all the churn developer. It's like the developer report, you see? But for the Starknet ecosystem and it's actualized day to day, it's day to day. And they see this data and they are like, okay, we like what we see. So we give you more money and more money and more money. So right now we have a contract for 2023 and we will negotiate a contract for 2024. And so we are negotiating for the world ecosystem with the foundation.

• 10:02David Hoffman?

  So this is like, only does it's like a kiosk of jobs for the Starknet ecosystem.

• 10:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 10:08David Hoffman?

  And like as a developer, you can go to this kiosk, like, oh, that job looks cool.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  It's not job, it's not, this project is cool. I want to work on this project. It's not job, it's not bunties, it's project. So you apply to a project, you go in a Telegram group, you talk with other developer, you ship some, you merge some PR on GitHub and you are paid for this. But there is no job, no, it's, it was, it's project centric. We have tried the buntie centric approach. It was devastating. It was, because, yes, buntie, I think, don't work.

• 10:40David Hoffman?

  Right, okay, amazing. So I'm a developer, I'm interested in getting started, where do I go?

• 10:45Speaker 01

  You go to the website, you see all the project, you can contact directly the developer in charge of the grant of the project. You talk with him, you go in this Instagram group, you work and at the end of the week, you are paid.

• 10:59David Hoffman?

  How, how much am I paid?

• 11:01Speaker 01

  Normally it's $500 a day. It could be more if you are more experienced. It could be less if you are a junior developer. But it's your lead. The lead project of the developer of the open source project. We will decide.

• 11:13David Hoffman?

  And what kind of jobs are available? What kind of gigs?

• 11:18Speaker 01

  Right now, we have a lot of, for example, smart contract developer in Kero. We have a need for data scientist. We need Rust developer, a lot of Rust developer, front. So we need a lot of, there's a lot of need. Right now, we have 45 open source projects. And we are growing very fast. We have 300 developer. And so if you come, it's impossible to not find a good project. And if you don't find a good project. Right now, just contact us. And I have a team dedicated to this. We just make the introduction.

• 11:47David Hoffman?

  Awesome. And what's the website?

• 11:49Speaker 01

  Only dust point XYZ.

• 11:51David Hoffman?

  Only dust dot XYZ?

• 11:53Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 11:53David Hoffman?

  Awesome. Gregory, thank you so much.

• 11:55Speaker 01

  Thank you very much.