For a long time I pondered this problem, trying to understand how we can properly incentivize the smartest individuals in our community to build important shit. Then at DevCon 2017, it hit me in the face.

Incase you missed it, two of Ethereum’s most prolific post-token-launch companies, Status and Augur, each presented their platforms, and pledged $1M+ in their native tokens towards building the core components that the community needs.

The Augur team has since kept their word in this regard, first posting 50 different Solium linting upgrade bounties, and later posting a bounty on the Bounties Network for 2,000 REP (~$40,000 USD), for someone to build a portable Solidity debugger. This is one example of the building blocks we will need if Ethereum development aims to go mainstream.

Status has also since launched their platform OpenBounties to facilitate the payout of their team’s bounties for issues that they’ve identified, and will likely continue to grow this effort in a sustainable manner.

Several other teams have also begun posting bounties to build Ethereum commons on Gitcoin, including Truffle, Web3.py, Metamask, EtherDelta, and many many more.