Users can choose to donate to different projects on the Gitcoin website. Some projects may provide airdrops and rewards to donors later on. Donating does not guarantee airdrops .Previous airdrops like $GTC and $MASK have provided a decent return for donors.

Now Gitcoin Grants Round 12 (GR12) is ongoing and will be accepting donations till December 16.

Getting started:

If you have never donated and don’t have a Github account, visit https://github.com/ to create one.

Step 1:

Go to https://gitcoin.co/ and sign in with your Github account.

Step 2:

To maximize your donation impact, you will need to complete a number of verification procedures to bring your verification level up to 150%.

Recommend verification methods:

SMS/Google/Twitter/Facebook (+15% each)

These social media verification methods are relatively easy and should be completed first. (You need 100 followers for the Twitter verification, skip it if you don’t.)

POAP/ENS (+25% each)

You can verify by simply inputting your wallet address if you have a POAP or ENS.

BrightID (+50%)

Only do this if you still don’t have a 150% verification level.

You need to show up in a Zoom meeting with your camera on to get verified with BrightID. If you do not have Zoom, download it at your App store.

1. Download the BrightID app at https://www.brightid.org/

2. Join a BrightID Verification Meeting at https://meet.brightid.org/#/

Step 3:

Now that you have brought your verification level up to or close to 150%, we can start looking for projects to donate at https://gitcoin.co/grants/explorer/.

Generally you should look for projects that

1. Have a social media presence such as Twitter, Telegram and Discord.

2. Have a whitepaper or at least a detailed description about what they do.

3. Have not yet issued their tokens, with plans to launch one later.

A few projects that I donated to:

RSS3

POAP

LiFinance

Zeropool

Umbra

Add the projects you are interested in to your shopping cart. Check out using the shopping cart sign on the top right.

Step 4:

Now choose your currency to pay. I advise donating a minimum of 5 USD worth of crypto per project.

For GR12, you can now avoid expensive gas fees by checking on Polygon. Connect your wallet by clicking on the wallet sign on the top right and change to Polygon mainnet. Then choose “Polygon Checkout”.

If you followed one of my earlier guides on zkSync, you may also want to pay via zkSync. (Polygon is still cheaper though.)

Confirm your transaction and you will see this after your payment.

Step 5:

That’s all. Here comes the wait till the first airdrop from one of your donated projects.

Assets deposited to Backd earns yields on farms and serves as backup asset at the same time. When your loan is in danger of liquidation due to market fluctuations, the platform’s “Keeper” will automatically withdraw funds from your backup assets to cover the loan position, therefore preventing liquidation. In this way, users do not have to sacrifice capital efficiency (by over-collateralising) to secure their borrowing positions.

They have launched their testnet and are inviting users to try it out.

The developers of Backd have indicated the possibility of an airdrop to testnet users but nothing has been confirmed yet. So consider yourself whether you want to spend time on the testnet.

Follow the steps below to go through the core functions of the protocol.

Getting started:

First switch the network of your wallet to “Kovan Test Network”.

Then grab some Kovan testnet $ETH at their discord server. Go to “kovan-facuet” and input your address. The bot will react with a 👍 when the $ETH has been sent to your wallet.

Now you have $ETH in your wallet, go to Aave facuet and change the market to “Aave V2”.

Click “MORE” and choose “Faucet”.

Get some $DAI from the Faucet.

Step 1:

We take out a loan on Aave. First, we need to deposit $DAI.

Then go to “BORROW” and borrow $ETH. Take note of your health factor to be used later.

Step 2:

We deposit our backup asset. Go to https://backd.fund/ and click “View Pools”.

Choose the DAI pool.

Deposit your desired amount of $DAI.

Step 3:

Now we allow our backup asset to top-up our collateral on Aave when in danger of liquidation.

Go to “Top-Up Positions” and input your parameters.

• Protocol: Borrowing on Aave

• Address: Your wallet address (or the wallet address that the loan is on)

• Threshold: The health factor at which a top-up should occur (The threshold should be lower than the health factor you see when you take out the loan at Aave.)

• Single top-up: (denominated in the deposited asset) the amount of your assets to be deposited into your collateral if a top-up occurs

• Max top-up: The total value of your Backd assets allocated to top-ups

Confirm your top-up position.

Step 4:

We close our top-up position by clicking the red garbage can.

Step 5:

Finally, we withdraw our deposited assets.

Step 6:

Those are the core functions and we have tested them all. If you see any bugs, you can report to the Backd team at their discord channel.

The founder of Algodex has recently tweeted that their native token $ALDX will soon have its TGE (Token Generation Event). He also hinted at the possibility of an airdrop for testnet users in TG group. It seems that there is a decent probability of airdrop for testnet users in the near future.

To participate in the testnet, follow the steps below.

Step 1:

First set up a My Algo wallet at https://wallet.myalgo.com/.

Connect to Testnet on My Algo in the top right-hand corner.

Step 2:

Claim some free testnet $ALGO at https://bank.testnet.algorand.network/.

Step 3:

Head to https://testnet.algodex.com/ and connect your wallet. Now just place some random orders on the DEX like you would on Binance/FTX.

To use dApps on Starknet, you will need to get your Argent X wallet chrome extension here.

After creating/importing your account, first make sure you are on Goerli Testnet.

Then go on to mint test tokens. You will get 1000 Playground Token.

Now we are ready to dive into the StarkNet ecosystem (again).

Oasis 

https://testnet.playoasis.xyz/

Connect your wallet and buy a random NFT with your playground tokens.

Next go to “create”. Upload an image and enter a name to create your NFT on StarkNet.

Go to “sell” to list your NFT and hopefully someone buys it from you.

Mint Square

https://mintsquare.io/

Connect wallet and “Mint NFT”.

Only fields required is the image and the name. Others are optional.

Check your NFT at “Profile” afterwards.

Briq

https://briq.construction/builder

Connect your wallet and claim your briqs at the bottom.

Build something with your briqs. Once you have finished, mint it on chain.