Our Story
In 2017, a group of technologists set out to re-imagine free and open source software collaboration with protocols, not platforms. They started Monadic, a Berlin-based software company with a home base in the heart of Kreuzberg. Monadic spawned the open source projects Radicle and oscoin that from inception, were both meant to become a new kind of open-source project — built, governed, and financed on the internet. Over the next couple of years, the projects merged, and became known as solely the Radicle project.
In 2021, the team began the decentralization of the project with the initialization of the network’s native governance token ($RAD). With this, the RadicleDAO was formed, granting the community of $RAD holders the ability to make decisions on how to govern the project’s Treasury and smart contracts. All Monadic contributors transitioned to the Radicle Foundation, a Swiss entity formed in 2020 to support the development of resilient and humane software infrastructures, such as Radicle.
The Foundation funded and coordinated all core development of the Radicle project up until May 2023, when the project split into two products: Radicle (code-collaboration) and Drips (drip-down funding). Both products were successfully spun out into their own, autonomous entities - known as "Orgs" - which are directly supported by the DAO - now known as Radworks. Today, the community continues to collectively govern the Radworks treasury, funding Orgs that do work in line with the Radworks purpose.
A History of Radworks
The oscoin manifesto goes live
The initial mission & vision of the project are released out in the wild.
Monadic GmbH is born
The Berlin-based, venture-backed entity that supported the early stages of the project.
Radicle (code collab) launches in alpha
The initial version of the code collaboration platform that was built on IPFS.
Oscoin whitepaper is released
The whitepaper formally defined the oscoin protocol and network.
Radicle Foundation is established
A Swiss Foundation that acts as Radworks’ trusted real-world entity that stewards the progressively decentralization of the project.
Oscoin merges under the Radicle brand
The project combines a dual-market vision - decentralized code collab & funding for open source - under one roof.
Radicle Upstream is released in beta
A desktop application built on Radicle.
With this, the RadicleDAO is established and v1 of the Radicle Governance Process is released.
Contributors transition to the Radicle Foundation, Monadic is dissolved
Core contributors who were engaged via Monadic began working with the Radicle Foundation.
The Drips Project is born
A decentralized, token streaming tool-kit that allows anyone to generate ongoing support using subscriptions and NFT memberships.
Radicle launches a web client
The Radicle network moves to the web, with a CLI and complementing web interface.
The project begins its “transition to the DAO”
A coordinated effort defined by four workstreams to transition funding & coordination of core development from the Radicle Foundation to the community.
Radicle Upstream is deprecated, Radicle team starts building new Heartwood protocol
Upstream is sunset to shift focus to the web client. The Radicle team starts re-architecting the third iteration of the Radicle Protocol: Heartwood.
Radicle Foundation becomes fully DAO-funded
The Foundation — which was funding & coordinating core development work of the Radicle project independently from the DAO — comes under the purview of DAO governance. This completes the first phase of the project’s “transition to the DAO”.
Heartwood launches
The Heartwood protocol launches in April 2023 and addresses usability and performance concerns we faced during the previous iterations of the protocol, while doubling down on Radicle's secure and resilient primitives.
All core work is transitioned to the DAO, sunsetting of DAO transition work
Radicle and Drips and Grants became independent, DAO-funded Orgs within the DAO and the Org Design Working Group, which led the charge of DAO transition design & research, was sunset.
RadicleDAO becomes Radworks
The DAO identity shifts to be more inclusive for all technology being supported by this community-governed network.
Introduces Drips lists, an oracle-based identity solution, and a new app.
Radicle Foundation becomes Better Internet Foundation
Since the core work was transitioned to Radicle and Drips Orgs, a new Foundation name was chosen, which better reflects its wider-purpose and the fact that it no longer develops nor directly supports Radicle.
Radworks funds its critical dependancies via Drips
Radworks becomes the first project to utilize Drips to support open source builders at scale - streaming $1 million to 30 critical software dependencies.
Radicle 1.0 launches
Introduces patches, issues, identities and a stabilized Heartwood protocol.