What's really cool, is it's the first time that gittip has demonstrated that people can raise this level of money this quickly. The equivalent of ~$12k/yr in only a few days. With those numbers it might become a legitimate alternative to things like kick starter even for things that are more project oriented.
This really gets me excited, Gittip is turning out to be a GREAT platform for supporting people. I'm hoping we can help Alex meet his goal to continue developing Drupal full time.