Today we are announcing more than $2 million in grants led and co-funded by the Foundation to further the development of Serenity (Eth2.0) as we get closer to launching Beacon Chain.
Eth2.0 Client Grants
Over the past few months, the Ethereum Foundation has awarded major awards to top client development teams currently tasked with delivering long-standing multi-client testnets as development nears the release of Phase 0.
We are proud to announce the recipients of those grants.
Harmony
Prize: $189k for the development of the Harmony beacon chain
prismatic laboratories
Award: $725k for Prysm customer development
sigma prime
Award: $485k for Lighthouse client development
*Co-funded by: Ethereum Foundation and ConsenSys
Condition
Prize: $500k for Nimbus customer development
networks
Condition
Prize: $150K for development of nim-libp2p
*Co-funded by: Ethereum Foundation and Protocol Labs
The Nimbus team at Status is building a native implementation of libp2p in nim language for use in Nimbus and other projects. Additionally, the team aims to create an implementation suitable for resource-constrained devices.
white block
Prize: $184K
*Co-funded by: Ethereum Foundation and ConsenSys
Whiteblock is funded to continue Eth2.0 network testing and testnet/interop support. Whiteblock will review the libp2p gossipsub implementation, continue to work with implementers to help refine the stack and network specification, and advance interoperability efforts.
Investigation and development
Dmitry Khovratovich
Prize: $10K
Dmitry Khovratovich, an expert cryptanalyst, is funded to produce a report on the Legendre PRF security (as described by Grassi et al.) and proof-of-custody scheme intended for use in Phase 1 of Eth2.0.
Chainsafe
Award: $217.5K for Lodestar’s javascript and light client development
Chainsafe is working on R&D of the Eth2.0 light-client within its Lodestar javascript client and continues to support the Eth2.0 JS/web browser ecosystem by developing libraries, tools and educational resources.
rewards
The following bounties are open to help further research and development efforts for the future of Ethereum.
Consensus Phase 0
The Ethereum Foundation offers bounties of 5 ETH (or 1000 DAI, whichever is higher) for any recommendations for substantive changes (bug fixes, optimizations, etc.) reaching the Phase 0 Eth 2.0 specification prior to the genesis of Eth 2.0 . These include changes to the state transition feature, the spread selection rule, or the deposit contract. For more information, see the open bounty theme in the spec repository.
PRF legend
The Legendre pseudorandom function is an extremely MPC-compatible one-bit PRF. This PRF is currently slated for use in the Eth 2.0 Phase 1 proof of custody scheme, as it is the only known method to make proof of custody possible in a shared secret environment. To encourage further research on this PRF, the Ethereum Foundation has set up a series of bounties here: legendreprf.org/bounties
STARK Compatible Hash Challenge
The Ethereum Foundation has asked StarkWare to recommend a STARK Compatible Hash (SFH). The StarkWare Hash Challenge is a public competition aimed at evaluating the security of current proposed SFH candidates. The challenge is proposed in four security levels: low security, medium security, target security, and high security in multiple scenarios. Watch starkware.co/hash-challenge for more details about the competition and how to get started.
