Ethereum Foundation Grants Update – Wave III

We’ve worked hard to meet so many amazing people and projects, and we’re so excited to announce the recipients of Wave III of the Ethereum Foundation Grant Program!

We started 2018 with a blog post drive scalability research for first and second layer solutions. Since then, we have committed more than $11 million to 52 projects dedicated to promoting the Ethereum ecosystem. Grants have funded multiple state and plasma channel implementations, various customer investigations, improved development frameworks, security audits, and much more (find them all in previous posts: hello me & wave II)!

A look at the selection process

Since the Grant Program was brought back, we have received feedback requesting greater transparency in our processes and a deeper look at the various types of projects considered. Here’s a funding snapshot and grant process update:

financing snapshot

The EF grant program has provided more than $11 million in support of 52 projects since the beginning of 2018 (Waves I, II and III).

Our funding allocation remains true to the original purpose of the program, awarding almost $7M to scalability projects. After this, the guarantee has been given almost$2M #buidl projects (projects that improve the user experience) received $1.6 million and DevEx projects (projects that improve the developer experience) received$744K. While the allocation of dollars is still very focused on scalability, the number of projects funded is spread more evenly across categories.

Grant Process Update

The EF Scholarship program is constantly evolving. With this round, we have streamlined our internal processes to ensure timely disbursement of funds. We understand how quickly space moves and we believe in the importance of timely distribution of funds to the front line. Eventually, our goal is to make grants on an ongoing basis to provide more immediate support to projects and teams leading the charge for decentralization and transparency.

Ideal applicants come with strong technical knowledge, a project roadmap, and show a commitment to fostering collaboration within the ecosystem. For more information on applicant expectations and the workflow of the process, see our Applicant Expectations and Frequently Asked Questions.

wave III

With each round, the scholarship program evolves. Our goal is to effectively grease the wheels for projects that build the critical infrastructure of our young community. There are many tracks to set before Ethereum “makes it” and it has been amazing to see all the projects working to set these tracks.

The Wave III applicant pool offered a record number of strong teams and innovative ideas. It is fascinating and sobering to see the diversity of projects from around the world with a shared interest in furthering the development of Ethereum. These are people who spend their free time reading ethresear.chdeveloping new libraries and wallet designs, and participating in communities discussing the latest in DApp usability and security… and we love you for it.

Without any more preambles…

🎉 We are proud to announce our Wave III finalists! 🎉

scalability

• starkware — $4 million with rewards based on the performance of 6K ETH. Development of standards reports and production quality software for STARK compatible optimized hash functions and tools
• Force movement game frame –$300K. Forced Motion Game State Channel Frame
• Harmony –$90K. Minimal fragmentation and random beacon chain

Security

usability

Developer Experience (DevEx Grant)

End User Building (#buidl grant)

• DappNode –$250K. Mass adoption of full nodes
• uniswap –$100k. DEX framework
• nether mind –$50K. .NET client implementation
• elEth –$20K. Gnosis Secure UI Design

Education

hackternhips

Scalability will continue to be a focus of EF grants, but we are also looking to fund other critical work. This includes better UX, new clients, high-level languages, better developer tools, and efforts to make Ethereum apps more secure. With Wave III, we’re expanding into education and community efforts to help bring new talent into the ecosystem.

Do you want to #BUILD with us? Check out the developer wish list below and follow the links for more information. If you can imagine a project related to the listed topics, please submit a request and talk to us.

Wish list for the next round of grants

scalability

1. More payment and/or state channel implementations 💚💙💜
2. More plasma implementations 💚💙
3. More swindler implementations 🔥
4. Improve the efficiency of existing customers, such as geth & parity 💚💙
5. A tokenless”lightning network” for Ethereum 💙
6. website assembly R&D 🔥

Privacy

1. STARS R&D 🔥
2. BLS12-381 implementations in new languages ​​🔥
3. Python libp2p implementation 🔥

usability

1. Improve private key management and transactions on Ethereum 💚💙
2. Alternative portfolio/client designs 💙💜
3. standards and portability between portfolios 💙
4. stamping that improves the developer experience 💚💙💜
5. Improved documentation and educational videos for developers/users 💚💙💜
6. End user products without token 💜
7. viper development 💜
8. More focused on security high level languages ​​💜
9. Non-transferable identification tokens 🔥

Security

1. Security audits for snake 💙💜
2. Smart contract audits 💚💜
3. In particular, audits for ERC20, ERC223, ERC721, multisig wallets, vaults 💜
4. Tools that prevent vulnerable code 💚💙💜
5. IDE with a visual debugger 🔥
6. privacy solutions

internships

Already have a job (or school)? No problem! Suggest a problem you want solved and we’ll be happy to fund a 10-week external internship worth $10,000 for your spare time working on Ethereum. 💚💙💜(Successful projects will be featured at a developer conference. We’re also looking to hire and fund from this group of side projects. If you’re looking for where to start, check out the list above.)

💚 — Wave I / 💙 — Wave II / 💜 — Wave III / 🔥 — New to wish list