As we embark on a brand new decade(!), the Ecosystem Help Program staff needed to talk to among the latest development, transition and studying across the program, and share particulars of our 2019 monetary allocations.
What’s ESP?
The Ecosystem Help Program (ESP) is the arm of the Ethereum Basis centered on offering assist to groups all through the Ethereum ecosystem. This contains monetary and non-financial assist. ESP is an enlargement of the Grants program, which beforehand centered totally on financial assist.
Bettering Our Processes
The 2019 Ethereum Basis Spring Replace first previewed a few of our plans for evolving from Grants to ESP. Since that transition, we’ve continued to award easy grants, and helped make connections to different potential sources of funding the place an EF grant was not a match. We’ve got additionally facilitated recommendation from trade specialists, neighborhood publicity, entry to cloud companies and different infrastructure, and extra.
Over the past 9 months we’ve integrated suggestions to refine our software course of and made various modifications, together with:
- A standardized course of for reviewing ESP purposes
- An expanded group of area specialists accessible to assist with peer overview of purposes, or to advise candidates on their initiatives
- Elevated concentrate on offering candidates with 1:1 suggestions
- Labored extra carefully with accepted initiatives to create clearer targets, roadmaps, and mutual expectations
Increasing Communications
With these stronger processes in place, we’re making an effort to extend visibility and to draw extra high-quality purposes. To that finish, we’re making some modifications to how we talk, from enhancing current channels to including some shiny new pages to the ESP web site.
Some modifications are modest, however we hope that they’ll be useful in each maintaining the neighborhood knowledgeable and higher making ready potential candidates. On the entrance web page now you can comply with the most recent information about ESP and see which occasions we’ll be collaborating in, whether or not just about or in particular person following the present and ongoing well being disaster.
We’ve added to our FAQ, improved our inquiry types, and most significantly debuted some new web page banners that we predict actually tie the room collectively 😎. Hold a watch out for much more additions within the coming months, and common updates to current content material!
We’ve additionally added a Wishlist to convey consideration to particular areas like safety, Eth2, and privateness, the place we’d prefer to see extra purposes. This record is not a declaration of what is necessary to the ecosystem, or perhaps a assertion of ESP’s priorities. Nevertheless, we hope the record serves as inspiration for anybody trying to become involved! As at all times, we wish to strike a steadiness between demonstrating the vary of efforts that ESP helps whereas additionally embracing potential contributors working outdoors of the particular areas we have outlined.
On the reporting entrance, we will likely be publishing common weblog posts to announce new grant recipients, however a grant is barely the start. Shifting ahead, we’ll even be highlighting what supported groups go on to perform. On the brand new Featured Tasks web page, we’ll highlight initiatives which are months or years into the work that was enabled by these grants. We’ll additionally use our weblog and increase our use of social media to have a good time grant recipients as they obtain milestones and make progress towards their targets.
Monetary Help in 2019
Whereas we labored to enhance the Ecosystem Help Program all through 2019, we continued to assist initiatives throughout the ecosystem. Awarding grants is just one means that we offer that assist. There are lots of wonderful groups that aren’t EF grant recipients, both as a result of they’re already funded or as a result of their explicit focus is simply not the correct match for EF funding. Nevertheless, we work to assist these important contributors in no matter means we will (for instance, as a bridge to new alternatives or as an amplifier of community results for his or her initiatives).
That stated, monetary assist continues to be a serious a part of how we assist the broader Ethereum ecosystem. Over 70 initiatives acquired monetary assist in 2019. What’s listed under particulars newly distributed grants to groups in 2019. It doesn’t embody recurring assist, tranches for newly achieved milestones from prior recipients, or funding for different EF groups. For extra particulars on all the Basis’s work, we’ll share a 2020 Spring Replace within the coming days.
We’re together with names and summaries for every funded challenge under. Yow will discover a searchable spreadsheet together with hyperlinks to be taught extra about particular person initiatives right here.
Ethereum 2.0
Ethereum 2.0 improvement is in full swing, with many groups working collectively to make Ethereum extra scalable, resilient, safe, and naturally introduce Proof of Stake! We’ve helped to fund a various bunch of two.0 purchasers, in addition to efforts towards interoperability, enhancing reliability and creating developer tooling. Along with the grants listed under, Ethereum 2.0 work has been supported by recurring funding and different channels.
Eth2 Shoppers: $1,695,000
| Grant | Description | Extra Data |
|---|---|---|
| Concord Shopper | Help for the Concord staff to develop a beacon chain consumer in Java. | https://github.com/harmony-dev/beacon-chain-java |
| Lighthouse | Help for Sigma Prime’s continued improvement of the Lighthouse staking consumer, written in Rust, for the Ethereum 2.0 community. | https://lighthouse.sigmaprime.io/ |
| Nimbus | Help for Standing’s continued improvement of the Nimbus consumer for Ethereum 2.0, designed to carry out effectively on embedded programs and private cell units, together with older smartphones with resource-restricted {hardware}. | https://nimbus.staff/ |
| Prysm Shopper | Help for Prysmatic Labs’s continued improvement of the Prysm staking consumer for the Ethereum 2.0 community written in Go. | https://prylabs.internet/ |
Eth2 Tooling & Different: $1,459,000
| Grant | Description | Extra Data |
|---|---|---|
| Educational analysis on CBC Casper | Analysis by Ryuya Nakamura of College of Tokyo and Dominik Harz of Imperial Faculty London to determine the theoretical basis of CBC Casper together with the evaluation of safety, efficiency, and incentives. | https://ethresear.ch/u/nrryuya/exercise/subjects https://eprint.iacr.org/2019/415.pdf https://github.com/LayerXcom/cbc-casper-proof |
| Beacon Fuzz | Differential fuzzer for Part 0 of Eth2. | https://github.com/sigp/beacon-fuzz/ |
| Cryptonext | Survey and report on doable approaches to aggregatable post-quantum signatures in Eth2. | https://cryptonext-security.com/ |
| Dmitry Khovratovich | Cryptoanalysis of the Lengendre PRF and Proof of Custody development. | https://eprint.iacr.org/2019/862.pdf |
| Herumi | Convey the Herumi BLS library in step with the IEFT spec. | https://github.com/herumi/mcl |
| Lodestar | Work by Chainsafe on Eth2 light-client R&D inside their Lodestar javascript consumer; in addition to persevering with to offer assist to the Eth2 JS/web-browser ecosystem by growing libraries, tooling, and academic assets. | http://github.com/ChainSafe/Lodestar |
| Nimbus | Grant to Standing, co-funded with Protocol Labs, to construct nim-libp2p, a networking stack in Nim. | https://github.com/status-im/nim-libp2p |
| Runtime Verification | Formal verification of the Eth2 Deposit Contract; constructing the Part 0 Beacon Chain spec in Okay Framework for the needs of formal verification; and formally verifying Accountable Security and Believable Liveness towards the Okay Beacon Chain. | |
| VDF analysis—hybrid prover | Analysis on the soundness and efficiency of a hybrid Wesolowski-Pietrzak VDF prover. | |
| VDF: Quantity Idea Assertion | Show a quantity theoretic assertion which means an data theoretic decrease certain for modular squaring. | |
| Whiteblock | Ethereum 2.0 community testing and testnet/interoperability assist: evaluation of the libp2p gossipsub implementation, working with implementors to assist refine the networking stack and specification, and advancing interoperability efforts. | https://whiteblock.io/ |
Eth 1.x: $487,000
Important work continues on enhancing Ethereum because it exists right this moment, with upgrades being labored on by 1.x contributors to assist enhance Ethereum within the instant time period. Centered upon areas embody Stateless Ethereum, enhancing developer expertise, growing node consumer variety, making certain that working a full node stays sustainable, and making ready a path to the two.0 rollout. As with Eth2, these are simply the allocations that took the type of grants. We’ll share extra about different supported efforts – together with Geth, further 1.x and Stateless analysis, and extra in later organizational updates.
Layer 2: $1,211,000
Layer 2 options allow all kinds of purposes that may in any other case be too costly, sluggish, sophisticated, or simply not doable to implement instantly on the Ethereum base layer. 2019 was an thrilling yr throughout which groups and people throughout the neighborhood got here collectively to make large strides towards making Ethereum extra helpful and scalable. This work is essential within the close to time period, however simply as invaluable for the longer term. Eth 2.0 will nonetheless profit from the improved privateness, scalability, and adaptability provided by Layer 2.
| Grant | Description | Extra Data |
|---|---|---|
| Connext | Aligning Connext fee hubs with generalized State Channel unification challenge. | https://github.com/ConnextProject/indra, https://connext.community |
| Cryptoeconomics Labs | Plasma Chamber, an OVM-inspired, normal objective layer 2 software framework | https://www.cryptoeconomicslab.com/ |
| LeapDAO | Plasma Leap: a Extra Viable Plasma design which permits execution of sensible contract performance on plasma utilizing EVM enforcer, a computation verification engine that permits for enforcement of off-chain execution. | https://leapdao.org/ |
| Matter Labs | Productionizing Plasma Ignis, a SNARK-driven zk-rollup implementation. | https://matter-labs.io/ |
| PISA Analysis | Normal accountable watchtower system for state channels and decentralized finance protocols, which permits events to rent an accountable service to look at the off-chain protocols and on-chain contracts on their behalf. | https://www.pisa.watch/ |
| Plasma Group | Analysis into generalized plasma, Optimistic Rollup, and OVM (Optimistic Digital Machine). | https://plasma.group/ |
| Twitch Performs Pokemon on Plasma | Take a look at suite for tutorial establishments and researchers to check financial and coordination theories of decentralized governance fashions. | flexdapps.com |
| Unified State Channels | A joint grant to Prototypal, Magmo and L4 analysis aimed on the unification of State Channels efforts. Along with merging efforts already in progress, contributors labored collectively to rewrite, optimize and do formal modeling of the underlying protocol; design a demo app; and design a resilient consumer that gives fund restoration ensures to customers. | statechannels.org |
Cryptography and Zero Information Proofs: $426,000
There’s extra work than ever going into analysis and improvement on cryptography and nil information proofs. These efforts strengthen the elemental constructing blocks of the protocol, opening up new potentialities for scaling, privateness, and safety. 2019 was all about sensible steps ahead, with instruments being constructed that make developments extra accessible to builders with out requiring a complicated understanding cryptography.
| Grant | Description | Extra Data |
|---|---|---|
| AirAssembly | Language for encoding Algebraic Intermediate Illustration (AIR), making STARK programming extra accessible by enabling succinct proofs of computational integrity in zk-STARKS. | https://ethresear.ch/t/airassembly-a-low-level-language-for-zk-starks/6419/4 |
| Aztec | Cryptographic development which permits nested composition of a batch of Aztec vary proofs inside a zk-SNARK circuit, to allow future improvement of privateness preserving rollups. | https://www.aztecprotocol.com/ |
| Circom | A sturdy and scalable language for advanced arithmetic circuit design. | https://github.com/iden3/circom |
| FPGA Snark Prover | Bettering effectivity of zk-SNARK proof creation by offloading operations to an FPGA (area programmable knowledge array). | |
| Kestrel Institute | ACL2 Ethereum consumer and AXE equivalence checker to formally confirm cryptographic primitives (together with MiMC, PiMC, Edison hash, BLAKE2) relevant to numerous makes use of of zk-SNARKS. | https://www.kestrel.edu/residence/initiatives/fv-of-r1cs/index.html |
| Legendre PRF Bounty | The Legendre PRF (pseudo-random operate) is required to allow secret-shared validators utilizing multi-party computations. These bounties encourage extra analysis on key restoration assaults, to extend confidence in utilizing this cryptographic primitive. | https://eprint.iacr.org/2019/862.pdf, https://legendreprf.org/bounties |
| MACI | Minimal Anti-Collusion Infrastructure: a collusion resistance scheme that drastically will increase the danger concerned in shopping for or promoting votes. | https://github.com/barryWhiteHat/maci |
| Platon | Validation and implementation of the “Proof of Custody” scheme, which permits secret shared validators by way of multi-party computation, enabling trustless staking swimming pools in addition to redundancy to lower the danger of getting slashed attributable to compromised {hardware} or software program. | https://github.com/PlatONnetwork/proof_of_custody |
| Statebox | Analysis into utilizing class principle to show diagrams, securely and compositionally, into zk-SNARK circuits. | www.statebox.org |
Developer Expertise: $1,322,000
Ethereum opened up an entire new design area for purposes. As builders have explored this area, inevitably they’ve found new ache factors and required new instruments. We’re making vital investments in enhancing developer expertise on Ethereum, from enhancing the vary of programming languages, software program libraries, dev tooling, node infrastructure, decentralized storage, messaging, and extra. These developments allow builders to do extra, extra simply, to allow them to concentrate on their merchandise slightly than on constructing their very own customized tooling. In the end we would like it to be simple – and enjoyable – to construct on Ethereum.
| Grant | Description | Extra Data |
|---|---|---|
| Buidler | Extending capabilities for Buidler, a job runner for Ethereum sensible contract builders. | https://buidler.dev/ |
| DeepSEA | Analysis at Yale and Columbia on DeepSEA, a language producing coq proofs to compile formally verified code to the EVM making certain no bugs are launched. | https://certik.org/deepsea_blockchain.html |
| Ethereum on ARM | Customized Linux pictures to robotically flip useful resource constrained units into full Ethereum nodes. | https://github.com/diglos/pi-gen (for ARM32 repository, Raspberry Pi 4 picture), https://github.com/diglos/userpatches (for ARM64 repository, NanoPC-T4 and RockPro64 picture) |
| Moon | EVM and WASM runtimes for formality language in addition to associated libraries, documentation and tutorials. | https://github.com/moonad/, https://sunshinecybernetics.com/, https://github.com/moonad/Formality/blob/grasp/DOCUMENTATION.md |
| NomicLabs | Developer expertise analysis, prioritization, and roadmapping. | https://nomiclabs.io/ |
| Play | Decentralized database for verified Solidity code. | https://playproject.io/play-ed/ |
| py-libp2p | Capstone challenge by 4 College of Pennsylvania seniors to develop a python implementation of libp2p, utilized by IPFS and Eth2, and accompanying easy-to-use toolsets | https://github.com/libp2p/py-libp2p |
| Shadowlands | Framework for constructing terminal-based Ethereum apps with a textual content UI, as a substitute for apps with web-based UI. | https://github.com/kayagoban/shadowlands |
| Solhint | Continued improvement and added plugins for Solhint, a device for linting solidity code to establish dangerous coding practices. | github: https://github.com/protofire/solhint/, Firm profile: https://protofire.io |
| Solidity Protection | Enhancements to the solidity-coverage device, which supplies a means for Solidity builders to measure the accuracy of their javascript check suites, obtain protection reporting and extra. | https://github.com/sc-forks/solidity-coverage |
| SOLL | Second State’s LLVM primarily based compiler, a yul various to assist transition Solidity to eWASM. | https://github.com/second-state/SOLL, https://www.secondstate.io/ |
| Swarm | Analysis and improvement on Swarm, a decentralized storage resolution. | https://swarm.ethereum.org/ |
| Tenderly | Enhancements to Buidler’s console.log performance. | https://tenderly.dev/ |
| Web3J | Growth and upkeep of the Web3j library with a view to present an improved expertise for Java, Android and Kotlin builders. | https://weblog.web3labs.com/web3j-ethereum-foundation-grant-update, https://www.web3labs.com/web3j, https://github.com/web3j/web3j |
Person Expertise: $213,000
We’re at all times looking out for common instruments and upgrades that cut back friction for the tip person with out compromising decentralization or any of the opposite issues that make Ethereum particular. Addressing frequent ache factors like gasoline prices, id administration, deal with readability, and interoperability makes it simpler for dapp builders in every single place to onboard customers.
| Grant | Description | Extra Data |
|---|---|---|
| Eauth | Oauth2 suitable authentication service framework primarily based on Ethereum. | https://github.com/pelith/node-eauth-server |
| ENS Basis | Continuation funding for Ethereum Identify Service, decentralized Web naming infrastructure on Ethereum. | https://ens.domains/ |
| Ethereum Pockets SDK | Abstraction layer which permits dapp builders to simply combine with a number of wallets. | https://dappsdk.io/ |
| Everest | Id and credential system which permits id claims comparable to KYC standing to be securely revealed, shared, and verified on Ethereum Mainnet. | https://everest.org |
| Gasoline Station Community | Meta transactions customary and decentralized community of relay nodes to deal with gasoline charges on behalf of customers. | https://gasstation.community/ |
| POAP | Subsidization of Proof of Attendance Protocol gasoline prices at Devcon. | http://www.poap.xyz |
Neighborhood and Schooling: $422,000
Merely put, Ethereum wouldn’t exist with out its neighborhood and the those that work to develop and enrich our ecosystem. These groups convey folks collectively each in particular person and on-line, improve the variety of our world neighborhood, and assist to construct a common information base by making academic supplies free and accessible to all.
Oblique Funding $484,000
A brand new sort of ecosystem wants new methods of occupied with funding! The Ethereum ecosystem depends on open supply builders and impartial thinkers to thrive. To this finish, we glance to assist novel methods of funding proficient contributors outdoors the normal constructions of firms and organizations; grants and VCs; contracts and salaries. This class is all about entrusting assets to the neighborhood.
| Grant | Description | Extra Data |
|---|---|---|
| Gitcoin | Funding for operations, bounties and CLR matching. | https://gitcoin.co/ |
| MolochDAO | Funding for the launch of MolochDAO in an effort to diversify improvement funding. | https://molochdao.com/ |
| UNICEF | ETH and BTC donations to UNICEF’s Crypto-denomintated Fund to assist blockchain improvements within the growing world and encourage the usage of cryptocurrencies (with out changing them into fiat). | https://www.unicef.org/ |
We’re happy with all the pieces our 2019 cohort completed, and we’re forging forward in 2020 with renewed vitality and objective. As at all times, large due to the neighborhood on your ardour and assist, and we stay up for maintaining you updated with the most recent from the ESP staff! 🦄