Ethereum Foundation’s Q2 2023 Allocation Insights

Community & education DeFi Security Summit Summit held in Paris, France that examines all facets of DeFi security including auditing, tools, and bug remediation, by analyzing some of the most significant DeFi breaches and exploring actionable methods to enhance security measures for code. Community & education DWeb Camp & Global Fellows Program Internet Archive A five-day event aimed at addressing real-world issues confronting web3 and collaboratively creating decentralized technologies for the future. Community & education ETHBarcelona A conference and hackathon in Barcelona, Spain addressing topics like public goods, privacy, and scalability. Community & education ETH Belgrade A conference and hackathon in Belgrade, Serbia covering themes such as zero-knowledge (ZK), infrastructure, and scaling. Community & education Ethereum Argentina Conference This conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina features beginner and advanced content on topics including sharding, ZK, and staking. Community & education Ethereum Singapore A hackathon dedicated to social impact along with a conference discussing subjects such as ZK and layer 2s (L2s), held in Singapore. Community & education Ethereum Slovenia Meetup A meetup in Ljubljana, Slovenia to revive grassroots initiatives of the Ethereum Slovenia community. Community & education Ethereum Uruguay Third Edition Event An event taking place in Montevideo, Uruguay focused on discussions and developer workshops that cover topics like public goods, onboarding for web3, and account abstraction. Community & education ETHKL Assistance in the organization of Ethereum education and grassroots community initiatives in Malaysia, which includes a conference and hackathon, community meetups, and a hacker house. Community & education ETH Latam Honduras ETH Kipu A conference aimed at exchanging insights, experiences, and knowledge about Ethereum in Latin America, planned for 2024 and taking place in Honduras. Community & education ETHPrague A conference and hackathon in Prague, Czech Republic concentrating on the future of Ethereum and innovative ideas or applications that are yet to be developed. Community & education ETHRome Hackathon in Rome, Italy centered on governance and technologies that preserve privacy. Community & education ETH Warsaw A conference and hackathon in Warsaw, Poland centered on subjects such as security, “`html
L2s, and decentralized identity. Community & education SMT 2023 Workshop designed to unite researchers engaged in Satisfiability Modulo Theories (SMT) alongside practitioners utilizing SMT methods and tools. Community & education Web3 Lagos Conference Web3Bridge Conference in Lagos, Nigeria addressing subjects like Ethereum advancements, public goods, and account abstraction. Community & education Web3Privacy Now Research initiative collaborating with the community to establish a framework for investigating, analyzing, and evaluating privacy in web3 protocols, dapps, and services. Consensus layer Data Availability Sampling R&D Echo Data Availability Sampling (DAS) research and development efforts that encompass creating a fortified S-Kademlia prototype, composing a literature review and summaries, and providing assistance to other ongoing DAS grant projects. Consensus layer Distributed Systems and/or Formal Verification Research ConsenSys Reliable Distributed Systems Team Investigation into critical areas of the Ethereum protocol roadmap focusing on formal verification and distributed systems design and assessment. Consensus layer eth-duties Tobias Wohland Self-managed infrastructure tool that assists stakers and validators in maintaining Ethereum node/client operations by offering an overview of the upcoming responsibilities of their active validators. GitHub, Twitter Consensus layer Implementation of PEPC with an In-Protocol PBS Diego Estevez Creating a proof-of-concept for Protocol-Enforced Proposer Commitments (PEPC) that permits validators to make commitments with external parties, in conjunction with a protocolized adaptation of vanilla proposer-builder separation (PBS) for it. Twitter Consensus layer MinRoot VDF Research Compensating cryptographers for the MinRoot security research completed during the verifiable delay function (VDF) event in Lyon, France. Consensus layer Nimbus Consensus Layer Client Status Ongoing enhancement of the Nimbus consensus layer client, which comprises maintaining performance and stability on the production beacon chain, carrying out R&D on light clients, and producing public documentation. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs Anon Aadhaar SDK Support Yanis Meziane Develop a suite of tools that enhances developer experience and empowers any programmer to integrate
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the Anon Aadhaar circuit with the proof-carrying information (PCD) software development kit (SDK). Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs Chiquito Steve Wang Chiquito serves as a step-based high-level Rust DSL (Pychiquito is a Python DSL for Chiquito) that enhances syntax and abstraction for creating constraints and arranging columns when constructing plonkish circuits and features a halo2 backend, with additional backends currently under development. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs Lambdadelta – Decentralized Event Feed Protocol reilgun A decentralized, peer-to-peer, and permission-less multiwriter event feed that guarantees both anonymity and privacy. A library implementing the protocol and a proof-of-concept application utilizing the library will also be established. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs EfficientZKML Artem Grigor & Georg Wiese Examination to confirm that employing Weightless Neural Networks in zero-knowledge machine learning (ZKML) applications is a potential avenue to explore. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs EPFL Cryptographic Research Group Sustaining an EPFL Cryptographic Research Group for one year, directed by Associate Professor Alessandro Chiesa and featuring two PhD candidates along with one postdoctoral researcher. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs HyperNova Oskar Implementation of a proof-of-concept and a technical document for HyperNova, a novel folding/accumulation method akin to halo2 designed for sum check-based protocols. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs Isokratia Amir Bolous A governance platform that minimizes trust, using off-chain, cost-free voting and recursive SNARKs to enhance decentralization while lowering trust premises. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs P-256 Smart Contract Wallet with zk-SNARKs Richard Liu Extend Ethereum transaction signatures to include biometric attestation methods by creating a smart contract wallet that incorporates P-256 signature validation alongside a zk-SNARK on-chain verifier. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs Rust Implementation of Interactive Zero-Knowledge Protocols PADO Labs Create open-source Rust implementations for essential multi-party computation components, and execute a leading-edge “Silent OT” protocol, known as Ferret. Telegram Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs Semaphore Protocol Vivian Plasencia Ongoing enhancement of Semaphore’s command-line interface, website and documentation, boilerplate, as well as community engagement. GitHub Cryptography
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& zero knowledge proofs UniRep Protocol Ongoing enhancement of UniRep, particularly focusing on its smart contract, circuit, overall testing, and various unresolved matters. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs Zeta Function Technologies Investigating new pairing-based protocols such as cached quotients, and utilizing them to create more efficient SNARKs for several significant and commonly-used primitives. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs ZK Circuits for ZK EigenTrust Progress on the development of ZK EigenTrust, a reputation management system for peer-to-peer networks leveraging the halo2 proving system. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs ZKEmail Sora Suegami An email validation system that employs zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs), enabling developers to create various applications by customizing the content of the emails for verification. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs zkGit Hungry Cats Studio A user-oriented application that enables developers to demonstrate, in ZK, their contributions to a GitHub repository. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs zkMemory Orochi Network Exploration, specification, and implementation of memory management circuit constraining techniques intended for use within the ZKVMs framework. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs ZKP2P Alex Soong, Brian Weickmann, Richard Liang, & Sachin Kumar A trustless peer-to-peer fiat onramp that can be constructed on any web2 payment infrastructure without needing consent from the payment network itself. Developer experience & tooling Recovery Pulse Andreas Tsamados, Constantin, & Vijay Krishnavanshi A user-friendly reference implementation framework for smart contract recovery that integrates the innovative Recovery Pulse structure. Developer experience & tooling rpcvm Leonard Mittman A Golang library for rapid and lightweight transaction simulation and debugging with the ability to fork from the Mainnet. Execution layer Fluffy Portal Client Status Ongoing advancement of the Fluffy ultralight client for the Portal Network, designed to facilitate resource-limited devices in accessing and contributing to the Ethereum network without syncing the complete state. Execution layer Nethermind 2023 Internship Program Assistance for Nethermind’s internship initiative, with
“`a concentration on primary protocol contributors. Execution layer Nimbus Execution Layer Client Status Ongoing enhancement of the Nimbus execution layer client, progressing towards production readiness by elevating performance and reliability while conducting R&D on light clients and developing public resources. Comprehensive growth & assistance Kipu Stakers ETH Kipu Initiative that offers staking materials, instruction, and support in Spanish for Latin American communities and individuals aspiring to run their own nodes and validators. Discord, Email Comprehensive research Academic Grants Round Grant opportunity aimed at funding formal studies that seeks to expand understanding of Ethereum, blockchain technology, and adjacent fields. Indirect financing ETHDam Quadratic Funding Round Quadratic funding opportunity for the projects developed during the ETHDam hackathon. Indirect financing Ethereum Honduras Quadratic Funding Round Quadratic funding initiative organized by Ethereum Honduras for public benefit projects. Layer 2 Beaconcha.in Bitfly An open-source Ethereum explorer that simplifies and enhances data accessibility for non-technical users while advancing the current user experience paradigm for explorers. Other mevboost.pics Toni Wahrstätter Dashboard featuring graphs and visual representations of Relay, Builder, and Proposer ecosystem. Other Trusted Credential Issuer Management Spherity A standard for open-source, Ethereum-based implementation for trusted issuer registries. Protocol development & assistance Account Abstraction Grants Round Grant program to stimulate advancement, research, and education related to account abstraction and the essential infrastructure supporting it. Protocol development & assistance Ephemery Testnet pk910 & Rémy Roy Automatically resetting testnet that allows a single testing framework consisting of ephemeral networks with predictable parameters. Protocol development & assistance KZG Ceremony Grants Round Funding round to facilitate the Ethereum KZG Ceremony. Protocol development & assistance mev-rs Implementation Support OnlyDust Assistance for the OnlyDust community in contributing to mev-rs. Protocol development & assistance Summer of Protocols 18-week initiative designed to spark broad exploration in the swiftly changing landscape of protocols. Protocol development & assistance Verkle Tries Implementation Support OnlyDust Support for contributors from the OnlyDust community concerning their efforts on a Verkle Tries implementation for Hyperledger Besu.