In this edition, we are thrilled to highlight four beneficiaries from a recent Local Grants initiative in Japan! We view Ethereum as an expanding, imaginative, and inclusive environment, and we believe it’s our duty to allow everyone the opportunity to participate.
Committing to public goods or innovative applications without a swift financial return is not a simple task, and it’s crucial to support the committed teams striving to tackle intriguing challenges, enhance public infrastructure, and develop innovative blockchain applications. In this Local Grants cycle, the Ethereum Foundation is pleased to spotlight a local community actively demonstrating the possibilities of decentralized technology.
zkCREAM: Zero-knowledge Confidential Reliable Ethereum Anonymous Mixer
zkCREAM: Confidential Reliable Ethereum Anonymous Mixer consists of protocols and decentralized applications that facilitate more resilient, accessible, secure, anonymous, and verifiable voting for public elections in Japan. zkCREAM is being developed as a pilot initiative. It comprises a set of smart contracts and a user-friendly interface application that enables the average citizen to vote completely anonymously while upholding the integrity and verifiability of the final vote counts. It also incorporates MACI, enhancing its collusion resistance, reliability, and anonymity.
The next focus for the team’s development is to create user-friendly mobile and desktop voting applications. It will illustrate and utilize zkCREAM within the Ethereum community. Furthermore, the team plans to construct additional layers of voting logic to accommodate other common situations, including quadratic voting, instant runoff voting, and ranked-choice voting.
Ryodan System AG: Building Layer 2 with zkRollups and zkCloud
The Ryodan team is addressing challenges related to scalability, privacy, and code complexity. They adopt a multifaceted strategy that integrates both protocol research and development and the creation of tools to enhance the accessibility of zero-knowledge proofs for developers.
The zkCloud service aims to assist developers in employing zero-knowledge proofs to write smart contracts and applications with greater ease. zkCloud currently supports Groth16 and PLONK proofs, with STARKs to be introduced soon. Additionally, the team is working on an optimized zkSTARK Rust library, as well as other tools to facilitate a no-code approach to zero-knowledge-based applications.
The group is also developing a new zk-rollup, based on a design proposed by CEO Leona Hioki. This method offers potential enhancements in privacy and efficiency by eliminating the need for transaction history data for contract execution.
Startrail: Records Infrastructure for Physical and Digital Artwork
Startrail is an Ethereum-based framework for documenting the provenance and exhibition history of both physical and digital artworks. Alongside utilizing ERC721 to signify an artwork or its certificate, NFC chips can be affixed to tangible artworks and linked to the certificate on the blockchain.
CEO Taihei, a contemporary artist himself, was motivated to leverage blockchain technology to address challenges he encountered in the art sector. Since 2016, he has assembled a team comprising individuals from both artistic and technical backgrounds, who are inspired by the potential of distributed ledger technology to resolve issues related to provenance and compliance in art ownership. They collaborate with various stakeholders in the art sector, including artists, gallerists, curators, and online marketplaces, to ensure that they fulfill their operational needs effectively.
The team’s upcoming objectives include open-sourcing their smart contracts and broadening their infrastructure to the global market. Advocating for the rights of all individuals in the art industry, including artists and collectors, they aspire to integrate various art sector participants into the Ethereum ecosystem.
w3a.io: Smart Lock Authentication for Physical Devices
W3a.io utilizes Ethereum to authenticate usage rights for physical devices. The team initially investigated this idea in 2020 during a collaborative experiment with Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST), where they tested a blockchain-based system for automated car-sharing on the NAIST campus. A “virtual key” enabled an authorized user to lock and unlock a vehicle using their smartphone, and users were incentivized to return cars to locations with the highest demand.
Building upon the concept and insights gained from the NAIST pilot, W3a.io employs digital signatures to verify authorized operators of physical devices even when offline. The team envisions its application in numerous scenarios to facilitate the integration of Ethereum into the real world!
Famiee: Partnership Certificates on Ethereum
Famiee is a non-profit organization focused on assisting all types of families in accessing the benefits available to legally married couples through a platform for issuing partnership certificates on Ethereum. A network of participating businesses provides services to couples who possess Famiee certificates, granting them access to benefits that would typically be available only to legally married couples, including employee family benefits, joint mortgage applications, family discounts, public assistance, or life insurance.
Famiee commenced issuing certificates for same-sex couples in February 2021, and plans to broaden the service to encompass other types of families and partnerships not legally recognized in certain areas, such as marriages where women elect to retain their original surnames or single mothers cohabitating for mutual support. They are currently developing a mobile application to issue certificates that adhere to high standards of privacy protection, security, and KYC.
Numerous local Ethereum communities worldwide significantly contribute to why Ethereum feels both global and personal for many individuals. Therefore, we are constantly exploring various methods to support local communities globally.
Once again, our gratitude goes out to all the contributors fostering Ethereum adoption in the real world. If you believe you could be the next contributor, please visit our grants page to discover more about what we seek in the projects we finance.
