Ethereum Foundation Allocation Review: Insights from Q2 2021

Community & education Ethereum Cat Herders Community group assisting Ethereum core developers with project oversight, communication, and coordination. Community & education EthCC Ethereum France Conference for developers and the community hosted in Paris, France. Community & education Ethereum HN Grassroots Ethereum community group organizing gatherings, workshops, and developer events in Honduras. Community & education Ether University Content and Educational Materials Nathan Leung Resources for community development and education for undergraduate students partaking in the ETH Summer learning initiative. Community & education ETHUni: ETH Spring Community Growth Scott Moses Sunarto Support and community engagement for the ETH Spring undergraduate learning initiative, along with content formatting and transition to the ETH Spring website for public access. Community & education ETHUni: ETH Summer Therese Cresalia and Scott Moses Sunarto Oversight of ETH Summer, a virtual initiative aimed at introducing undergraduate computer science and mathematics students to Ethereum. Community & education Smart Contract Auditing Bootcamp Secureum A systematic program designed to instruct aspiring auditors on smart contract security and auditing. Community & education Ethereum Public Goods Funding Mapping Sumedha Deshmukh An investigative project aimed at delineating the funding landscape for public goods in the Ethereum ecosystem. Community & education Cryptofund 2021 UNICEF Investment fund denominated in cryptocurrency, focused on assisting startups utilizing blockchain for social advancement. Consensus layer Eth2 Crawler ChainSafe DiscV5 crawler, an API and frontend solution for collecting and interacting with data regarding beacon chain nodes. Consensus layer Fast Hash-to-Curve Research Dimitri Koshelev A research and analysis project on accelerated hash-to-G2 functions for BLS12-381 aimed at enhancing performance in SNARKs, L2 dapps, and others. Consensus layer Stereum Rock Logic Docker images created for solo stakers to set up a beacon chain client and all dependencies in one installation, compatible with all production clients on testnet and mainnet. Consensus layer Beacon Fuzz Sigma Prime Ongoing maintenance and advancement.of Beacon Fuzz, a beacon chain testing framework, featuring performance enhancements, integration of new clients and targets, as well as evaluating new Altair functions for errors or security weaknesses. Consensus layer Lighthouse Sigma Prime Ongoing progress of the Lighthouse beacon chain client. Consensus layer Beacon Chain Liveness Enhancements Stanford University’s Tse Lab Investigation into remedies for possible liveness attacks on Ethereum’s beacon chain consensus protocol. Consensus layer Ethereum Staking Committee Japan Initiative to enhance staking in Japan through initiatives aimed at increasing awareness, education, and aiding the engineering community, while cultivating the Japanese staking atmosphere from technical, regulatory, and business viewpoints. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs ZK Games Justin Glibert Cutting-edge study on the application of zkSNARKs within blockchain gaming mechanics to create decentralized real-time strategy games. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs Verkle Trie Optimizations Dag Arne Osvik Realization of the verkle trie data architecture for Stateless Ethereum. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs MPC Phase 2 UI Enhancements Geoff Lamperd Upgrades to the Phase 2 MPC trusted setup user interface for a quicker and more efficient procedure, drawing insights from the zkopru MPC. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs ZK Developer Tooling Jacob Rosenthal and Blaine Bublitz Creation of resources to enhance the applied ZK developer experience, which includes contributions to Dark Forest, circom, and Hardhat. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs ETHUni: Private Data Marketplace POC Nick Ulven Creation of a proof of concept on-chain marketplace for confidential or permissioned data utilizing zkSNARKs. Developer experience & tooling clr.fund UI clr.fund Enhancements to the user interface for the clr.fund decentralized quadratic funding protocol, featuring upgrades to the clr.fund deployer, subgraph, documentation archives, new MACI circuits facilitating scaling to millions of users, and executing a trusted setup ceremony. Developer experience & tooling Vyper/Fe Formally Verified Compiler formalize.eth Rigorous verification of the transformation of the Fe smart contract syntax to Yul, along with development of functionalities essential for a full ERC20 implementation. Developer experience & tooling Viblex Heiko Burkhardt Visual representation of smart contract frameworks, allowing users to assess and engage with the contracts on both mainnet and testnets, including personal testnets. Developer experience & tooling Gas Cost Estimator Stage II Imapp Methodical strategy for calculating gas expenses of EVM OPCODEs, considering variations in hardware, software and programming conditions, to provide insightsdiscussions on modifying OPCODE tariffs. Developer expertise & tools Formal Validation of Yul Compiler Transformations Kestrel Institute Formal articulation of the semantics of the Yul language, alongside the application and enhancement of current formal validation and equivalence checking instruments to demonstrate the accuracy of Yul compiler optimizations Developer expertise & tools Decentralized Community Management Studies Other Internet Research examination and document on decentralized community governance, evaluating organizational structure, communication methods, and conflict mediation while recommending best practices for community management. Developer expertise & tools GCatch++ Penn State University Enhancement of GCatch, a framework for identifying concurrency errors in Go applications, to facilitate the detection of channel-related non-blocking issues in Ethereum clients. Developer expertise & tools Transaction Classification Framework Rotki Publicly available library and set of frameworks for decoding Ethereum transactions and categorizing the related actions (e.g., tagging a transaction as a CLR donation, a token swap, or providing liquidity to an AMM). Developer expertise & tools Decentralized Identity Frameworks Symfoni Open-source toolkit for decentralized identity and verified credentials on Ethereum, encompassing a wallet, data repository, and SDK. Execution layer Nethermind Execution Client Nethermind Ongoing support and innovation of the Nethermind execution client. Execution layer Layer 1 Research & Development Quilt Facilitation of ongoing exploration and advancement in Layer 1 protocol functionalities and security. Execution layer Nimbus Execution Client Status Continuous upkeep and advancement of the Nimbus execution client. Execution layer Fluffy Portal Client Status Development of the Fluffy light client, tailored for the Portal Network, aimed at allowing resource-limited devices to engage with the Ethereum network by accessing the required APIs to execute standard wallet functions without needing to synchronize the complete state. Execution layer Erigon Torquem Ongoing maintenance and enhancement of the Torquem (formerly TurboGeth) execution client. Layer 2 Arbitrum Analysis Kev Zettler Evaluation of the Arbitrum framework and code repository, reporting any weaknesses to the Arbitrum team, akin to the previously facilitated assessment of Optimism. Layer 2 L2Beat Platform presenting usage metrics and risk elements for comparison among Layer 2 scaling solutions. User interaction BrightID Progression of BrightID’s social identity network framework, including enhancing node safety and anti-sybil measures, developing a web client, and facilitating blind signatures. User interaction ZK Games Design Assistance Moe Janneh Design assistance and artistic contributions for teams engaged in experimental ZK games and applications.