A decentralized peer-to-peer content suggestion system using a “Two Of Two Scorched Earth” reward/punishment system propose by Vitalik Buterin to encourage the sharing of quality content. The goal of the project is to provide a proof-of-concept implementation on mainnet to demonstrate the usefulness of this scheme for a variety of applications.
Developer experience
EthWorks
Maintenance and improvements to Waffle, a library for writing and testing smart contracts. The goals of the grant include the integration of ENS, expanded documentation, and the addition of dynamic simulations.
https://github.com/EthWorks/Waffle
Developer experience
POA Network
The Arbitrary Message Bridge can not only transfer tokens between two EVM-based chains, but can also relay any data or call contracts – for example, calling a method on the Ethereum mainnet from a POA network or from ‘a Quorum channel. The grant awarded to POA Network will be used to expand AMB’s capabilities, create demos and prepare 2.0 support.
https://www.poa.network/
Ethereum 1.0
Void Spirit
Renewed funding from Nethermind to test the Nethermind 1.x client, launch beam sync, and improve performance to increase miner adoption.
https://nethermind.io/
Ethereum 1.0
Tasit SDK
The Tasit SDK is a JavaScript framework for building native Ethereum mobile dapps using React Native, with a focus on user experience and easy integration.
https://github.com/tasitlabs/tasitsdk
Ethereum 2.0
Fast Binary Field FFT
Implementation of a fast binary field FFT, necessary to estimate the difficulty of calculating data availability roots; with further exploration into whether it is better to use 16 or 64 bit fields in light of special CPU support for the latter.
Ethereum 2.0
Lighthouse
Continued funding of Sigma Prime in the development of the Lighthouse staking client, written in Rust, for the Ethereum 2.0 network. Lighthouse v0.11.1 testnets are live, and user testnets will be available soon.
https://github.com/sigp/lighthouse
Ethereum 2.0
North Star
Continued funding of Chainsafe’s work on Eth2 thin client R&D within its Lodestar javascript client, as well as further development of libraries, tools and educational resources supporting the Eth2 JS/web browser ecosystem. The results of an audit of a number of key components of Lodestar were recently published.
https://chainsafe.io/
Ethereum 2.0
Nimbus
Continued funding of Status for the development of the Nimbus client for Ethereum 2.0. Nimbus is designed to work well on embedded systems and personal mobile devices, including older smartphones with resource-constrained hardware. Nimbus is approaching a testnet version v0.11.1.
https://nimbus.team/
Ethereum 2.0
VDF continuation funding
Research conducted by renowned complexity theorist Ryan Williams on the assumption of sequentiality of RSA-based VDFs, i.e. seeking to better understand the “delay” part of VDFs (verifiable delay functions), which are the basis of unbiased randomness in Eth2. The work funded by this grant is specifically aimed at proving information-theoretic lower bounds for modular exponentiations.
Indirect financing
Gitcoin Bounties
Funds for community-administered bounties contributing to the development of the Ethereum ecosystem.
https://gitcoin.co
Layer 2
Plasma chamber
Cryptonomics Labs is working toward a production-ready implementation of a plasma chamber based on LMO. Expected outcomes of the grant include testnet deployment of the OVM contract, a Plasma wallet, and a developer portal with tools and documentation.
https://www.cryptonomicslab.com/
User experience
ENS continuation funding
Further development of Ethereum Name Service, including full DNS namespace integration, using ENS and IPFS to store and serve DNS names; support for multiple rooms; improvements to the ENS website and manager; advocacy and awareness.
