Allocation Update – Q2 2024

Community & education BeerFi Prague Meetups Technical meetups focused on builders and contract development, hosted in Prague, Czech Republic. Community & education Blockchain Course with UNAH Cryptoversidad Comprehensive program on cryptocurrency and blockchain with a focus on the Ethereum ecosystem, delivered in collaboration with the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras (UNAH). Community & education Code Africa Hackathon Hackathon in Nairobi, Kenya that encouraged participants to build projects that could lead to positive real-world impact and explore themes such as zero knowledge (ZK), account abstraction, and privacy. Community & education Digital Democracy Day BlockSplit Event organized in Split, Croatia that delved into the future of collaborative technology and plural democracy, with an emphasis on funding journalism and running digital elections. Community & education DWeb Fellowship Program Fellowship program for DWeb Camp that invites individuals creating or employing technologies in ways that uplift communities facing systemic inequality. Community & education eSatya Supporting blockchain awareness and community-building efforts in Nepal through the development of an Ethereum-focused curriculum, meetups, and blockchain sessions. Email, Twitter Community & education ETHAccra Hackathon in Accra, Ghana that will be accompanied by workshops in several universities to generate interest in Ethereum. Community & education ETH Beijing Hackathon Hackathon with a focus on public goods, research, and layer 2 (L2) dapps organized in Beijing, China. Community & education ETH Belgrade Conference and hackathon hosted in Belgrade, Serbia revolving around topics such as core protocol and infrastructure, tooling, and security. Community & education ETHDublin Hackathon and conference with tracks such as ReFi, cybersecurity and digital privacy, and public goods, organized in Dublin, Ireland Community & education ETH Ecuador Conference co-hosted by prominent universities in Quito, Ecuador that delved into topics such as smart contracts, applications and the future of blockchain, and legal tech. Community & education Ethereum Argentina Conference and hackathon organized in Buenos Aires, Argentina focusing on topics such as smart contracts, L2s, and security. Community & education Ethereum Chile: Cordillera Connect Conference that explored topics such as smart contracts, staking, and scalability, hosted in Santiago, Chile. Community & education Ethereum Developer Program Kerala Blockchain Academy Free and open-source online Ethereum developer course taking place over three months for students from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. Community & education Ethereum Summer School Comets of Web3 Educational and hands-on program at the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca teaching students how to build dapps and smart contracts on Solidity. Community & education Ethereum Uruguay Buildathon and event with tracks such as infrastructure and security, public goods, and DeFi, hosted in Montevideo, Uruguay. Community & education ETHKyiv Hackathon organized in Kyiv, Ukraine with talks and workshops exploring topics including the Ethereum roadmap, account abstraction, and restaking. Community & education ETHPrague Conference and hackathon in Prague, Czech Republic delving into topics such as Ethereum network operation, developer ecosystem and tooling, and cryptography. Community & education ETHRome urbe.eth Hackathon hosted in Rome, Italy with a focus on privacy and account abstraction. Community & education ETHShenzhen Conference and hackathon in Shenzhen, China that delved into topics such as ZK, Verkle Tries, and danksharding. Community & education ETHSofia Conference and hackathon in Sofia, Bulgaria with tracks covering topics such as ZK, L2s, and infrastructure. Community & education ETHSydney Organizing a series of community activities in Sydney, Australia, including monthly meetups and a hackathon. Community & education ETHTokyo Ethereum Japan Hackathon with tracks on the freedom of transacting, robust democracy, and infrastructure and tooling hosted in Tokyo, Japan. Community & education ETHWarsaw Community-building and education activities including podcasts, workshops, meetups, and a hackathon for the Polish-speaking Ethereum community. Community & education HackOFiesta 5.0 Hackathon organized in Lucknow, India with tracks focusing on Ethereum and blockchain, sustainability, and social good. Community & education IBF Blockchain Week Indian Blockchain Fraterntiy (IBF) 6-day bootcamp in Bennett University, India to introduce students to Solidity programming through hands-on experiences. Community & education Jornadas Argentinas de Didáctica de las Ciencias de la Computación Virtual conference to exchange and discuss new ideas related to computer science pedagogy, including blockchain, for teachers of all educational levels, researchers, and policymakers. Community & education Kyiv Ethereum Series of meetups and workshops to educate the community about Ethereum and onboard more developers. Community & education muAccra 2-week developer gathering in Accra, Ghana. Community & education NapulETH Conference hosted in Naples, Italy with verticals such as education, public goods, and DeFi. Community & education OpenSense Grassroots blockchain security community focused on promoting collaboration, education, and covering the most interesting topics from the blockchain security ecosystem. Community & education Privacy Reunion 2 & Privacy Reunion 3 Privacy Guardians Events delving into on-chain privacy and various cryptography techniques, hosted in Barcelona, Spain and La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. Community & education Programming Languages Mentoring Workshop (PLMW@PLDI 2024) Workshop to broaden the exposure of late-stage undergraduate and early-stage graduate students to research and career opportunities in programming languages. Community & education Reference Design for Smart Contracts on IoT Christoforos Kachris Developing a framework to serve as reference design for IoT/embedded system developers who want to develop applications to interact with smart contracts and blockchain technology. Community & education Road to Devcon Grants Round Grants round to support the growth of local Ethereum communities, initiatives, and projects in Southeast Asia. Community & education Signature Singularity Residency Residency in Osaka, Japan that brought together teams taking useful signed data and wrapping it in zero knowledge proofs (ZKPs) for succinctness, ownership, and selective disclosure. Community & education Solidity Testing Handbook PraneshASP Completing a comprehensive, beginner-friendly handbook focused on Solidity testing and sharing it with the wider developer community. Community & education TUM Blockchain Conference Conference focusing on the five tracks of education, research, ecosystem, applications, and regulation, hosted in Munich, Germany. Community & education Web3 Lagos Conference Web3Bridge Conference and hackathon run in Lagos, Nigeria delving into topics such as Ethereum core protocol development, open-source contribution, and building for the continent. Community & education Web3Privacy Summit #2 Privacy-focused conference in Prague, Czech Republic discussing ways to mainstream privacy in the web3 industry, protect developer rights, and build resilient protocols. Community & education 0xCastle Program exploring pivotal blockchain questions in privacy, scalability, and interoperability through a mix of talks, workshops, and research groups, hosted near Leipzig, Germany. Consensus layer DAS Research Codex Research on data availability sampling (DAS) scalability and high data sampling security by working on the DAS networking design and testing multiple configurations in the specification that could optimize the protocol in the network. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs Anon Aadhaar Hridam Basu Protocol for proving ownership of an Aadhaar identity (Indian Residence ID) in a privacy-preserving manner, powered by ZKPs on the Ethereum blockchain. The focus of this grant is on exploring new proving backends. Telegram, Email Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs Community Manager for PSE Asia Core Program Elden Park & Teresa Community manager for the PSE Asia Core Program, with a particular emphasis on activities in Korea and Taiwan respectively. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs Community Manager for PSE LatAm Core Program Alex Padilla & Lucila Pastore Community manager for the PSE LatAm Core Program, with a particular emphasis on activities in Ecuador and Argentina respectively. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs Cryptographic Research Group Alessandro Chiesa Supporting a Cryptographic Research Group for 1 year, led by EPFL Associate Professor Alessandro Chiesa. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs Cursive Deployed NFC cards for verifiable in-person interactions at zkSummit 11 and explored new forms of signed data beyond NFC taps (e.g. email, passport, HTTP) at the Signature Singularity Residency. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs Development for PSE Projects Mark Roddy Front-end, smart contract, and other development activities for EthSIM, collaborations with the Next Billion Fellowship Cohort 4, and other ongoing PSE projects. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs Ethereum ZK Content in Japanese Seiya Kobayashi Blog post series written in Japanese to raise more awareness and promote a better understanding of Ethereum and ZKPs in Japan. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs Faster Scalar Multiplication of Elliptic Curves Using AVX-512 Mitsunari Shigeo Speeding up the scalar multiplication of multiple points on an elliptic curve using AVX-512. Email Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs FHE-Based Privacy-Preserving Mathematical Optimization 0xvon Implementing an FHE-based algorithm that solves the minimum cost flow problem, a prime example of mathematical optimization, while keeping the data encrypted. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs From Zero to Halo2 ryanycw.eth End-to-end tutorial for ZK beginners to fully understand how to write a circuit, an essential part of a halo2 project. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs MACI Anonymized Poll Signup 3327 Revisiting the voters signup flow to ensure they can signup anonymously to each MACI Poll, to mitigate attacks in which anonymity is compromised due to collusion between a malicious coordinator and an external briber. For more info please refer to this blog post. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs MACI Starter Kit Yash Goyal Scaffold-ETH 2 and MACI voting template, for developers aiming to build decentralized voting applications that prioritize privacy and resist collusion. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs mcl/bls Library Mitsunari Shigeo C++ pairing library with elliptic curve support for zkSNARK, Ethereum, and more which supports Ethereum 2.0’s BLS signing API. Email Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs MPC Learning Grant Learning grant to delve deeper into multi-party computation (MPC) for a new experimental project under PSE. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs MPCStats Kazumune Masaki Assisting with the implementation and refinement of MPCStats by developing the web-based platform, building proof-of-concepts, and benchmarking different MPC protocols for the MPCStats library. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs Noname zksecurity Domain-specific language (DSL) to write ZK circuits, inspired by Rust and Golang. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs PLUME & ZK Email Development Shreyas Londhe Optimizing existing implementations, developing new functionalities, and ensuring seamless integration with cutting-edge proving systems for PLUME and ZK Email. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs Porting ZK-Kit Circuits Rajesh Kanna Porting circomlib circuits from Circom to Noir for integrating with the ZK-Kit circuit repo for Noir. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs Practical Async MPC Atsuki Momose Developing a practical asynchronous secure MPC protocol with applications in anonymous communication and cryptographic setups for DeFi. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs PSE Development Activities Mach34 Support for PSE‘s various development activities, including contributing to ideation, code review and development, and holistic engagement with advanced cryptography experiments. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs The QSig Commission Investigating the viability and implementability of Quantum One Shot Signatures, with a particular focus on blockchain technology. Twitter, Twitter Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs Reverie-2 Yulia Kotelnikova Implementing non-native opening simulation argument and an atomic accumulation scheme based on it. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs SNARK Fundamentals Errol Drummond Continued support to run the SNARK Fundamentals presentation for more communities, which aims to educate beginners on the core ideas of what ZK technology does. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs TLSNotary Server in a TEE Ryan MacArthur Developing a reference implementation of the TLSNotary server within a trusted execution environment (TEE), with the goal of reducing trust assumptions when TLSNotary is used with a neutral notary. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs UniRep Social Taiwan Completely anonymous social media platform that protects users’ identities from being monitored, catered to the Taiwanese community. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs UX/UI Design Support Sébastien Dontigny UX/UI design support for EthSIM‘s android and web application as well as other PSE projects. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs ZK Grants Round Grants round to encourage research and development for ZKPs and standards for ZK L2s. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs ?-adic Accelerators Researching ZK proving languages and exploring novel methods for compiling functional languages for ZK. Developer experience & tooling Buidl Guidl Educational community of builders creating products and prototypes and providing Ethereum developer education. Developer experience and tooling Circom Language Server Vu Vo Integrating Language Server Protocol (LSP) support to make it easier to develop, audit, and study Circom programs. Developer experience & tooling Fe & Applied Cryptography Research Micah Fitch Attended zkSummit 11 and produced a report discussing developments in cryptography, specifically focusing on their implications for language design and compiler architecture. Developer experience & tooling MEDGA Zhuo Zhang & William Cheung Creating a robust Solidity debugger that brings features such as arbitrary expression watchers, conditional breakpoints, and improved source code integration to Hardhat and Foundry. Developer experience & tooling rrelayer Josh Stevens Open-source relayer built in Rust which can be used to send gasless transactions, transaction migrations, L2 proof transactions, blob storage transactions, or general script usage. Developer experience and tooling TrueBlocks mini-dApps Develop and distribute a fully decentralized mini-dApp leveraging TrueBlocks-core and a newly designed software development kit (SDK), as well as update TrueBlocks-core to improve user experience and address protocol-level updates. Email Developer experience & tooling Wallet Test Framework Continued support for Wallet Test Framework to incorporate mobile and account abstraction wallets, as well as to develop documentation for builders to create their own tests using the framework. Execution layer EOF Testing & Implementation Support Danno Ferrin Implementation and testing support for Ethereum Object Format (EOF) EIPs. Execution layer ROP-12: Optimizing Request Matching for LLM Routers Kshitij Kulkarni, Druv Pai, & Kexin Liu Exploring the optimization of large language model (LLM) parameters to enhance the frequency and quality of queries directed to them by router systems, akin to search engine optimization for webpages. General growth & support Ekonavi Breno Veiga Platform that merges agroforestry projects with blockchain, facilitating better resource management and data tracking. Email, Website, LinkedIn General growth & support Impacts of Web3 & Decentralized Economy on Underrepresented Communities in Brazil Adalberto Junior Exploring how the implementation of educational initiatives for web3 and the promotion of a decentralized economy can positively impact underrepresented communities in Brazil, especially the Black community in favelas (slums). General research Academic Grants Round Grants round funding formal research that aims to create more knowledge about Ethereum, blockchain technology, and related domains. General research Data Analytics & Research Ramshreyas Rao Data analytics on retrospective grants and research on topics such as restaking, sequencers, and stablecoins. General research Radical Infrastructure Sachin Benny Research exploring the ossification of large infrastructure projects and the tensions to manage as protocols ossify. Indirect funding Cryptoversidad Retroactive Public Goods Funding Round Retroactive public goods funding round run by Cryptoversidad to distribute funding to reward and support individuals who have made valuable contributions in the past. Indirect funding ETHDam Quadratic Funding Round Quadratic funding round for the projects built during ETHDam‘s hackathon. Indirect funding Ethereum Mexico PGF Retroactive public goods funding round run by Ethereum Mexico to distribute funding to local projects working on public goods, ReFi, onboarding new users, and reducing the gender gap in web3. Indirect funding Ethereum Tegucigalpa Trust Round Retroactive public goods funding round run by Ethereum Tegucigalpa to distribute funding to local social impact projects. Indirect funding Road to Devcon Quadratic Funding Round clr.fund Matching pool funding for a quadratic funding round supporting communities in Southeast Asia that are also Road to Devcon grantees. Layer 2 L2BEAT Open-source L2 data, research, and tooling hub that provides critical resources for the Ethereum L2 ecosystem. Other Fight for the Future Non-profit advocacy group dedicated to protecting digital rights and activating the internet for the public good. Protocol growth and support Account Abstraction Core Team Supporting the account abstraction developer’s team continuous work on the development of ERC-4337, RIP-7560 (native account abstraction), and EIP-7701 (native account abstraction with EOF). Protocol growth and support Debian Packages Eniko Nagy Simplifying the process of packaging different Ethereum nodes for Debian-based systems by providing a structured way to create Debian packages for multiple Ethereum clients. Protocol growth and support Ephemery Testnet Holly Atkinson Automatically reset ephemeral Ethereum testnet which could serve as a cross-client testing network without issues stemming from a long-term running history. Protocol growth & support Ethereum Protocol Fellowship (EPF): Cohort 5 Stipends for cohort members of the EPF, a program designed to onboard developers to the process through which protocol development happens. Protocol growth & support Summer of Protocols Program and research effort aiming to catalyze broad interest in the study of protocols as a first-class concept for thinking about the world. Staking Risk Analysis & Metrics Creation for the Ethereum Restaking Ecosystem Omar Espejel Researching benchmarks and metrics to monitor the restaking ecosystem’s health effectively, leading to the development of a tool to track the wellness of staking and restaking providers. Twitter, Email Staking Staking Research 20squares Researching staking decisions, including differentiating between various types of node operators and the factors that influence their decision-making.