Ethereum Foundation and Co-Funding Grants Announced

Today we will be releasing over $2 million in foundation-led and co-funded grants to accelerate the development of Serenity (Eth2.0) as we approach the launch of Beacon Chain.

Eth2.0 Client Subsidy

In recent months, the Ethereum Foundation has awarded significant awards to key client development teams tasked with delivering a long-term multi-client testnet as development approaches Phase 0 launch.

We are proud to announce the recipients of these grants.

Harmony

Award: $189,000 for Harmony beacon chain development

Github

Prism Lab

Award: $725,000 for Prysm client development

Website | Github

sigma prime

Prize money: $485,000 for Lighthouse client development

*Co-funders: Ethereum Foundation and ConsenSys

Website | Github

situation

Award: $500,000 for Nimbus client development

Website | Github

networking

situation

Prize: $150,000 for nim-libp2p development

*Co-funded by: Ethereum Foundation and Protocol Lab

Website | Github

Status’ Nimbus team is building a native nim language implementation of libp2p for use by Nimbus and other projects. The team also aims to create an implementation suitable for devices with limited resources.

white block

Prize money: $184,000

*Co-funders: Ethereum Foundation and ConsenSys

Website

Whiteblock is funded to continue Eth2.0 network testing and testnet/interoperability support. Whiteblock will analyze the libp2p gossipsub implementation and continue to work with implementers to improve the networking stack and specifications and advance interoperability efforts.

research and development

Dmitry Khovratovich

Prize: $10,000

Dmitry Khovratovich, a professional cryptographer, was funded to write a report on the security of the Legendre PRF (as described by Grassi et al.) and the proof-of-custody scheme to be used in phase 1 of Eth2.0.

chain safe

Award: $217.5K for Lodestar light client and JavaScript development

Website | Github

Chainsafe is working on Eth2.0 light client R&D within the Lodestar JavaScript client and continues to provide support for the Eth2.0 JS/web browser ecosystem by developing libraries, tools, and training resources.

prize

The following bounties are open to help further research and development efforts for the future of Ethereum:

Step 0 Agreement

The Ethereum Foundation is offering a 5 ETH bounty (or 1000 DAI, whichever is greater) for recommendations for substantive changes (bug fixes, optimizations, etc.) included in the Phase 0 Eth 2.0 specification prior to Eth 2.0 Genesis. This includes changes to state transition functions, fork selection rules, or deposit agreements. For more information, please see: Public bounty issue in spec repository.

Legendre PRF

The Legendre pseudo-random function is a very MPC-friendly 1-bit PRF. This PRF is currently scheduled to be used in the custody proof scheme in Phase 1 of Eth 2.0. This is because it is the only known method that enables proof of custody in a shared secret setting. To encourage more research into this PRF, the Ethereum Foundation has set up a series of bounties here: legendreprf.org/bounties

STARK friendly hash challenge

The Ethereum Foundation asked StarkWare to recommend STARK-Friendly Hash (SFH). The StarkWare Hash Challenge is an open competition to evaluate the security of currently proposed SFH candidates. This challenge is proposed in four security levels: low security, medium security, target security, and high security in several scenarios. see starkware.co/hash-challenge Find out more about the competition and how to get started.