Ethereum Foundation awards $8.5 million in grants in Q2, supports 98 projects
The Ethereum Foundation Ecosystem Support Program (EFESP) has allocated a total of approximately $8.5 million to support 98 projects, according to the Founding Grant Allocation Report published on August 30.
The report breaks down projects by type, recipient, and contact, but does not provide a detailed breakdown of how much money each project received.
Most of the projects that received support from EFESP fall under the “Community and Education” category, with 41 of them receiving support from the Ethereum Foundation (EF), including events such as the ETH Convention and smaller meetups around the world.
Additionally, EFESP supported 28 projects dedicated to “cryptography and zero-knowledge proofs,” the second largest category supported by the foundation.
The second category includes projects such as protocols using zero-knowledge techniques to prove ownership of Indian resident IDs on Ethereum, creating domain-specific languages to write zero-knowledge circuits, and creating educational content.
EFESP also supported seven projects dedicated to “developer experience and tooling,” two projects focused on improvements to the “execution layer,” two projects aimed at “general growth and support,” and three “general research” initiatives.
Additionally, the Q2 grant included efforts to promote staking and protocol growth.
Report amid controversy
Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Vitalik Buterin praised the initiative on social media, highlighting the report as a great way to find out “what kind of things EF spends its money on.”
Buterin’s comments came after EF was questioned about sending 34,000 ETH to a Kraken address, possibly in a sell move. The amount would be equivalent to $94 million at the day of the transfer.
Given the significant amount of money being raised, the cryptocurrency community has questioned where EF will allocate the funds.
EF contributor Josh Stark shared some of the spending on social media over the past two years on August 27. So far, EFESP has spent more than $20 million in grants this year, which is about 33 percent of what it paid out to projects last year.
According to on-chain data, Ethereum wallet addresses linked to the foundation hold over $751 million in various cryptocurrencies, with the largest amount being 273,532 ETH.
