ÐΞVgrants Update and New Funding

If DEVCON1 proved anything in spades, it was certainly the enthusiasm, creativity, and momentum of the Ethereum developer community. Utilizing the never-before-seen potential unleashed by the Ethereum World Computer, our small-but-growing community is not just re-imagining money (or even just re-imagining the Internet)… It is also re-imagining and delivering alternative models for re-organizing the very fabric of our society around a more transparent and inspectable “stack”.

ÐΞVgrants came into existence on April 7, 2015, in order to ease some of the natural burdens of developing the lower-level tools which will hopefully further the above scenario. At DEVCON1, I presented a very short talk summarizing the projects funded up to this point, as well as presenting a special announcement concerning continued funding.

Omise’s Donation

The good news is that ÐΞVgrants isn’t over, because we now have $100K USD of additional funds to work with through the new year, thanks to a generous donation by Omise.

“We are honored by the opportunity to support the decentralization revolution, beginning with our contribution that will restart the Ethereum ÐΞVgrants program.” – Jun Hasegawa, Omise CEO

It is our hope that this donation will encourage both potential funders to come forward and support ÐΞVgrants and related endeavors, just as much as it may encourage potential applicants. We thank Jun and Omise for their gesture of good will in the space.

Summary of projects

Syng (Ethereum Android) – syng.io
Jarrad Hope
£5K grant awarded

DApp Browser like Mist, for mobile devices

• GUI built around the ethereumj-android project, with an iOS port on its way
• Goal is a quality end-user experience, available this quarter (Q1 2006)
• Grant supported the original port of ethereumj to Android

Eth(Embedded) – ethembedded.com
John Gerryts / Richard Ayotte
£3.6K grant awarded

Ethereum on embedded devices

• Ported go-ethereum and cpp-ethereum clients to multiple embedded, ARM-based, dev boards and SBCs (Single Board Computers)
• Supports: Raspberry Pi2, BBB – BeagleBone Black, WandBoard Quad, Hardkernel’s Odroid XU3/XU4
• Includes simplified setup scripts

Casper
Vlad Zamfir / L.G. Meredith
$25K grant awarded

Security-deposit based public consensus protocol

• Simulation/verification of the convergence properties of Casper’s by-block betting strategy
• Implementation of the economics and consensus manager

MetaMask – metamask.io
Aaron “kumavis” Davis
$30K grant awarded

Web-based Ethereum Client

• Run DApps in your browser with minimal user friction
• Primary goal is to onboard “the rest of the world”
• Grant enabled development of browser emulator and extension

And today we are pleased to announce a new grant that has just been approved:

“Snappy” Framework
Slock.it team
€9900​ grant

An Ethereum framework for Ubuntu Core (Snappy)

• 1-click deployment of Ethereum on any Ubuntu Core device
• Provides Dapps running on a device all the resources and libraries that they may require
• Bulletproof environment for deployment, where reliability is paramount (perfect for IoT)
• Creates the possibility to see mass-deployment of Ethereum nodes, across thousands of devices

In conclusion

Providing grant funding to the developers of brilliant, platform-level Ethereum projects has resulted in a flourishing of important new work, in turn enabling and accelerating higher-level developments for others to build upon. With this highly successful experiment once again open for business, please, look over your projects and give thought to what components benefiting everyone, might also benefit from a grant.

Comments and questions may be directed to me at wendell@ethereum.org or our Gitter. As before, interested parties may also follow @DEVgrants on Twitter for updates about funded projects, evaluation policy changes, etc. A ÐΞVgrants Web site is still on its way, which will have further details about the above project, and our plans.

I’m really looking forward to reading your applications!