Thank you all for applying, and we’re excited to announce the latest Ethereum Foundation grants! We funded 22 recipients for a total of $2.84M.

Apply here for the next round!

Background

The Ethereum project seeks to support useful dapps and smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain, and the goal of the Ethereum Foundation is to empower developers with best-in-class R&D, developer experience, and education. Despite the early promise of the ecosystem, we still have a long way to go, and we are here to work with the community to drive concrete progress.

These grants will fuel the teams working hard at research & development to support the entire ecosystem and help make Ethereum more scalable, useful and secure. These projects have no ICOs, no token sales, and focus simply on building useful products and experiences.

Scalability can be in the form of implementing sharding, plasma or state channels with existing teams or on your own. It can also be in the form of optimizing geth/parity or building alternate clients. Usability is for improving the developer experience (e.g. static analyzers, linters, dev frameworks, mobile SDKs) or the user experience. Security can range from auditing existing contracts to providing tools that prevent error-prone programming patterns to contributing to alternative second-layer languages that focus on security. We are also beginning to engage with the product/design community to help solve product and UX design problems, including areas like key management, Ethereum payments UX and onboarding flows.

Lastly, we would like to remind ourselves of how the Ethereum project began: passionate open-source developers contributing to the project on their spare time. In that spirit, we’ve begun a “hackternship” grant for community members that propose an impactful Ethereum side project.

What we provide for grantees

1. Non-dilutive funding
2. Technical advisory
3. Connection to more users
4. Platform to share your work

We hope to provide Ethereum teams with more runway, advice and resources to focus simply on building useful products and experiences.

Also, many of these grants may be followed on with additional funding and/or collaboration when milestones are achieved. We believe this will provide tight feedback loops for impact to the ecosystem.

Grantee List: May 2018

Scalability:

Perun – $250K. State channels R&D.

PISA (by Patrick McCorry et al.) – $250K. State channels R&D.

Sprites Implementation (by Enuma) – $200K. Payment channels implementation.

General Computation on Plasma (by Parsec Labs) – $50K. Plasma implementation.

Plasma (by Kyokan) – $50K. Plasma implementation.

Plasma (by Fourth State) – $32K. Plasma implementation.

Usability:

DevEx grants*:

WalletConnect (by Balance.io) – $150K.  Interoperability for web dapps and mobile wallets.

iOS Dev Kit (by Ackee) – $50K. iOS + Ethereum starter project (MVVM support).

EtherKit (by vault.io) – $50K. iOS development framework (Swift).

vipnode – $35K. Light client incentivization.

BrowsEth – $25K. Typescript library for browsers.

#buidl grants**:

ENS Foundation – $1M. To date, the Ethereum Foundation has supported ENS via hiring developers internally, but now ENS is mature enough to become its own independent organization. We’re excited to continue working with this great project/team going forward.

Pop Wallet –  $100K. Open-source browser wallet.

Trust Wallet – $30K. Open-source mobile wallet.

Security:

Zeppelin – $430K. Solidity compiler audit (co-sponsored with Augur)

Cedille – $50K. Smart contract formal verification R&D.

SecureEth – $30K. Smart contract development standards.

Gitcoin – $25K. Bug bounty platform.

Hackternship:

Flint Programming Language – $10K. Safety-focused smart contract language.

Richard Littauer – $10K. Developer onboarding documentation.

Chris Spannos – $10K. Developer onboarding documentation.

Chinese Academy of Sciences (Yi Sun et al.) – $5K. Sharding R&D.

* DevEx Grant – Improves developer experience (“useful” for developers).

** #buidl Grant – Builds for the end user (“useful” for users).

 

Wishlist for future grants

In future rounds of grants, we would like to see more applications in these areas:

1. Scalability
   
   1. More payment and/or state channels implementations
   2. More plasma implementations
   3. More sharding implementations
   4. Improving efficiency of existing clients such as geth & parity
   5. A tokenless “Lightning Network” for Ethereum
   6. Tokenless Casper staking pool contracts
   7. WebAssembly R&D

2. Usability
   
   1. Improve private key management and transacting in Ethereum
   2. Alternative wallet / client designs
   3. Standards and portability between wallets
   4. Tooling that improves developer experience
   5. Improved documentation & developer/user education videos
   6. Tokenless end user products
   7. Vyper development
   8. More security focused high-level languages

3. Security
   
   1. Security audits for Solidity and Vyper
   2. Smart contract audits
   3. Specifically, audits for ERC20, ERC223, ERC721, multisig wallets, vaults
   4. Tooling that prevents vulnerable code

4. Hackternships
   
   1. You already have a job (or school)? No problem! Suggest a problem you want to solve and we’re happy to fund a 10-week $10K externship for your spare-time working on Ethereum. (Successful projects will be featured at a developer conference. We are also looking to hire and fund from this pool of side projects. If you’re looking for where to start, look at the list above.)

– Funded in March 2018 cohort
– Funded in May 2018 cohort
– New to wishlist

 

Next steps

This is an ongoing grant program, and we’d like to invite the rest of the community to approach us with your ideas (application link).

Ethereum is built by the community for the community, and we’re here to support you. Thank you for building!

Best,
Ethereum Foundation Team
5.2.18

(Mostly paraphrased from first post)

Greetings from the Ethereum Foundation Grants Team!

As we go full steam ahead to Devcon 4, we’re back to announce Wave 4 of the Grants Program! Thank you to all the fantastic community members that have applied with creative ideas on how to bolster our ecosystem. We would not exist without the time and energy that you put into Ethereum. While the program continues to grow, we will increasingly continue to involve more community members in the decision making process. The Grants Program today is vastly improved from just earlier this year, thanks to all the helpful feedback from the community, allowing us to provide better public tools and infrastructure.

If you haven’t heard of us before, our last announcement went into some depth on program history, funding summary, and processes. Find that post here, and you can see guidelines and more here.

Without further ado…

We are proud to announce our Wave 4 Grantees!

Scalability

• Non-Custodial Payment Channel Hub​​ — $420K. Payment upon delivery for the open source SDK release built by Spankchain, Kyokan, and Connext at Devcon 4
• Prototypal​​ — $375K. Front-end state channel research and development.
• Finality Labs​​ ​​– $250K. Development of Forward-Time Locked Contracts (FTLC).
• Kyokan​​ ​​– $125K. Development of production ready mainnet Plasma Cash & Debit plugins.
• Atomic Cross-Chain Transactions — $65K. Research led by Maurice Herlihy of Brown University.
• EthSnarks​​ ​​– $40K. Development of a cross-compatible SDK for zkSNARKS to be viable on Ethereum.

Security

• Flintstones — $120K. Further development of the Flint Language including a security focused IDE by Susan Eisenbach of Imperial College London.

Usability (DevEx)

• TrueBlocks ​​– $120K. Open source block explorer.
• Gitcoin​​ — $100K. Funding bounties on Gitcoin.
• VulcanizeDB ​​– $75K. “Community sourced” block explorer.
• Buidler ​​– $50K. Development of modular alternative to Truffle based on Ethers.js.
• Ethdoc​​ — $25K. Open source tool for organization and interaction of smart contract codebases.
• Ethers.js​​ — $25K. Support for ricmoo to continue development and maintenance of Ethers.js.
• Kauri​​ — $25K. Funding documentation bounties on Kauri.

(#BUIDL)

• Magic Money Tree (Dark Crystal) — $50K. Tool for securely storing and recovering keys and secrets through a multisig design by the Secure Scuttlebutt Team.

Hackternships

Client Diversity

Want to #BUIDL with us?  See the dev wishlist below and follow links to learn more. If you can imagine a project relating to the topics listed, submit an application and talk to us!

Wishlist!

Scalability

1. More payment and/or state channel implementations
2. More plasma implementations
3. Improving efficiency of existing clients such as geth & parity
4. A tokenless “Lightning Network” for Ethereum
5. WebAssembly R&D
6. libp2p Python implementation
7. Plasma Cash implementations for fungible tokens utilizing defragmentation techniques found here and here
8. Academic analysis of Casper

Privacy

1. STARKS R&D
2. BLS12-381 implementations in new languages

Usability

1. Improve private key management and transacting in Ethereum
2. Alternative wallet / client designs
3. Standards and portability between wallets
4. Tooling that improves developer experience
5. Improved documentation & developer/user education videos
6. Tokenless end user products
7. Vyper development
8. More security focused high-level languages
9. Non-transferable ID tokens
10. Establishing a spec and cross client test suite for the JSON-RPC API
11. Analysis of and analytics for real world Ethereum transactions (application usage, gas / opcode usage, missed avenues for optimization, etc)
12. Tooling that source-verifies contracts client-side, makes use of the metadata hash and shows NatSpec comments to the user for use in wallets

Security

1. Security audits for Vyper
2. Smart contract audits
3. Particularly, audits for ERC20, ERC223, ERC721, multisig wallets, vaults
4. Tooling that prevents vulnerable code
5. IDE with a visual debugger
6. Privacy Solutions
7. More in-depth network monitoring tools

Education

1. Community groups and conferences for underrepresented and underserved communities
2. Translation of research, documentation, and specs into other languages

Hackternships

You already have a job (or school)? No problem! Suggest a problem you want to solve and we’re happy to fund a 10-week $10K externship for your spare-time working on Ethereum. (Successful projects will be featured at a developer conference. We are also looking to hire and fund from this pool of side projects. If you’re looking for where to start, look at the list above.)

—  Wave I / — Wave II / — Wave III /  – Wave IV / — New to wishlist

For more inspiration…

Keep up to date with research here and here.

Etzilla (ethz) The company has approved a $250 million share repurchase program as the company doubles its ether-centric financial strategy, the company said in a press release Monday.

The Florida-based company said the board would soon approve the buyback and would run until June 30, 2026, or until the $250 million allocation runs out.

In addition to the move, the NASDAQ registered company has now held 102,237 ETH, which it acquired at an average price of 3,948.72.

At current market valuation, the stash is worth around $489 million. The company also reported that it holds approximately $215 million, equivalent to US dollar cash.

“As we continue to expand ETH bookings and pursue differentiated yield opportunities, we believe our current aggressive stock repurchase programme underscores our commitment to maximizing shareholder value.”

Ethzilla has also introduced its own electrical asset protocol. It says it will be used to generate higher yields on crypto stocks.

As of August 24, 2025, the company reported that 102,237 ETHs had been issued about $489 million, $215 million in cash equivalents and 165,478,655 shares.

Buyback adds another layer to Ethzilla’s strategy of leveraging new yield protocols to enhance returns while also actively building ether reserves.

Ethzilla’s shares fell nearly 30% on Friday after it revealed that shareholders filed a maximum of 74.8 million shares. The stock was trading 4.5% lower at about $3.15 at the time of publication.

read more: Etazirah shares plummet nearly 30% as dilution threatens to overshadow the $349 million ether treasury

Since transitioning into the Ecosystem Support Program from EF Grants, we’ve talked about defining “support” more comprehensively, thinking beyond simple grant funding. But what does a more comprehensive definition of support actually mean?

In practice, it means something different for every project, and it starts with a conversation. ESP was conceived to make a wide range of EF’s resources more accessible to the community, which starts with making our process accessible to anyone who might need support. We take the time to think critically about every inquiry, understand the project and explore ways we might be able to help. Of course we can’t fund every project, but often we can do something, even if it’s recommending additional resources to investigate such as incubators or other funding sources.

The whole point of this shift in thinking is to make the process more flexible and responsive to individual needs – which is a good thing! At the same time, the outcomes of this personalized process can be difficult to quantify or put into lists the way we can with traditional grants; so we thought we’d show rather than tell. We rounded up a few examples of projects (and the awesome people behind them!) that have come through ESP’s inquiry process, received different kinds of support, and made a little bit go a very long way.

Archive Node

The idea for Archive Node was born as a tweet. The hardware to run an archive node, or the monthly fees to access archive data through an API, can be prohibitively expensive for small projects with little or no funding. Hunter and Chase, aka DeFi Dude and MysticRyuujin respectively, are long-time Ethereum contributors with a keen understanding of the challenges that developers can face in getting affordable access to needed resources; so they set out to find a way to provide access to archive node data for developers who need it.

The team needed a place to host the first node, so we provided AWS credit to get a node up and running. This will give them a good runway; but as DeFi Dude wrote in the announcement blog post, once the project is more established, the hope is to eventually move toward the more sustainable and decentralized approach of running nodes off hardware rather than cloud services. Since unveiling the project in late June, the team has set up additional nodes (with help from community member Dan Matthews) of PieDAO, and started to accept applications for access, growing a community of developers who are able to access needed data without incurring the considerable cost of setting up their own node.

Although access is currently free, in the long term the team hopes this can be a community-funded project, with developers who need the service paying a small fraction of what it would cost them to run an archive node themselves. In the meantime we’re thrilled to be able to help provide this valuable resource as the community around it grows!

Learn more and apply for access at https://archivenode.io/, or follow Archive Node on Twitter @archivenode.

SaveDAI

SaveDAI started as a hackathon project, but the team had bigger plans for it: they’ve continued to build with the long term goal of making it easy to create self-insured versions of decentralized assets, allowing users to better protect savings kept in decentralized assets. SaveDAI passes DAI through Compound and automatically purchases insurance via Opyn Protocol to create insured, interest-bearing, dollar-pegged ERC20 tokens that can be transferred, bought, sold, and integrated into other protocols. The saveDAI team are building this architecture into a front-end platform, but the contract has been open sourced so that anyone can use, adapt, integrate or contribute to the code.

The team’s most immediate concern was making sure that their code was secure and stable in order to minimize risk to users’ funds. We were able to connect them with a technical expert for a code review, and they used the comprehensive feedback they received to refine their launch strategy and continue development with greater confidence. They’re preparing to launch a public alpha and are looking forward to getting feedback from early users!

If you’d like to learn more, you can dig into the documentation, follow along on Twitter @save_dai or get involved on Github.

Collegiate B.I.L.U.S

Joe Wesley is new to Ethereum and tech in general, a former NFL player turned motivational speaker – not necessarily what people think of as the typical ESP inquirer. But the truth is we love getting to know new people, and Joe is exactly the type of builder we want to hear from: creative, motivated, an avid learner and inspired by the potential of distributed technology. He came to us with a plan to build a platform on Ethereum that would address a problem that he’s directly experienced as a college and professional athlete from a low income background: college athletes get little benefit from the ways in which their brand, image and likeness are used by others for profit. Joe wanted to help athletes build relationships with advertisers where they would have more control over their brand, data and finances – enabling them to, in Joe’s words, “earn today and tomorrow off their brand and their fame.”

Joe’s biggest initial hurdle was simply getting to know Ethereum, its community and technology. We provided some initial feedback on his idea and he was back two weeks later with a draft of his whitepaper. We knew that dedication and enthusiasm, as well as his unique perspective, could only add value to the ecosystem; so we sent him to ETHDenver for a crash course in everything Ethereum. There, he lived Eth life to the fullest: networking, attending talks, learning the landscape, meeting Bufficorn and winning the Exploration Track sponsored by CryptoChicks.

Since ETHDenver Joe has kept in touch with contacts he made at ETHDenver as well as continued to consult with members of the EF and other experts as he works to build a prototype that he can share with potential customers and investors. So far Joe has been a one-man team, but is now looking to scale up by hiring a CTO who can help take Collegiate B.I.L.U.S. (Brand, Image and Likeness US) to testnet and beyond.

Get in touch or find out more about Collegiate B.I.L.U.S. on Instagram @collegiatebilus!

Ethereum Push Notification Service

EPNS was just an idea when we first met Harsh Rajat. He saw a need for push notification capabilities within Ethereum, both for public service announcements to Ethereum users and for dapp builders that wanted a new way to engage customers. We saw a driven, innovative builder who was deeply committed to Ethereum’s growth and success.

Harsh didn’t need much more than encouragement and feedback to help refine the concept and talk through next steps. He took his idea to HackMoney, where Richa Joshi joined the team. Together, they developed the core concept of EPNS into a many-layered and ever-evolving architecture in which critical information can be broadcast to Ethereum’s users; dapp builders can target users they know want to hear from them; and dapp users can both choose their level of engagement, and be rewarded for opting in to a higher level of engagement with their favorite dapps.

Since HackMoney, Richa and Harsh have directed incredible energy toward building EPNS into what they call “a missing piece of web3.” They’ve launched, offering early access and an alpha dapp; been accepted to Gitcoin’s KERNEL Fellowship; and are now growing their team and developing a business model that will allow them to build a self-sustaining platform without compromising their commitment to keep users’ interests at the forefront.

Check out https://epns.io/ and keep up with EPNS’s progress on Twitter @epnsproject.

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We love the many builders we work with for their commitment to finding the best way forward even when it isn’t the simplest or most obvious. Although funding is often the easiest thing to ask for, it isn’t necessarily the ideal solution: a grant won’t get a project where it needs to go if we don’t dig deeper to find the real core of the challenges the project faces.

Just because a project isn’t funded through an ESP grant doesn’t mean we aren’t willing and able to provide meaningful and sometimes material support. That said, we can’t offer support to every team that approaches us, as much as we would like to! And just like grants, recipients of other types of support we offer only reap the benefits by taking responsibility for their own success and putting in a lot of hard work.

All of the teams featured in this post are building toward very different goals, but they have one thing in common: they came with the openness and insight to work with us on finding the best intersection of their needs and our capabilities.

We have been lucky to get to know all of these remarkable builders and are so proud of the hard work that they’ve put in. We can’t wait to see what they do next!