Introducing the Ethereum Foundation Ecosystem Support Program
Since the early days of Ethereum, the Foundation has been actively involved in research and development. As the ecosystem has grown and matured, the Foundation’s role has grown alongside it. One of our most important priorities is to provide support to the Ethereum network to the best of our abilities.
Over the past year, the grant team has worked to become a true grants team, strengthening its capabilities and skills. This culminated in the launch of the Ethereum Foundation Ecosystem Support Program. Along the way we have:
- Enhanced the selection of support options available to applicants
- Broadened the assessment process to include a larger pool of experts
- Optimized the applicant experience
- Created collaborations with people, projects, and whole domains where the Ethereum Foundation can lend support
- …and more (such as our Local grant programs)!
In the near future we will be launching a more comprehensive version of the Ecosystem Support Program website. This will include information about the support we can offer and make it easier for people to find out how to get assistance. We will also be publishing a blog post summarizing the 2019 grants, including information about the people and projects we’ve been able to support, how much money we’ve spent, and how we evaluate proposals.
Submitting Applications
The Ecosystem Support Program team includes a support group that guides applicants through the process and helps connect them to potential advisors or partners. Today we are officially launching our call for applications. We are eager to expand the range of projects that we can support and to improve our capacity to do so.
The following is a list of the types of applications that we are particularly interested in:
- Eth2 Thin Clients
- This includes projects looking to join or build a team to develop industrial-grade eth2 thin clients.
- Bridges between Ethereum and other blockchains
- Cryptoeconomics research for mathematicians and scholars
- Explorations of crypto assets
- Examples include proposals for social recovery mechanisms for wallets or rules that differ by asset type/security/other factors.
- Anything with a strong case for improving the Ethereum developer experience (at any level of the stack)
- We are especially interested in projects that clearly communicate the problem(s) they are trying to solve, how many people are affected, and what options they have.
- Translators
- Extra points if you can provide evidence of past translations and/or present a list of your top priorities for translation along with an explanation of how you chose them.
