We are pleased to announce our recently selected recipients. Staking Community Grant Round.
This approves round invitation offers, making your Ethereum staking experience easier, safer, and more secure. We’re thrilled to see all the great work these teams have come up with, and look forward to continuing to find new ways to support the ecosystem. In the meantime, if you’re working in this space and could use some support, please submit a project inquiry via: Ecosystem Support Program.
More than $1 million was allocated to 25 grants in four categories.
| category | Amount (USD) |
|---|---|
| Community / Education | 391,800.00 |
| new tooling | 200,000.00 |
| Data analysis/visualization | 180,000.00 |
| research | 268,655.00 |
It’s been a few months since Ethereum’s proof-of-stake journey began, but seeing so many worthy teams across a wide range of categories bodes well for the health of our ecosystem.
The biggest categories for this round are: Community / Education. Mitigating the staking path is critical to the long-term health of the staking ecosystem. The staking community and educational content are useful pieces of this puzzle, and we look forward to further developments, especially outside of the English-speaking world.
| beneficiary | project | explanation |
|---|---|---|
| cadCAD Edu | cadCAD Masterclass: ETH2 Validator Economics | This is a cadCAD Edu online course built on the eth2 verification economy. The team will also create an open-source cadCAD validation model for the community to conduct their own analysis. |
| carlos mesa | How to Steak? Spanish video guide | Video staking guides and content for the Spanish-speaking community |
| Lin Ching-yi, Hupitan | Eth2xK8s: Ethereum staking with Kubernetes | A getting started guide for running a multi-validator setup using Kubernetes, including all necessary configuration files. |
| coin cashew | End-to-end eth2 validator guide | Detailed step-by-step staking guide and additional guides on grafana dashboard, docker eth2 installation, and securing validator keys via ledger. |
| Empire Ventures | eth2.academy | An interactive educational resource that bridges the information gap between the many moving parts of the eth2 ecosystem, from highly technical research work to client user interactions and everything in between. |
| Buta, Rambosi, Superfizz, Unbetica, Warter | EthStaker | Help the EthStaker community continue to build an online place and set of resources for hobby stakers to get started. |
| Jeffrey Mileski | Fundamentals of Eth2 Economics | Online courses and websites focusing on the economics of participating as a validator and the institutional economics of the eth2 protocol. |
| ross moody | My Journey to Ethereum Staking | This is an article/guide that traces my experience learning how to stake from a beginner level. |
| Rudy Lou | WeETH staker | Support for eth2 staking and validator ecosystem in China |
| scott piriu | French Staking Guide for Beginners | A series of articles about eth2 staking for the French-speaking community. |
| ether | ether wiki | An eth2-focused wiki that aims to educate and help prospective validators. |
| techtech | pole | Eth2 educational content, including staking guides, is available in Japanese. |
Just as community and education are essential to getting stakers across the starting line, powerful open source tools are key to ensuring stakers can run their nodes safely. The tools we saw in this round were primarily security and orchestration oriented, and we expect continued innovation in the future.
| beneficiary | project | explanation |
|---|---|---|
| ben goebel | valid8r | A command-line tool that “validates” the local settings of a validator. Check common system and application defaults related to performance and security of your staking setup. |
| daniel street | Mnemonic division | A web tool and open source code that generates ‘K of N’ mnemonics using threshold cryptography. This makes it easier to store validator mnemonics safely and reliably. |
| Isaac Agudo | HSM BLS Signer | Standard for blst-based HSM BLS signer, including open source code+documentation. This will help stakers manage their keys more securely. |
| Jakub Tomanic | Mack Steak | A macOS application that wraps a platform for running Ethereum software on Apple hardware, streamlining the staking experience for operators of all skill levels. |
| Mara Schmidt, Alon Muroch, Colin Myers | Eth2 Secret Share Validator | Auditing the implementation of secret-sharing validator configuration, which is an important part of improving validator resiliency and diversity in the eth2 network. |
Data analysis/visualization
As more ETH is staked on beacon chains, it becomes increasingly important to have insight into the functioning and health of the network. last year Medalla Data Challenge This was ample evidence of the Ethereum ecosystem’s interest and ability to collect and analyze network data. Projects in this category further these goals on mainnet.
| beneficiary | project | explanation |
|---|---|---|
| bit fly | beaconcha.in | Ongoing development of the beaconcha.in FOSS block explorer, including open source mobile client and merge+sharding testnet support. |
| Jim McDonald | chains | Integrate eth1 deposit tracking into chaind, a tool that collects and indexes data from running staking nodes. |
| Omni Analytics Group | Ethereum 2.0 Validator State Layer Tracking | A continuation of work originally submitted to the Medalla Data Challenge: a formal methodology for analyzing validators based on performance and accompanying web dashboards. |
| pintail | Exploring Validator Rewards and Punishments | A series of blog posts explaining validator rewards/penalties using mainnet data. |
research
Finally, this round included several research projects. There are many open research questions related to the future of staking and networks. We actively call for more research efforts in this area.
| beneficiary | project | explanation |
|---|---|---|
| Barcelona Supercomputing Center | Eth2 Network Crawler | An extension of the Rumor Eth2 network crawler focused on improving peer-to-peer gossip data collection. |
| Barcelona Supercomputing Center | Eth2 client resource monitoring | Resource monitoring R&D for each of the four mainnet clients. |
| Diego Lozada, Fernando Collado | Ethereum on ARM | R&D to provide users with an easy way to run full Eth2 nodes on ARM devices (e.g. Raspberry Pi 4) |
We’re excited to watch these teams in 2021 and beyond and see the broader impact they have on the new Ethereum staking ecosystem.
The breadth and quality of this grant is an incredible signal to the burgeoning staking community and the Ethereum ecosystem as a whole. The start of a fun year is here! 🚀