Allocation Update – Q1 2025

Community & education Account Abstraction Afterhours – Season 2 Mirko Garozzo & Francesco Andreoli Producing educational videos with thought leaders in the account abstraction ecosystem, with Season 2 focusing on the application layer and how dapps are using account abstraction. Community & education ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (EC) Scientific conference on advances in theory, empirics, and applications at the interface of economics and computation. Community & education A General Forum on Ethereum Localism (GFEL): Boulder 2025 OpenCivics Event in Boulder, USA that explored Ethereum’s real-world use cases in the realm of social impact and public goods through talks, unconference sessions, and a quadratic funding allocation to local community groups. Community & education Arabic Blockchain Developer Bootcamp Blokkat Arabic-language, online bootcamp equipping computer science students and web2 developers in the MENA region with the technical skills needed to become proficient blockchain developers. Community & education Centrum Node Centrum Running an Ethereum node and holding regular beginner-friendly events aiming to expand the reach of decentralized technology (e.g. node construction workshops, dapp development introductions, study sessions). Community & education Community Privacy Residency Residency in Taipei, Taiwan focused on researching, co-designing, and building open-source applications for community privacy, with emphasis on applications for vulnerable communities, community co-design, and privacy infrastructure. Email Community & education Crowdsourced Community-Organizing Resources Tanja Mladenovic Creating a collection of crowdsourced insights that serve as a comprehensive Ethereum event-planning guide, hosted on the ethereum.org website. Community & education Devcon Satellite Events Funding round to support events that spotlight Devcon SEA programming or experiences. Community & education Escuela de Ciencias Informáticas (ECI) Summer School Summer school hosted at the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina, featuring courses presented by professors from across the globe with some topics closely related to Ethereum. Community & education ETHBratislava Supporting the ETHBratislava community to host the ETHBratislava hackathon and conference, meetups, and community calls to grow the Central and Eastern Europe Ethereum ecosystem. Community & education ETHCluj Supporting ETHCluj for a series of community-building activities in Cluj-Napoca, Romania including Ethereum think tank sessions, workshops for university students, and technical presentations. Community & education Ethereum Argentina Cordoba Edition Beginner-friendly conference organized in Cordoba, Argentina covering topics such as the Ethereum roadmap, use cases, and layer 2s (L2s). Community & education Ethereum Tegucigalpa Supporting Ethereum Tegucigalpa for a series of community-building activities in Honduras. Community & education EthereumZuri.ch Conference hosted in Zurich, Switzerland that aims to bridge the gap between academia and industry, focusing on topics such as consensus mechanisms, dapps, and security. Community & education ETHiopia Hackathon & Conference First Ethereum conference and hackathon in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia focused on government tech and scaling Ethereum across Africa. Community & education ETHPrague Conference hosted in Prague, Czech Republic focusing on topics such Ethereum core and EVM, developer ecosystem and tooling, sustainable futures, and societal challenges and opportunities. Community & education EthStaker Community providing guidance, education, support, and resources for existing and potential stakers, with the principle goal of maximizing the Ethereum network’s decentralization. Discord Community & education Hacklahoma Hackathon hosted by students at the University of Oklahoma in USA, with workshops and a track dedicated to building on Ethereum. Community & education High-Assurance Crypto Software (HACS) Workshop Aspiration Tech Workshop hosted in Sofia, Bulgaria bringing cryptographic developers together with experts in formal verification and high assurance methodologies, fostering collaboration towards making cryptographic software flawless. Community & education International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) Hyderabad Ethereum Education Explorations v2 Ankit Gangwal Running a dedicated Ethereum course as part of IIIT Hyderabad‘s main curriculum, and guiding 2 PhD students and a research associate on Ethereum-related research. Community & education International Workshop on Satisfiability Modulo Theories (SMT) Workshop run in Glasgow, UK with the goal of exchanging ideas between SMT solver developers and users of SMT, and motivating new research in SMT. Community & education ETHKyiv Supporting the community to host mini-hackathons, meetups focused on use cases, and hackathon events. Community & education NapulETH Open Village Conference and hackathon organized in Naples, Italy, featuring tracks such as zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs), privacy, and scaling. Community & education National Workshop & Bootcamp on Cybersecurity & Blockchain Event that explored theoretical knowledge of evolving cyber threats and blockchain security along with Ethereum-focused, hands-on practical sessions and interactive bootcamp exercises, organized by IIIT, Hyderabad in India. Community & education Road to ETHPrague Meetups EthereumCzech & ETHPrague Series of meetups organized in Prague and Brno, Czech Republic to onboard more locals to the Ethereum ecosystem in the lead-up to ETHPrague, focused on topics such as security, AI agents, and UX/UI. Community & education StackTooDeep Blockchain Society IIT Roorkee Ethereum-focused hackathon that aimed to foster a culture of web3 development and promote decentralized innovation at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee in India. Community & education The House of Ether Bluechain Research Cooperative Ethereum community education initiative aimed at engaging university students, researchers, and academics, as well as the general public in northeastern Greece. Community & education The Midwest Block-a-Thon KU Blockchain Institute Blockchain hackathon hosted at the University of Kansas in USA with Ethereum-focused workshops. Community & education The Wellbeing Protocol Designing and developing an “end-to-end money flow” on Ethereum rails for local community funding allocation, including improvements towards more intuitive and user-friendly UI/UX for quadratic voting. Community & education Uzumaki Titania Research Research hub in Japan working to solve Ethereum’s most critical problems, in domains such as consensus, zkVM, and proposer-builder separation (PBS). Community & education Web3 Development Internship Program Web3 Institute Internship program focused on Ethereum ecosystem development in Ukraine, bridging the gap between technical education and industry needs by connecting students with practical development opportunities. Community & education Zu-Grāma Residency in Kerala, India dedicated to exploring advancements and conducting experiments in thematic tracks such as impact and public goods, cryptography, and longevity. Consensus layer Fabric Community-driven initiative focused on standardizing based rollup infrastructure by defining common components, improving proposer commitments, and creating shared specifications for rollup teams to adopt. Consensus layer GotEth Miga Labs Continued development of the open-source Ethereum data indexing client, expanding existing features by filling in missing onchain data, improving slashing event tracking, indexing Ethereum deposits, and optimizing validator rewards data storage, followed by ensuring full compatibility with the upcoming Pectra upgrade to enhance its long-term reliability and impact. Consensus layer jvm-libp2p QUIC Transport Support Peergos Adding support for the QUIC transport protocol to the jvm-libp2p library, as QUIC has inherently faster handshake latency and generally better performance characteristics than TCP transport. Consensus layer Lighthouse Sigma Prime Support for the Lighthouse consensus client to continue protocol R&D towards upcoming network upgrades, work on PeerDAS, and networking engineering on mainnet. Consensus layer Liveness Accountability Andrew Lewis-Pye Developing a proof-of-concept approach that delineates the settings in which some form of liveness accountability is possible, aiming to establish both possibility and impossibility results where possible. Consensus layer Lodestar ChainSafe Continued development and maintenance of the Lodestar TypeScript implementation of the Ethereum beacon chain, development of the Ethereum protocol, and TypeScript/JavaScript ecosystem tooling. Consensus layer ROP-9.3: FOCIL Implementation, Tests, & Devnets Jihoon Song Implementing and testing FOCIL prototypes in Prysm and Geth, and running local devnets using Kurtosis. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs Cursive Supporting the Cursive team’s app development, cryptography research, design work, and user expansion strategy. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs Dimitri Koshelev Exploration of isogenies and other cryptographic areas essential to Ethereum’s roadmap, working closely with Ethereum Foundation researchers to accelerate learning and align efforts with Ethereum’s goals. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs Lean Blueprint for FRI Nethermind Developing a Lean blueprint for FRI, along with the mathematical pre-requisites that are needed for it and currently missing from Lean’s mathlib (primarily coding theory). Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs Lean Blueprints for STIR & WHIR Least Authority Developing a Lean blueprint for STIR and WHIR by laying out all the definitions, lemmas, and theorems required to prove the properties of completeness and soundness for STIR and WHIR, and producing a dependency graph relating them all. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs Machina iO Pia Park Supporting the team in implementing new theoretical ideas and resolving bottlenecks in both theory and implementation of iO that improve either its security or efficiency. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs Phantom Zone Advancing practical iO by strengthening the local mixing approach, developing an obfuscated AES program for white-box hacking contests, creating an encrypted RISC-V virtual machine using fully homomorphic encryption (FHE), and exploring improvements to functional encryption schemes based on evasive LWE for publicly verifiable FHE. Email Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs plonky3 & Lean Nethermind Developing an interface between plonky3 (widely used by zkVMs to implement STARKs) and Lean to enable the verification of plonky3 AIR circuits. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs Poseidon Algebraic Cryptanalysis Luca Campa & Stefano Trevisani Algebraic cryptanalysis of Poseidon specifically focusing on the Groebner basis cryptanalysis of the Poseidon instances suggested in the bounty program, as part of the Poseidon Grants Round. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs Semaphore in Noir HashCloak Implementing Semaphore in Noir, which requires a Noir circuit, additional software development kit (SDK) functionality that does proof generation and proof verification for the Noir circuit, and additional versions of the Semaphore Solidity contracts where the verifier for UltraHonk is included. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs Understanding the Algebraic Security of Multi-Output CICO-Problems from Poseidon Simula UiB Determining the security of Poseidon in the multi-output CICO context by deriving concrete estimates of algebraic attacks in this setting, as part of the Poseidon Grants Round. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs VOLE in the Head (VOLE-itH) Shouki Tsuda Enabling on-chain verification of VOLE-itH ZKP, specifically encapsulating VOLE-itH ZKP within SNARK to achieve succinctness and enable verification with smart contracts. The cost of verification on Ethereum is measured and analyzed, with benchmarks covering circuits such as hash functions and including execution on mobile clients. These will be used to identify bottlenecks and explore further improvements. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs ZK Email Aayush Gupta Extensive set of open source SDKs, libraries, and protocols that enable email-based proofs. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs ZKEmail.nr ZK Email written in Noir to push forward the capabilities of client-side, privacy-preserving email proving. Cryptography & zero knowledge proofs ZKNOX Supporting ZKNOX to implement post-quantum signatures and ZK-friendly cryptography, improve hardware wallets, and implement and optimize EIP-616 for cryptographic and ZK verification efficiency. Developer experience & tooling AndroidPortal Dirk Jäckel Developing a decentralized mobile SDK for Android that operates without a JSON-RPC provider or any other centralized backend. By integrating a Portal Network client and a Trueblocks client, the SDK will enable users to access Ethereum data in a trustless and verifiable manner. Developer experience & tooling Buidl Guidl Educational community of builders creating products and prototypes, and providing Ethereum developer education. Developer experience & tooling Commit-Boost Open-source platform enabling Ethereum validators to securely execute MEV-Boost and other community-built commitment protocols, actively working to increase adoption by providing validators with a proposer commitment sidecar that enables preconfirmations and out-of-protocol inclusion lists. Developer experience & tooling EIPs Ontology David Hyland-Wood Open-source project aiming to produce EIP content that is more accessible and usable by leveraging large language models (LLMs) to process AllCoreDev meeting summaries, EIP metadata, and additional documentation. Developer experience & tooling Ethereum Ecosystem GitHub Categorization Open Source Observer Building an automated classification system for open-source GitHub repositories in the Ethereum ecosystem to enable easier discovery, more informed decision-making, and better resource allocation across Ethereum development efforts. Developer experience & tooling Ethereum for Ruby Straightforward Ruby library to build, sign, and broadcast Ethereum transactions that allows the separation of key and node management. Developer experience & tooling Fe Language Ongoing development of the Fe v2 language server and editor plugins, along with broader work on various aspects of the compiler. Developer experience & tooling OpenSauced Enhancing the open-source analytics tooling and dashboard by introducing key Ethereum developer metrics, namely library usage analytics and languages by TVL and fees. Developer experience & tooling Vyper Supporting the Vyper team’s core development activities in 2025. Developer experience & tooling Web3.js ChainSafe Web3.js was sunset with a structured support plan to ensure security, successful migration, and continuity for users as they transitioned to new tooling. Developer experience & tooling Kurtosis Engine Kubernetes Logging Support Tedi Mitiku Adding centralized/persistent logging support to the Kurtosis Kubernetes backend. Developer experience & tooling Kurtosis Support for Log Aggregation via External Services Bloctopus Adding support for Kurtosis to export logs to an external log aggregation platform, allowing for seamless integration into existing systems as well as using external compute resources for more complicated analytics. Twitter, Telegram Developer experience & tooling Simplifying the Verification of zkVM Circuits CertiK Developing tactics that will simplify the verification of zkVM circuits, with a focus on modular arithmetic and cases where multiple numbers are packed into one field element. Developer experience & tooling Solhint Protofire Ongoing maintenance and support for Solhint, the Solidity linter, including actively managing community contributions, addressing questions, and resolving bug reports to ensure the tool remains robust, up-to-date, and valuable for the Ethereum developer ecosystem. Discord Developer experience & tooling STK2Chain Carlos Muriithi Researching and developing open-source smart contracts (building on existing AA-437 implementations), middleware, and backend to allow authenticating and sending of 4337 UserOps over GSM USSD (using STK interface) without using the internet. Developer experience & tooling Verus Evaluation CertiK Evaluating the usefulness of Verus (a tool for Rust verification) in verifying circuits and EVM precompiles written in Rust. Execution layer Erigon Funding for Erigon’s continued work on the Ethereum mainnet, specifically their execution client development and applied R&D on Ethereum’s execution layer. Twitter Execution layer Gas Cost Estimator imapp Benchmarking BLS12-381 precompiles, exploring the impact of different repricing approaches on mainnet transaction throughput, and drafting an EIP to adjust the pricing of one or more operations based on the benchmark results. Execution layer Geth Rollup Nethermind Continued development of the Geth rollup project. Execution layer ROP-15: EVM Gas Metering Maria Inês Silva Determining how changes to the gas metering rules impact block throughput and utilization through empirical analysis and simulation. Execution layer Samba meldsun0 & Derek Sorken Ethereum portal client written in Java language based on Teku and Besu. Email, Discord: meldsun General growth & support EcoDev Research Fellowship Anna M., Jelilat Anofiu, Nick Potts, & Ori Shimony Six-month research fellowship positions investigating a research proposal focused on one or two nascent Ethereum use cases which materially and uniquely benefit from the affordances of Ethereum, exploring the key blockers and enablers to making these use cases a reality. General growth & support EF Internship Program Bosul Mun, Souradeep Das, Louis Tsai, Shantikiran Chanal, Wonbin Jin, & Harsh Karia The EF’s first formal summer internship program aimed at nurturing the next generation of Ethereum developers and researchers, with interns working in the following teams and domains: Applied Research Group (ARG), Ethereum Execution Layer Specifications (EELS), Ethereum Execution Specification Tests (EEST), Geth, Portal, and Protocol Security. General growth & support EU Grants Research Conducting a comprehensive analysis of the available EU programs and initiatives that can support blockchain non-profits. General growth & support The European Decentralization Think Tank European decentralization think tank that produces tangible outputs (policy briefs/events) to strengthen corporate engagement and policy influence in Europe. Indirect funding Gitcoin Grants 23 Matching funding for Gitcoin Grants 23, focusing on ecosystem and community-driven rounds. Indirect funding StackTooDeep Quadratic Voting Round Bounty prize contribution to support a hackathon organized via Privote—a universal no-code platform built on MACI. MACI is a private, on-chain, voting system leveraging ZKPs. Layer 2 L2BEAT Continued financial support for L2BEAT to provide transparent and reliable information about Ethereum’s L2 ecosystem. Other Decentralization Research Center Non-profit that advocates for decentralization as a fundamental characteristic of emerging technologies. This includes the development of blockchain protocols and applications that are immutable, censorship resistant, transparent, secure, and enable data self-sovereignty. Other DeFi Scan DeFi Collective Increasing the coverage and pace of covered DeFi projects on DeFi Scan, improving the website frontend design, and supporting education efforts. Other Etherealize Institutional business development and marketing for Ethereum to educate and onboard institutions into the Ethereum ecosystem. Other Ethereum Monetary Forum Global, credibly neutral organization dedicated to integrating the traditional financial system with Ethereum, fostering collaboration and strategic alignment. Other FORYU: FORmal semantics for YUL in Coq Enrique Martin, Samir Genaim, & Elvira Albert Developing formal semantics for Yul in Coq prover. Other Local-First Dapps rotki Steps towards local-first dapps within rotki and other containers, including developing a secure proxy architecture that bridges the local application with wallet extensions or other signers, and general research into local-first applications as a vision. Other Payments Report Bluechip In-depth stablecoin report incorporating insights from real conversations with industry practitioners, in addition to secondary research. Other Verifereum Establishing a formal specification for a subset of the Vyper programming language, which involves defining a definitional interpreter in logic that excludes EVM state operations. Website, Zulip Protocol growth & support eODS Specs Dan Goron Developing initial specifications for enshrined operator-delegator separation, as well as community feedback on the mechanism. Protocol growth & support ETH Rangers Program Amber Group, Alexandre Melo, David, Ho Nhut Minh, Jean-Loïc Mugnier, Kelsie Nabben, NFT_Dreww, Nick Bax, Oskar (blackbigswan), Palina Tolmach, Peter Kacherginsky, Sergio Garcia, Sina Pilehchiha, SomaXBT, SunSec, & Tim Fan Program supporting individuals dedicating time to working on public goods security efforts within the Ethereum ecosystem. Protocol growth & support PebbleDB for Geth jsvisa Benchmarking, optimizing, and demonstrating improvement in PebbleDB performance for Geth. Protocol growth & support Pectra Proactive Grant Round Grants round to support the Ethereum ecosystem in preparation for the Pectra network upgrade. Protocol growth & support PeerDAS & FOCIL Metrics Katya Ryazantseva Metric specifications for PeerDAS and FOCIL.