Allocation Update: Q3 and Q4, 2021

Community & educationWeb3 LagosConference in Lagos, Nigeria covering a variety of topics including making the switch from Web2 to Web3.Community & educationBlockchain FellowshipESatyaThree month online course aiming to familiarize Nepalese developers with the key elements of blockchain technology through instruction and project-based learning.Community & educationEthereum Eje Cafetero MeetupsEthereum Eje CafeteroCommunity talks and meetups in Colombia’s Coffee Region.Community & educationETH CUBAKickstarting community growth in Cuba.Community & educationEthereum MedellínPlatohedroCommunity development in Medellín, Colombia.Community & educationEthereum TegucigalpaSupport for Ethereum community development in Honduras including meetups, developer events and Spanish-language Ethereum content.Community & education0xPARCOrganization supporting applied cryptography research and development.Community & educationETHGlobalVirtual and in-person hackathons focused on building the Ethereum developer community through learning opportunities and hands-on support for hackers.Community & educationElectronic Frontier FoundationNonprofit dedicated to promoting digital privacy, free speech, and innovation.Community & educationFight For The FutureGrassroots activism group that fights for a future where technology is a force for liberation and not oppression.Community & educationCoin CenterNonprofit promoting sensible regulatory approaches to cryptocurrency technology through research, advocacy and educating policymakers.Consensus LayerLighthouse grant through April 2022Sigma PrimeContinued development of the Lighthouse consensus client.Consensus LayerLodestar, light clients and JS toolingChainsafeContinued development of the Lodestar JS consensus client, with goals including light client R&D, improved tooling and documentation, and Merge readiness.Consensus LayerPrysm clientPrysmatic LabsContinued development of the Prysm consensus client.Consensus LayerStereum Q4 2021Rock LogicContinued development of the Stereum “one click installer” for solo stakers to install a beacon chain client and dependencies in a single setup, with support for all production clients on testnet and mainnet.Consensus LayerEthStakerContinued support for ETHStaker, a community group promoting and supporting Ethereum staking through education, advocacy, technical support, tooling, etc; and funding of a mainnet ETHStaker validator to be used for demonstrations, client metrics, and more.Consensus LayerInvestigation of Delay for Applied Boolean FunctionsMoscow State University, Faculty of Computational Mathematics and CyberneticsInvestigation of circuit latency bounds, a crucial security consideration for Verifiable Delay Functions.Consensus LayerDiscV5 ResearchDataHopResearch and optimization of the DiscV5 service discovery mechanism; current goal is the publication of a report including performance evaluation of the proposed mechanism and an evaluation of its resistance against attacks.Consensus LayerSSZ SimpleSerializeContinued development of ssz.dev, a website documenting and demonstrating the SSZ serialization standard, including a visualization playground and React-based SSZ implementation.Cryptography & zero knowledge proofsIdentity, Reputation and ZKP researchJustin MartinDevelopment of proofs of cryptographically-verifiable truth claims, such as ownership of web2 identities or government issued credentials.Cryptography & zero knowledge proofsPrediction markets for content curationJanmajaya MallContent sharing platform demonstrating the use of a prediction market mechanism for collaborative curation.Cryptography & zero knowledge proofszkEVM Research and DevelopmentYing Tong Lai, Electric Coin CompanyContributions to research and development on the zkEVM project, which aims to build both a zk rollup that directly supports smart contracts, and a proof of validity for the EVM that could verify Ethereum’s entire history in one proof.Cryptography & zero knowledge proofsMaci: Coordinator ServiceChao MaAPI to manage MACI proof generation using messages signed with the coordinator’s private key, a more straightforward and scalable interface allowing users to construct correct proofs by running commands in the cli.Developer experience & toolingObsidian On EthereumCarnegie Mellon University School of Computer ScienceContinuation of research and proof-of-concept development by a group of students and professors from the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science to demonstrate that key features of the Obsidian smart contract language can translate successfully to Ethereum.Developer experience & toolingFormal Verification of Contracts LibraryOpenZeppelinFormal verification by Certora of OpenZeppelin’s library of template contracts for commonly-used components and standards.Developer experience & toolingZK Rollup and L2 Developer ToolsRyodanWork on Layer 2 and zk rollups including a zk rollup design that eliminates transaction history data for contract execution and zkCloud, a service which aims to help developers use zero-knowledge proofs to write smart contracts and programs more easily.Execution LayerLow-level optimization of a bigint library for IPA base field calculationsDag Arne OsvikOptimized field-operation library in Go, intended to replace Go’s bigint library in Verkle tree implementation for improved performance following the switch from KZG to IPA commitment scheme.Layer 2L2BEATMaintenance and expansion of L2BEAT, a website offering statistics, analysis and risk factors for comparison between Layer 2 scaling solutions.OtherStartrailInfrastructure for recording the distribution and appraisal of physical artworks.User experiencew3a.ioa42 Inc.Ethereum-based authentication and authorization of usage rights to physical devices.