Layer 2 Community Grants Winners

The Privateness & Scaling Explorations workforce is happy to announce the winners of the Layer 2 Community Grants 2022.

The Layer 2 Neighborhood Grants spherical began on October twenty fourth, 2022 and was open for six weeks. In whole we obtained 130+ proposals and thank every venture for taking the time to use.
The wishlist compiled sought functions from all areas together with Layer 2 explorers, cryptography, and training.

This chart exhibits share of preliminary candidates by class:

As a result of top quality of proposals, we raised the funds from an preliminary 750k USD to a complete of 948k USD.

The awarded functions share per class:

Grantees

We congratulate the 22 grantees awarded and current their venture descriptions damaged down by class:

🔒 Cybersecurity

• Candidelabs – ERC-4337 Public Infrastructure

  • An open supply bundler and a paymaster service as public good infrastructure for ERC-4337 sensible contracts wallets, layer 2 centered.

• Quantstamp – Rollup Safety Framework

  • The venture will create an in depth safety framework for distinctive options of rollups. They wish to set up a basis for fundamental greatest practices and transparency for these options to help new builders of those programs and allow the neighborhood to evaluate the safety dangers of a specific rollup earlier than they use one. Related to people who can be found for sensible contract improvement and the very high-level overviews of rollup safety like L2Beat.com. The framework will talk about considerations and particulars of escape hatch improvement and operational dangers for end-users and builders and set up a constant language for these and different options.

👨‍💻 Consumer Expertise

• Spiro – zkWallet

  • Multi-party wallets (e.g. Gnosis protected multisigs) are a confirmed means for a gaggle of customers to share management over an account’s digital property and behaviors. Sadly, present implementations of multi-party wallets expose the privateness of their whole variety of operators and their related externally owned accounts. The aim of this venture is to construct a personal multi-party pockets that shields finish customers by using account abstraction (EIP-4337) and zero-knowledge proofs.

• Kautuk Kundan – Stackr Community

  • Stackr community is an SDK for launching standalone customizable app-specific rollups utilizing acquainted web2-like tooling. It focuses on the core precept of a roll-up, that’s, to run a state machine off-chain and use L1 to retailer transaction particulars. This may be achieved by general-purpose languages that may preserve the app-state off-chain and supply an interface to work together with it, thus performing as a standalone L2. It permits constructing a brand new class of functions that can have extra freedom over their execution selections.

• ScopeLift – L2 Optimizors

  • Layer 2 networks share safety with main-net by posting transaction name knowledge to Layer 1. Consequently, Layer 2 customers pay their portion of the main-net fuel prices when executing transactions. Layer 1 fuel might be >25,000x costlier than Layer 2 fuel, so paying for name knowledge dominates L2 transaction prices. With customized router contracts that use much less name knowledge than customary strategies, we are able to considerably scale back transaction prices to work together with in style protocols.

• Testinprod – Layer1.5

  • Layer 1.5 permits anybody to launch their very own Layer 2 by offering straightforward instruments. It offers a simple software that launches your personal Layer 2 with mandatory instruments—for instance, block explorer, token bridge, monitoring instruments, and so on.

• ScopeLift – Layer 2 Governance with Versatile Voting

  • Versatile Voting is an extension of the favored Governor system utilized by many DAOs. It permits new sorts of delegation contracts to be written, making it simpler for governance token holders to take part in on-chain votes. One such use case is the topic of this grant: Layer 2 governance voting. Holders of bridged governance tokens might vote from Layer 2, paying the cheaper fuel costs obtainable there. These votes could be trustlessly mirrored on L1 the place the DAO’s Governor system is deployed.

• Clement Walter – Starksheet

  • Starksheet goals to democratize the entry and utilization of on-chain sources (knowledge and logic). It leverages a well-known spreadsheet to assist the person question and hyperlink on-chain sources. The work is saved on-chain as NFTs and might be queried later-on from some other dApp/contract

• Kristof Gazso – Typescript ERC-4337 Bundler

  • The venture will embody the event of an ERC-4337 bundler in Typescript and the related modifications to a Geth node for simulation functions in order that the bundler can run on any straight Geth-compatible chain (which incorporates most L2s) with little modifications. The bundler may also expose the RPC calls outlined within the specification, and preserve an inner mempool to be future-proof when P2P propagation will probably be developed.

• Soul Wallet – Open-source ERC-4337 pockets

  • Straightforward-to-use browser pockets implementation powered by ERC-4337.

📚 Neighborhood and Schooling

• Jose Figueroa – L2 en Español
  
  • L2 en Español is an open neighborhood that goals to analysis, educate and drive the adoption in all these Ethereum’s scaling options. They concentrate on each builders and new customers of their quest to remain updated with these applied sciences and their utility. We create content material and perform completely different actions from publications to workshops totally free, whereas supporting the completely different initiatives that innovate on this area, whereas sustaining additionally its core neutrality.

• Bruce Xu – MyFirstLayer2
  
  • This will probably be an open-source, community-driven, and academic venture. This will probably be an internet site for individuals inquisitive about Layer2 however with out prior data about Layer2 or Blockchain. We intention to make use of well-designed diagrams and interactive animation to assist individuals get the concept behind Layer2 in 30mins. Afterward, we’ll information individuals to some real-world Layer2 apps step-by-step and allow them to really feel the advantages of Layer2.

🗄️ Knowledge Evaluation

• Blockscout – Blockscout Block Explorer
  
  • An open-source block explorer is at present wanted for the L2 ecosystem. Blockscout is already utilized by many L2 initiatives, and extra customizations particular to L2 knowledge necessities will improve usability. As well as, a brand new interface, options, analytics and developer pleasant enhancements will assist create a extra clear and usable neighborhood explorer.

• Quantstamp – Evaluating Rollup Compression
  
  • Compression is commonly ignored when discussing rollups. By design, rollups are required to make knowledge obtainable so as to confirm state transitions or state roots; nevertheless, the strategy for this publication varies, and will embody compressed knowledge. There may be additionally variability within the compression strategies used. This venture will discover using compression within the rollup setting. First, the venture will explicate locations the place compression is used and doc the strategies that could be used. Second, the venture will survey present rollups to research the approaches which might be really utilized in apply. Third, the venture will consider approaches proposed or used throughout related programs and try and establish why a specific method is used. Lastly, the venture will use the insights collected so as to counsel new approaches for compression of rollup knowledge and pose open issues to the neighborhood.

• Diablobench – Efficiency and Safety Analysis of Layer 2 Blockchain Programs
  
  • The College of Sydney and the EPFL have designed a benchmark suite to guage the safety and efficiency of blockchain programs. The primary evaluations in contrast layer 1 blockchains resembling Algorand, Solana and Diem and will probably be printed quickly in a peer reviewed worldwide convention (Eurosys). This venture goals at including layer 2 blockchain programs to the Diablo benchmark and to make use of it to provide the primary in depth and lifelike benchmark analysis of layer 2 blockchain programs on a worldwide deployment.

• Web3-data – Layer 2 Exercise Monitoring & Comparability Suite
  
  • By this venture, we intention to ship a high-quality set of Dashboards that assist allow knowledge scientists, researchers, and all neighborhood members to higher perceive Layer 2 Exercise
  • We are going to mixture knowledge throughout Layer 2 networks leveraging sources resembling Dune, L2Beats, Santiment, CoinGecko, Github, Discord, and, in lots of instances, straight from the venture APIs/RPCs.
  • We are going to clear and arrange this knowledge to offer a set of shows that can permit the neighborhood to visualise adjustments throughout key L2 metrics (e.g. tps, lease paid to Ethereum, development in TVL, day by day lively addresses, new addresses, whole addresses, charges paid, and developer exercise primarily based on GitHub affiliated repo commits).
  • We intention to label sensible contracts (and in the end allow the neighborhood to label sensible contracts) by utilization classes (Native switch, DeFi DEX, DeFi different, NFT, CEX, Stablecoin, ERC20 different, L2 lease, Bridge, Arbitrage/MEV, Utility). This labeling will permit us to research and visualize the utilization patterns on a excessive degree and in addition present the “hottest” sensible contracts within the completely different utilization classes. We’re leveraging identified labels from Dune, Arbiscan, Etherscan, and others.

• L2 Beat – L2 Beat
  
  • Proceed to work on clear and verifiable insights into rising layer two (L2) applied sciences with expanded metrics and training.

📊 Knowledge Visualization

• Quantstamp – Again-Finish API Customary for L2 Block Exporers
  
  • This venture will clearly outline properties {that a} block explorer ought to implement so as to be thought-about feature-complete within the normal layer two setting. Moreover, our aim is to suggest and specify a regular API interface that the layer two networks ought to expose to normal block explorers. We envision that such a standardized interface will allow and vastly simplify the event of a number of block explorers that can plug-and-play reusable with all of the layer 2 networks that assist the usual. Within the splendid situation, the usual would flip the event of the core of a brand new block explorer right into a venture that may very well be accomplished by an skilled workforce throughout a weekend hackathon. Our aim will probably be to additionally outline a regular that’s consumer-agnostic. As such, it won’t matter whether or not it’s consumed by a block explorer that’s offered commercially, is open supply, or probably even decentralized. The venture pays particular consideration to what distinctive layer two knowledge a block explorer ought to present, with an emphasis on these associated to safety of the chains monitored by it.

• Blossom Labs – Blobscan
  
  • The primary explorer for the EIP-4844 shard blob transactions. It indexes and presents them in a searchable format that the person can visualize and navigate by way of in a simple means, offering the mandatory infrastructure to scale Ethereum.

🧮 Cryptography and Zero-knowledge proofs

• Zhe Ye, Ujval Misra, and Daybreak Tune (College of California at Berkeley) – Specular
  
  • The preferred optimistic rollups (ORUs) right now, Arbitrum and Optimism, attempt to increase present Ethereum consumer software program (Geth) to assist interactive fraud proof (IFP) development, aiming to reuse prior L1 engineering efforts and replicate EVM semantics at L2. Sadly, to take action they tightly couple their on-chain IFP verifier with a particular consumer program binary—oblivious to its higher-level semantics. This method (1) precludes the trust-minimized, permissionless participation of a number of Ethereum consumer applications, magnifying monocolture failure danger; (2) results in an unnecessarily massive and sophisticated trusted computing base (TCB) that’s tough to independently audit; and, (3) suffers from a frequently-triggered, but opaque improve course of—each additional rising auditing overhead, and complicating on-chain entry management within the long-term.
  • We’re due to this fact centered on constructing a safe, trust-minimized ORU that addresses these issues, whereas preserving scalability and dispute decision effectivity. To take action, we’ve designed an IFP system native to the EVM, that enforces Ethereum’s semi-formally specified semantics [5] exactly on the degree of a single EVM instruction. As part of this work, we constructed Specular, an ORU which leverages Geth—modified minimally with solely 99 lines-of-code to assist IFP development—demonstrating the practicality, extensibility and trust-minimal nature of our method.

• Nethermind, Justin Thaler (Georgetown College), Matthew Inexperienced (Johns Hopkins College), and Pratyush Tiwari (Georgetown College) – Concrete Safety Evaluation for L2 Deployed Proof Programs
  
  • We suggest to research the concrete safety of the proof programs (SNARKs, STARKs) that safe -rollups. We observe that some proof programs have safety analyzed within the interactive setting, whereas their safety after making use of the Fiat—Shamir transformation is simply conjectured. Moreover, we imagine that in some instances extra environment friendly assaults are doable than the claimed safety degree asserts.

• Ethstorage – Proof of Storage on L2 Dynamic Datasets with an Ethereum L1 Contract
  
  • Given an inventory of commitments of BLOBs (e.g., KZG commitments from EIP-4844/Danksharding, listed from 0…n-1) in an L1 contract, the venture is to check an environment friendly proof system to effectively confirm on L1 that the BLOBs are saved off-chain with the specified redundancy (e.g., 30~50 bodily replicas). By placing these storage nodes in an L2 community and assuming 1/m of nodes is sincere, we might construct an L2 storage community that reuses mainnet safety whereas extending Ethereum scalability dramatically.
  • Additional analysis will try and reply the questions of tips on how to construct the proof/verification system if the BLOBs and the commitments are continuously modified (e.g., new BLOBs are appended to the listing or a BLOB of an index is modified); and tips on how to construct incentivized/cost system to make sure desired replication issue utilizing ETH as cost; it’s doable to ask a storage node to retailer partial BLOBs whereas sustaining the identical degree of safety of Mainnet?

We had been extraordinarily pleased with the standard of candidates for this grants spherical. The analysis and work they produce may have a optimistic influence on the ecosystem. We recommend maintaining a tally of them!