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

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

This chart reveals proportion of preliminary candidates by class:

Because of the prime quality of proposals, we raised the funds from an preliminary 750k USD to a complete of 948k USD.

The awarded functions proportion per class:

Grantees

We congratulate the 22 grantees awarded and current their challenge 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 targeted.

• Quantstamp – Rollup Safety Framework

  • The challenge will create an in depth safety framework for distinctive options of rollups. They need to set up a basis for fundamental finest practices and transparency for these options to help new builders of those techniques and allow the group to evaluate the safety dangers of a specific rollup earlier than they use one. Related to people who can be found for sensible contract growth and the very high-level overviews of rollup safety like L2Beat.com. The framework will focus on issues and particulars of escape hatch growth 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 secure multisigs) are a confirmed manner for a gaggle of customers to share management over an account’s digital belongings 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 challenge is to construct a non-public 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 keep 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 decisions.

• ScopeLift – L2 Optimizors

  • Layer 2 networks share safety with main-net by posting transaction name knowledge to Layer 1. Because of this, Layer 2 customers pay their portion of the main-net gasoline prices when executing transactions. Layer 1 gasoline will be >25,000x dearer than Layer 2 gasoline, so paying for name knowledge dominates L2 transaction prices. With customized router contracts that use much less name knowledge than commonplace strategies, we will considerably scale back transaction prices to work together with well-liked protocols.

• Testinprod – Layer1.5

  • Layer 1.5 allows anybody to launch their very own Layer 2 by offering straightforward instruments. It supplies a simple utility that launches your personal Layer 2 with vital instruments—for instance, block explorer, token bridge, monitoring instruments, and many others.

• 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 gasoline costs accessible 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 assets (knowledge and logic). It leverages a well-known spreadsheet to assist the person question and hyperlink on-chain assets. The work is saved on-chain as NFTs and will be queried later-on from every other dApp/contract

• Kristof Gazso – Typescript ERC-4337 Bundler

  • The challenge 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 keep an inner mempool to be future-proof when P2P propagation shall be developed.

• Soul Pockets – 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 group 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 totally different actions from publications to workshops without cost, whereas supporting the totally different initiatives that innovate on this area, whereas sustaining additionally its core neutrality.

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

🗄️ Information Evaluation

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

• Quantstamp – Evaluating Rollup Compression
  
  • Compression is commonly neglected when discussing rollups. By design, rollups are required to make knowledge accessible with a view to confirm state transitions or state roots; nevertheless, the tactic for this publication varies, and will embody compressed knowledge. There’s additionally variability within the compression strategies used. This challenge will discover using compression within the rollup setting. First, the challenge will explicate locations the place compression is used and doc the strategies that could be used. Second, the challenge will survey present rollups to analyze the approaches which might be really utilized in observe. Third, the challenge will consider approaches proposed or used throughout related techniques and try and determine why a specific strategy is used. Lastly, the challenge will use the insights collected with a view to counsel new approaches for compression of rollup knowledge and pose open issues to the group.

• Diablobench – Efficiency and Safety Analysis of Layer 2 Blockchain Methods
  
  • The College of Sydney and the EPFL have designed a benchmark suite to guage the safety and efficiency of blockchain techniques. The primary evaluations in contrast layer 1 blockchains akin to Algorand, Solana and Diem and shall be revealed quickly in a peer reviewed worldwide convention (Eurosys). This challenge goals at including layer 2 blockchain techniques to the Diablo benchmark and to make use of it to provide the primary intensive and sensible benchmark analysis of layer 2 blockchain techniques on a worldwide deployment.

• Web3-data – Layer 2 Exercise Monitoring & Comparability Suite
  
  • By means of this challenge, we goal to ship a high-quality set of Dashboards that assist allow knowledge scientists, researchers, and all group members to raised perceive Layer 2 Exercise
  • We’ll combination knowledge throughout Layer 2 networks leveraging sources akin to Dune, L2Beats, Santiment, CoinGecko, Github, Discord, and, in lots of circumstances, straight from the challenge APIs/RPCs.
  • We’ll clear and manage this knowledge to supply a collection of shows that can enable the group to visualise adjustments throughout key L2 metrics (e.g. tps, lease paid to Ethereum, progress in TVL, every day lively addresses, new addresses, whole addresses, charges paid, and developer exercise based mostly on GitHub affiliated repo commits).
  • We goal to label sensible contracts (and in the end allow the group 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 enable us to investigate and visualize the utilization patterns on a excessive degree and likewise present the “hottest” sensible contracts within the totally 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 schooling.

📊 Information Visualization

• Quantstamp – Again-Finish API Customary for L2 Block Exporers
  
  • This challenge will clearly outline properties {that a} block explorer ought to implement with a view to be thought-about feature-complete within the normal layer two setting. Moreover, our aim is to suggest and specify an ordinary API interface that the layer two networks ought to expose to normal block explorers. We envision that such a standardized interface will allow and enormously simplify the event of a number of block explorers that can plug-and-play reusable with all of the layer 2 networks that help the usual. Within the superb situation, the usual would flip the event of the core of a brand new block explorer right into a challenge that might be accomplished by an skilled group throughout a weekend hackathon. Our aim shall be to additionally outline an ordinary 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 doubtlessly even decentralized. The challenge can pay 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 via in a simple manner, offering the required infrastructure to scale Ethereum.

🧮 Cryptography and Zero-knowledge proofs

• Zhe Ye, Ujval Misra, and Daybreak Track (College of California at Berkeley) – Specular
  
  • The preferred optimistic rollups (ORUs) in the present day, Arbitrum and Optimism, try to increase present Ethereum shopper software program (Geth) to help interactive fraud proof (IFP) building, 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 shopper program binary—oblivious to its higher-level semantics. This strategy (1) precludes the trust-minimized, permissionless participation of a number of Ethereum shopper packages, magnifying monocolture failure danger; (2) results in an unnecessarily massive and complicated trusted computing base (TCB) that’s troublesome 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 subsequently targeted on constructing a safe, trust-minimized ORU that addresses these issues, whereas preserving scalability and dispute decision effectivity. To take action, we’ve got 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 help IFP building—demonstrating the practicality, extensibility and trust-minimal nature of our strategy.

• Nethermind, Justin Thaler (Georgetown College), Matthew Inexperienced (Johns Hopkins College), and Pratyush Tiwari (Georgetown College) – Concrete Safety Evaluation for L2 Deployed Proof Methods
  
  • We suggest to investigate the concrete safety of the proof techniques (SNARKs, STARKs) that safe -rollups. We observe that some proof techniques 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 circumstances extra environment friendly assaults are potential than the claimed safety degree asserts.

• Ethstorage – Proof of Storage on L2 Dynamic Datasets with an Ethereum L1 Contract
  
  • Given a listing of commitments of BLOBs (e.g., KZG commitments from EIP-4844/Danksharding, listed from 0…n-1) in an L1 contract, the challenge is to review 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 construct the proof/verification system if the BLOBs and the commitments are continuously modified (e.g., new BLOBs are appended to the record or a BLOB of an index is modified); and construct incentivized/fee system to make sure desired replication issue utilizing ETH as fee; it’s potential to ask a storage node to retailer partial BLOBs whereas sustaining the identical degree of safety of Mainnet?

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