Q4 2023 Grant Recipients
A list of selected grant recipients is below. This list will be updated as approvals are made.
Gashawk
As a non-custodial service, GasHawk aims to help users and institutions optimize their transaction costs during periods of high and volatile gas fees. They currently provide minimized transaction costs, eliminate stuck transactions, prevent transaction failures and ward off front-running or sandwiching. GasHawk is a MEV-resistant, gas rebate RPC layer with the capacity to grow its product offerings and add value exponentially.
Since their launch in November of 2022, they have onboarded over 4,000 individual users, processed tens of thousands of transactions and saved on average 30% for our users and institutions on every transaction. GasHawk has accumulated over 11k followers on Twitter and has an active discord and common ground community.
Gashawk is a prior recipient of Public Goods Small Grants, with a portion of the funds given back to users through gas rebates.
Considering the existing cost savings and broad applicability to the Ethereum and Web3 ecosystem, the working group is proud to provide this grant, which will support the development of further functionality with Gashawk.
Award Information
The total award is 50k USDC.
The first traunche 20k USDC will be paid immediately. The remainder will be awarded following the completion of milestone one. To maintain eligibility for future grants, they will need to fulfill both milestones irrespective of any funding delivered.
Milestones
The following milestones are expected to be delivered and evaluated during the next six months. Updates for these will be provided on working group calls.
1. A browser extension that will make the GasHawk UX much smoother – as it will directly operate next to the user’s browser wallet. Expected Q1 2024.
2. Webhook functionality: We call your server back when we submit your transaction, so there’s no need for polling the status/re-submitting the transaction. Expected Q1 2024.
Related Project Links
Website: https://www.gashawk.io
Twitter: @gashawkio
Dune Dashboard on Gas Fees: https://dune.com/hildobby/Gas
Ethereum Follow Protocol
The Ethereum Follow Protocol (EFP) will be a simple social graph protocol for Ethereum accounts, native to the Ethereum ecosystem, that complements and strengthens the existing web3 identity stack, including ENS.
“Organically, a web3 identity stack has emerged in the Ethereum ecosystem over the last few years, with things like ENS (usernames and profiles), SIWE (authentication), NFT pfps (avatars), your other NFTs (group membership), your onchain history, and more. A key component that’s missing is a social graph for Ethereum accounts.” - @brantlymillegan
The working group believes that this project will make a significant positive impact on the existing social layer of Ethereum. We are excited to see development on the EFP, especially by a passionate team holding a track record of involvement in Web3 innovations such as ENS and SIWE.
Award Information
The total award is 50k USDC.
The first tranche 20k USDC will be paid immediately. The remainder will be awarded following the completion of milestone one. To maintain eligibility for future grants, they will need to fulfill both milestones irrespective of any funding delivered.
Milestones
The following milestones are expected to be delivered and evaluated during the next six months. Updates for these will be provided on working group calls.
1. Deliver the EFP smart contracts and document for open feedback. Expected November 2023.
2. Indexer created and working. The Indexer is an off-chain program that monitors on-chain for updates and keeps all EFP data in a database for fast retrieval. Expected December 2023.
Related Project Links
Website: Coming Soon 
Twitter: @rotkiapp
Mirror: “THE PATH TO WEB3 IDENTITY”
Launch Partner Announcement: https://x.com/BrantlyMillegan/status/1719132715281207330
Rotki
Rotki is an open-source portfolio tracking, management, and accounting tool that protects your privacy.
Core Features of Rotki:
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Local and open-source: Rotki is a local application that runs on users’ computers, ensuring data privacy and control. It is released under the AGPLv3 license, making it open source and allowing anyone to inspect, modify, and contribute to the codebase.
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Multi-Blockchain and Exchange Support: Rotki supports multiple blockchain networks, including Ethereum, Bitcoin, Kusama, Polkadot, Avalanche, and centralized cryptocurrency exchanges like Kraken, Coinbase, and Binance. It aggregates data from these sources, giving users a holistic view of their cryptocurrency holdings.
We are happy to support Rotki in this large grant round. Rotki has been a long-time champion of open-source development. Users should be able to interact with transparent software, specifically when managing their cryptocurrency assets. Adding ZkSync and the ability to track critical upcoming events, such as ENS renewal deadlines, in the Rotki app will add helpful functionality for all users.
Award Information
The total award is 50k USDC.
The first tranche 20k USDC will be paid immediately. The remainder will be awarded following the completion of milestone one. To maintain eligibility for future grants, they will need to fulfill both milestones irrespective of any funding delivered.
Milestones
The following milestones are expected to be delivered and evaluated during the next six months. Updates for these will be provided on working group calls.
1. “Zksync lite support will be added for rotki. This enables the ability to add a zksync lite address and have all its balances queried. The relevant issues in our repository are: Support zksync lite balances · Issue #3617 · rotki/rotki · GitHub and Issues · rotki/rotki · GitHub” Expected mid-February 2024.*
2. "Rotki is decoding blockchain history and creating events that it shows to the user. Some of these events may have time sensitive information, such as renewing an ENS name, or a claim of a token reward etc. The idea is to process them and have a calendar view in the app where all upcoming events that need action at a certain date can be seen. The relevant issue in our repository is: Calendar of on chain events · Issue #7074 · rotki/rotki · GitHub.
Expected mid-April 2024.
Related Project Links
Website: https://rotki.com/
Twitter: @rotkiapp
Github Repo: Rotki is Open Source
Revoke.cash
Revoke.cash helps affected users stay safe against smart contract risks and scammers by providing a dashboard that they can use to keep their token allowances in check. It also protects users by providing a browser extension that warns users about these common phishing scams.
This service provides valuable resources for wallet maintenance for those practicing self-custody of their cryptocurrency assets. The wallet health indicator and including NFTs in the token approvals will improve revoke.cash’s functionality further.
Award Information
The total award is 50k USDC.
The first tranche 20k USDC will be paid immediately. The remainder will be awarded following the completion of milestone one. To maintain eligibility for future grants, they will need to fulfill both milestones irrespective of any funding delivered.
Milestones
The following milestones are expected to be delivered and evaluated during the next six months. Updates for these will be provided on working group calls.
1. “We recently launched pricing information to provide more insight into value at risk from token approvals. Because of complications, we didn’t include NFTs in this release. So we also want to extend pricing information/value at risk metrics to NFTs on multiple chains.” Expected February 2024.*
2. “We also recently launched ‘Wallet Health’ information to give users an indication of the overall health of their wallet regarding token approvals. We want to extend this functionality to provide risk scores for individual approvals and extend individual and global scores to multiple chains.” April 2024.**
Related Project Links
Website: https://revoke.cash
Twitter: @revokecash
Metagov & DAOstar Grant Innovation Grant
The Metagovernance Project (a.k.a. Metagov) is an interdisciplinary research collective that includes DAOstar.
DAOstar is the standards body for DAOs with 80+ member organizations. It has championed the adoption of the EIP-4824 standard, which will enrich the on-chain information availability of governance contracts, making it easier for existing and future DAO tools to interact with the contracts seamlessly.
Their large grant milestones combine both research and technical deliveries, which may have broad applications for the entire community of DAO-governed protocols.
Award Information
The total award is 27,5k USDC.
The first tranche 12,5k USDC will be paid immediately. The remainder will be awarded following the completion of milestone one. To maintain eligibility for future grants, they will need to fulfill both milestones irrespective of any funding delivered.
Milestones
The following milestones are expected to be delivered and evaluated during the next six months. Updates for these will be provided on working group calls.
- 1. Research:
- Interview at least one grant operator from 3 grant programs (tentative list pending availability and interest: ENS, Arbitrum Foundation, Arbitrum DAO, Public Nouns) and a core contributor from 3 grant stack providers (Gitcoin Grant Stack, Charmverse, Questbook). Please note that we may have to adjust the specific programs based on their availability and interest in partaking.
- Take notes on each discussion, and record and transcribe the conversations.
- Perform the research needed to commence the synthesis of the study.
- Technical
- The initial round of feedback and revisions on the grant metadata standard from organizations such as ENS, Gitcoin’s Allo/Grant Stack, Charmverse, Guestbook, Optimism, Arbitrum/Arbitrum Grants DAO, Ethereum Foundation, DFINITY, etc.)
- Overview of the desired shared database and common app idea, including initial feedback, so that we can start crafting roadmaps and timelines for this work
Advancing work on EIP-4824 adoption through ENS text records**:** Based on community feedback, we’ve designed and developed an alternate path for EIP-4824 adoption using ENS text records. A proof-of-concept of the adoption path and the indexing framework will be submitted for public review on the ENS DAO forum. ** All Expected January 2024.***
- 2. Research:
- Completion of the synthesis and writing for the 6 programs above
- Presenting the outputs to the ENS community (or producing a forum post) to provide more focused feedback
- Technical
- Host a workshop at ETHDenver to co-work and advance on the technical and impact measurement working groups, including using up to USD 2.5k equivalent for ENS to sponsor the event.
- Have the standard published and ideally piloted or adopted by at least 3 organizations (hoping it will be closer to 10 organizations)
- Have a roadmap in place for a shared database and for a common grants app.
- Provide a clear, public-facing overview of the state of the grant’s innovation efforts and the roadmap for each step.
- Advancing work on EIP-4824 adoption through ENS text records**:** based on feedback collected, the adoption path will be implemented. This will ensure that: (i) given the ENS name of a DAO, a pre-populated daoURI will be generated using the DAOstar register service (DAOstar) and, (ii) daoURIs hence published as ENS text records will be indexed and displayed the DAOstar explore page (DAOstar).
- All Expected March 2024.
Related Project Links
Website: https://metagov.org
Twitter: @metagov_project
Github: DAO Star
