The Privateness & Scaling Explorations workforce is worked up to announce the winners of the Layer 2 Group Grants 2022.

The Layer 2 Group Grants spherical began on October twenty fourth, 2022 and was once open for six weeks. In general we won 130+ proposals and thank each and every challenge for taking the time to use.
The wishlist compiled sought packages from all spaces together with Layer 2 explorers, cryptography, and training.

This chart presentations proportion of preliminary candidates by way of class:

Because of the top quality of proposals, we raised the price range from an preliminary 750k USD to a complete of 948k USD.

The awarded packages proportion in step with class:

Grantees

We congratulate the 22 grantees awarded and provide their challenge descriptions damaged down by way of class:

🔒 Cybersecurity

• Candidelabs – ERC-4337 Public Infrastructure

  • An open supply bundler and a paymaster carrier as public excellent 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 wish to determine a basis for elementary best possible practices and transparency for those options to help new builders of those techniques and allow the network to evaluate the safety dangers of a selected rollup prior to they use one. Very similar to the ones which are to be had for sensible contract construction and the very high-level overviews of rollup safety like L2Beat.com. The framework will speak about considerations and main points of break out hatch construction and operational dangers for end-users and builders and determine a constant language for those and different options.

👨‍💻 Person Revel in

• Spiro – zkWallet

  • Multi-party wallets (e.g. Gnosis protected multisigs) are a confirmed manner for a bunch of customers to proportion keep an eye on over an account’s virtual belongings and behaviors. Sadly, present implementations of multi-party wallets divulge the privateness in their general choice of operators and their related externally owned accounts. The purpose of this challenge is to construct a non-public multi-party pockets that shields finish customers by way of 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 the usage of acquainted web2-like tooling. It specializes in the core idea of a roll-up, this is, to run a state system off-chain and use L1 to retailer transaction main points. This will also be accomplished by way of general-purpose languages that may take care of the app-state off-chain and supply an interface to engage with it, thus performing as a standalone L2. It permits development a brand new elegance of packages that may have extra freedom over their execution possible choices.

• ScopeLift – L2 Optimizors

  • Layer 2 networks proportion safety with main-net by way of posting transaction name records to Layer 1. In consequence, Layer 2 customers pay their portion of the main-net gasoline prices when executing transactions. Layer 1 gasoline will also be >25,000x dearer than Layer 2 gasoline, so paying for name records dominates L2 transaction prices. With customized router contracts that use much less name records than usual strategies, we will considerably cut back transaction prices to engage with widespread protocols.

• Testinprod – Layer1.5

  • Layer 1.5 permits any individual to release their very own Layer 2 by way of offering simple equipment. It supplies a very easy software that launches your individual Layer 2 with essential equipment—as an example, block explorer, token bridge, tracking equipment, and many others.

• ScopeLift – Layer 2 Governance with Versatile Balloting

  • Versatile Balloting is an extension of the preferred Governor device utilized by many DAOs. It permits new sorts of delegation contracts to be written, making it more straightforward for governance token holders to take part in on-chain votes. One such use case is the topic of this grant: Layer 2 governance vote casting. Holders of bridged governance tokens may vote from Layer 2, paying the less expensive gasoline costs to be had there. Those votes can be trustlessly mirrored on L1 the place the DAO’s Governor device is deployed.

• Clement Walter – Starksheet

  • Starksheet targets to democratize the get admission to and utilization of on-chain assets (records and common sense). It leverages a well-known spreadsheet to lend a hand the person question and hyperlink on-chain assets. The paintings is stored on-chain as NFTs and will also be queried later-on from another dApp/contract

• Kristof Gazso – Typescript ERC-4337 Bundler

  • The challenge will come with the advance of an ERC-4337 bundler in Typescript and the related adjustments to a Geth node for simulation functions in order that the bundler can run on any immediately Geth-compatible chain (which contains maximum L2s) with little adjustments. The bundler will even divulge the RPC calls outlined within the specification, and take care of an interior mempool to be future-proof when P2P propagation will likely be evolved.

• Soul Pockets – Open-source ERC-4337 pockets

  • Simple-to-use browser pockets implementation powered by way of ERC-4337.

📚 Group and Schooling

• Jose Figueroa – L2 en Español
  
  • L2 en Español is an open network that targets to investigate, train and force the adoption in these kinds of Ethereum’s scaling answers. They focal point on each builders and new customers of their quest to stick up to the moment with those applied sciences and their application. We create content material and perform other actions from publications to workshops at no cost, whilst supporting the other initiatives that innovate on this house, whilst keeping up additionally its core neutrality.

• Bruce Xu – MyFirstLayer2
  
  • This will likely be an open-source, community-driven, and academic challenge. This will likely be a web page for folks excited by Layer2 however with out prior information about Layer2 or Blockchain. We goal to make use of well-designed diagrams and interactive animation to lend a hand folks get the theory at the back of Layer2 in 30mins. Later on, we will be able to information folks to a couple real-world Layer2 apps step by step and allow them to really feel the advantages of Layer2.

🗄️ Knowledge Research

• Blockscout – Blockscout Block Explorer
  
  • An open-source block explorer is recently wanted for the L2 ecosystem. Blockscout is already utilized by many L2 initiatives, and further customizations particular to L2 records necessities will building up usability. As well as, a brand new interface, options, analytics and developer pleasant enhancements will lend a hand create a extra clear and usable network explorer.

• Quantstamp – Comparing Rollup Compression
  
  • Compression is incessantly lost sight of when discussing rollups. By way of design, rollups are required to make records to be had so as to check state transitions or state roots; then again, the process for this e-newsletter varies, and might come with compressed records. There could also be variability within the compression ways used. This challenge will discover the usage of compression within the rollup atmosphere. First, the challenge will explicate puts the place compression is used and report the ways that can be used. 2nd, the challenge will survey current rollups to research the approaches which are in fact utilized in apply. 3rd, the challenge will review approaches proposed or used throughout an identical techniques and try to determine why a selected manner is used. In spite of everything, the challenge will use the insights accumulated so as to counsel new approaches for compression of rollup records and pose open issues to the network.

• Diablobench – Efficiency and Safety Analysis of Layer 2 Blockchain Programs
  
  • The College of Sydney and the EPFL have designed a benchmark suite to judge the safety and function of blockchain techniques. The primary opinions in comparison layer 1 blockchains reminiscent of Algorand, Solana and Diem and will likely be revealed quickly in a peer reviewed world convention (Eurosys). This challenge targets at including layer 2 blockchain techniques to the Diablo benchmark and to make use of it to provide the primary intensive and reasonable benchmark analysis of layer 2 blockchain techniques on a global deployment.

• Web3-data – Layer 2 Job Monitoring & Comparability Suite
  
  • Thru this challenge, we goal to ship a fine quality set of Dashboards that lend a hand allow records scientists, researchers, and all network contributors to higher perceive Layer 2 Job
  • We will be able to mixture records throughout Layer 2 networks leveraging resources reminiscent of Dune, L2Beats, Santiment, CoinGecko, Github, Discord, and, in lots of circumstances, immediately from the challenge APIs/RPCs.
  • We will be able to blank and arrange this information to supply a collection of presentations that may permit the network to visualise adjustments throughout key L2 metrics (e.g. tps, hire paid to Ethereum, expansion in TVL, day by day energetic addresses, new addresses, general addresses, charges paid, and developer task in keeping with GitHub affiliated repo commits).
  • We goal to label sensible contracts (and in the long run allow the network to label sensible contracts) by way of utilization classes (Local switch, DeFi DEX, DeFi different, NFT, CEX, Stablecoin, ERC20 different, L2 hire, Bridge, Arbitrage/MEV, Software). This labeling will permit us to investigate and visualize the utilization patterns on a excessive point and in addition display the “freshest” sensible contracts within the other utilization classes. We’re leveraging identified labels from Dune, Arbiscan, Etherscan, and others.

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

📊 Knowledge Visualization

• Quantstamp – Again-Finish API Usual for L2 Block Exporers
  
  • This challenge will obviously outline houses {that a} block explorer must put in force so as to be thought to be feature-complete within the overall layer two atmosphere. Moreover, our purpose is to suggest and specify a normal API interface that the layer two networks must divulge to overall block explorers. We envision that any such standardized interface will allow and a great deal simplify the advance of a couple of block explorers that may plug-and-play reusable with the entire layer 2 networks that make stronger the usual. Within the preferrred situation, the usual would flip the advance of the core of a brand new block explorer right into a challenge that may be finished by way of an skilled workforce all through a weekend hackathon. Our purpose will likely be to additionally outline a normal this is consumer-agnostic. As such, it’ll no longer subject if it is ate up by way of a block explorer this is supplied commercially, is open supply, or probably even decentralized. The challenge can pay particular consideration to what distinctive layer two records a block explorer must supply, with an emphasis on the ones associated with safety of the chains monitored by way of it.

• Blossom Labs – Blobscan
  
  • The primary explorer for the EIP-4844 shard blob transactions. It indexes and gifts them in a searchable structure that the person can visualize and navigate thru in a very easy manner, offering the essential infrastructure to scale Ethereum.

🧮 Cryptography and 0-knowledge proofs

• Zhe Ye, Ujval Misra, and Crack of dawn Music (College of California at Berkeley) – Specular
  
  • The preferred positive rollups (ORUs) as of late, Arbitrum and Optimism, try to increase current Ethereum consumer device (Geth) to make stronger interactive fraud evidence (IFP) building, aiming to reuse prior L1 engineering efforts and reflect EVM semantics at L2. Sadly, to take action they tightly couple their on-chain IFP verifier with a selected consumer program binary—oblivious to its higher-level semantics. This manner (1) precludes the trust-minimized, permissionless participation of a couple of Ethereum consumer techniques, magnifying monocolture failure chance; (2) ends up in an unnecessarily huge and sophisticated relied on computing base (TCB) this is tricky to independently audit; and, (3) suffers from a frequently-triggered, but opaque improve procedure—each additional expanding auditing overhead, and complicating on-chain get admission to keep an eye on within the long-term.
  • We’re subsequently thinking about development a safe, trust-minimized ORU that addresses those issues, whilst maintaining scalability and dispute solution potency. To take action, we have now designed an IFP device local to the EVM, that enforces Ethereum’s semi-formally specified semantics [5] exactly on the point of a unmarried EVM instruction. As part of this paintings, we constructed Specular, an ORU which leverages Geth—changed minimally with most effective 99 lines-of-code to make stronger IFP building—demonstrating the practicality, extensibility and trust-minimal nature of our manner.

• Nethermind, Justin Thaler (Georgetown College), Matthew Inexperienced (Johns Hopkins College), and Pratyush Tiwari (Georgetown College) – Concrete Safety Research for L2 Deployed Evidence Programs
  
  • We recommend to investigate the concrete safety of the evidence techniques (SNARKs, STARKs) that safe -rollups. We follow that some evidence techniques have safety analyzed within the interactive atmosphere, whilst their safety after making use of the Fiat—Shamir transformation is most effective conjectured. Moreover, we consider that during some circumstances extra environment friendly assaults are conceivable than the claimed safety point asserts.

• Ethstorage – Evidence of Garage 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 challenge is to review an effective evidence device to successfully check on L1 that the BLOBs are saved off-chain with the required redundancy (e.g., 30~50 bodily replicas). By way of hanging those garage nodes in an L2 community and assuming 1/m of nodes is fair, lets construct an L2 garage community that reuses mainnet safety whilst extending Ethereum scalability dramatically.
  • Additional analysis will try to reply to the questions of construct the evidence/verification device if the BLOBs and the commitments are repeatedly modified (e.g., new BLOBs are appended to the record or a BLOB of an index is modified); and construct incentivized/fee device to make sure desired replication issue the usage of ETH as fee; it’s conceivable to invite a garage node to retailer partial BLOBs whilst keeping up the similar point of safety of Mainnet?

We have been extraordinarily proud of the standard of candidates for this grants spherical. The analysis and paintings they produce can have a favorable affect at the ecosystem. We recommend keeping track of them!