Ethereum Foundation DevCon 6 - Opportunity & Global Impact Track, 14 Nov 2022

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From YouTube: Ecosystem Support Program

Description

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https://archive.devcon.org/archive/watch/6/ecosystem-support-program-day/index

ESP Day is a full day of talks and panel discussions with the purpose of exploring topics or projects pertinent to ecosystem development while highlighting the EF's grantees. Join us for wide-ranging conversations on building a post-Merge world, supporting education initiatives across cultures to reach our next billion, game development to achieve ZK scaling, and more!

Speaker(s): Monet du Plessis, Vanessa Koh
Skill level: Beginner
Track: Opportunity & Global Impact
Keywords: ecosystem,support

Follow us: https://twitter.com/efdevcon, https://twitter.com/ethereum
Learn more about devcon: https://www.devcon.org/
Learn more about ethereum: https://ethereum.org/

Devcon is the Ethereum conference for developers, researchers, thinkers, and makers.
Devcon 6 was held in Bogotá, Colombia on Oct 11 - 14, 2022.
Devcon is organized and presented by the Ethereum Foundation, with the support of our sponsors. To find out more, please visit https://ethereum.foundation/

A

A

I'm Luke so I'm with the ethereum foundation with the ecosystem, Support Program, which, as Monet was saying it's ESP, um I, won't, say ethereum I, won't, say the ecosystem Support Program again today. It's.

B

Just the ESP, so we hope everyone.

A

Can remember the acronym yeah, so thank you for coming I'm going to spend some time. Just you know talking a bit about what ESP is uh what we do, what we look for and how you can apply.

A

So you know, ESP is, if you look at our website.

B

A

Esp's, the public facing allocation arm or the EF, so what we're talking about there is, you know where the arm of the EF that provides support to the ecosystem could be Financial could be non-financial um with the intention of growing the ecosystem and pushing the ethereum uh pushing ethereum forward.

A

um You know to meet the objectives that I think we all see that that ethereum could have.

A

um You know we're not we're we're not here to kind of say what needs to be solved, certainly not in most cases um we're just here to help guide, and uh we really like to hear the feedback from from everyone in the ecosystem. As to you know what are the problems that need to be solved?

A

um We might have some ideas, but I'm sure everyone else has ideas as well and at the end of the day for ethereum to meet its objectives, people need to start using it. People need to start solving more problems, uh so we can push it all forward.

A

So what do we support? um You know, generally speaking, public goods. You know we talk a lot about public goods. I think there's, there's often a lot of confusion as to when we say public goods. What are we talking about?

A

um You know, generally speaking, what we're talking about is open source uh non-commercial available for everyone to build on. um You know and positive some outcomes.

A

You know another way, another way to look at you know, maybe more specific or maybe more abstract, depending on how you want to think about it is you know, public goods they're, not excludable, they're non-rival risks. That's the standard definition user cannot be prevented from accessing them for free and everyone can use them at the same time.

A

um So really you know when we, when we're trying to build out public goods, we're trying to build we're, striving to build positive positive outcomes um and we need we need public goods that avoid the destructive scaling of web 2., so that that's that's the you know highest level of when we're evaluating a project, the highest level consideration um yeah. So this talk is going to be.

A

You know Thor talked this morning about uh you, know some targeted Grant rounds which which the EF and ESP run periodically I'm not going to talk about those types of those types of opportunities, specifically I'm, going to be focusing more on just the the regular application process and kind of the more the more General uh ESP function.

A

So you know what are we looking for?

A

You know this is like the the general, the general themes of projects we're looking for. You know, there's obviously nothing specific in here. It's it's ideas that fit within this framework um right. So again, what we're looking for is it's at the infrastructure level we're looking for things that everybody can build upon and and yeah.

A

A

Jumping ahead, the you know, this is the mental model that I've created for myself. um To help me understand.

A

To help me understand where we fit, you know so. I hope this slide confuses you as much as it potentially maybe asks helps you ask some questions as to what types of projects are we looking for um so the way I look at this? Is you know the the vertical axis here is. How is how important is the development to ethereum the horizontal axis?

A

Is you know how capable you know how motivated is the ecosystem to to implement something as well as as well as how much capacity do they have and is that is that funding capacity? Is that technical capability?

A

um You know it? Could it could be anything in between right, so in the like in the in the top left, uh you know you kind of have like the ethereum roadmap, um really core development type of activities and research activities related to related to core development, and you know that that's really those are really areas that I think the EF plays a really strong role in at least signaling signaling activities that need to be done.

A

um Certainly, it's not all executed by the ethereum foundation. It's executed by by members of the core development team which are within and with outside uh and outside of the uh the ethereum foundation as well as uh you know, partners and grantees, and so there's you know, hundreds of people that that work work on those types of worked on those types of projects, um the bottom. The bottom right is.

A

You know, let's say more commercial projects, more projects where there's maybe more financial incentive in order to build an application, or perhaps just purely um like application- Level uh function, so you user-facing applications and areas where you know funding might be fairly easy to come by, um so it may or may not require as much ESP involvement in helping to steer that that's just people building businesses on top of the blockchain, which is what we want to see everything else in between so kind of the you know.

A

Certainly in the in the in the top portion, is I. You know it's certainly incomplete I. Think if we looked at the entire problem domain, there's probably no blank space on this page at all, um but, generally speaking, it's you know the infrastructure associated with implementing you know all the other. All the other capabilities in here like when we talk about ux and crypto, is bad. What infrastructure is missing in order to enable a a ux that that actually makes it? uh You know enjoyable to use.

A

um You know how do we? How do we increase censorship resistance? How do we, uh you know, increase the you know uh negative Mev, how to or you know, minimize the negative Mev I should say uh you know so so again, this is not. This is not intended to be a. You know: a complete map, it's just something I use to frame myself for when we see applications, it's kind of a where does it fit? Where does it fit in this space and is?

A

Is it something that you know we should just be making connections to other other funding sources within the ecosystem, or is it something that we should be engaging with or is it you know something that you know you don't really need our help, and you know the bottom. The bottom left is really just you know.

A

Maybe it's the items that are or topics that are too early to implement doesn't mean we don't need to do the research today, but perhaps it's it's it's too early to get started, um so you know they'll trickle up in priority in One, Direction or another uh over time right. So you know I'd, be curious, I'd, be curious to talk with people. You know this whole week or any time really just as to what are the problems that that everyone else sees.

A

You know what what do you think the missing infrastructure layers are in order to build what you want to build and, and that would let everyone else build what they want to build as well right. So this is yeah again, it's just a mental model I've created to confuse myself and everybody else, but uh I hope it I hope it helps at least see where my head is at.

A

um You know so, then we talk about you know what do we kind of stay away from right? So we're not? Basically if the EF is always looking for ways to uniquely support the ecosystem.

A

So if there are opportunities for you know, VC funding or other funding sources within the ecosystem, we would be more apt to make connections than to support directly um right projects that are actively raising money, um probably don't require the EF support, if you're, if you're, building a new nft project or a new nft platform, unless there's some really Unique Piece of tech. In what you're trying to do again, it's probably not something that that we support. We do see a lot of applications in that area, um but it's it's not something that we.

A

We would actively try and support, and certainly token we don't talk tokens. We don't and we don't talk about Investments and we don't talk about that type of thing. As.

B

Well, as hobby.

A

Activities you know, hobby activities are certainly great. They might be beneficial, but they're, not the types of things we that that we would generally support if you're, trying to start a Breakfast Club of some kind. It's probably not the right. The right place to uh to apply.

A

So we'll get into the different types of support that the ESP provides.

A

You know, I, don't know if, if any of you have checked out the ESP website this year versus last year, we complete, we completely revamped the website back in February, to help streamline the process of applying for support, as well as to as well as to I guess, provide some other options for the types of support that we provide.

A

So the the first type we have here is office hours. So this was new in 2022. and so office hours gives you the opportunity to submit an application, requesting guidance on your project or guidance on how to get involved in a project, or just you know some some advice. You don't have to submit a Grant application here. This is just simply it's a fairly straightforward application.

A

If it's something that you know if your project idea is something that appears to be aligned with with something we we would like to talk about, uh then we we quickly set up a 20-minute phone call with one of our evaluators and and we go from there oftentimes uh we these lead to recommend. You know recommending a team or an individual to apply for a grant or it might be. You know what we're going to connect you with someone else within the EF or someone outside the EF. In order to move your project forward.

A

um You know I, think I think the last date I was looking at is we've seen something like 300 applications this year for office hours, uh calls I, think we've held over a hundred office hour calls uh this year. So that's a hundred unique teams that our team of seven or eight people have been been talking to this year, just simply providing this type of support and there's been more than a handful that have have turned into grant applications or sponsorship applications as well.

A

So next up so so office hours is non-financial support. um So the first type of financial support we provide is sponsorships for community events. Now these will. These are always um educational in nature, I'll say but they're. You know their their local events, local organizers may or may not have an EF presence associated with them. It's just it's just intended to build out build out local local communities.

A

um You know so we we look at things like how aligned are the organizers with ethereum what what types of other projects have have they supported?

A

um How many people are they trying to get involved in their event, it doesn't matter if your event is big or small, I think the big or small just determines you know how much money might be might be required in order to support your event, you don't have to have big name speakers in order to apply for a sponsorship. We just need to know that you have credible community members who are able to who are able to push the message of ethereum forward and and help to build those communities.

A

We also look at you know. Why would the EF support? Is it just simply you you want the money in order to support these in order to get the event off the ground or is there some other? Is there some other aspect that would benefit the local community um and you'll see later on? In one of my charts, the the number of sponsorships that we've awarded in 2022 has been I, think Beyond everyone's expectations.

A

As you know, everyone leading all the community events in Latin America and around the world leading up to leading up to uh this week, as well as leading up to the merch. It's actually quite impressive when you see how many, how many sponsorships the EF has provided this year, and not even the EF, actually I'll clarify the sponsorships that the ESP program has provided this year, so not including sponsorships that other teams within the EF have have provided as well.

A

And then and And to clarify as well sponsorships are not considered grants um so they're. Just it's it's a it's a lighter weight process for for uh providing funding to to these local communities, the first type of Grants. We call them small grants.

A

The name is kind of self-explanatory, um they're, intended to be small in scope and small in duration. So this would be typically three to six months.

A

They're meant to be kind of this is the place where, where we are willing to take risks on teams, individuals, new technology, uh to see what can happen so this is, you know you have an idea early stage, you want to just try and produce, uh you know a proof of concept or an MVP, and you need a little bit of funding in order to just uh get that get that off the ground and see see if there is potential there.

A

um You know this is that this is the type of program that or the the uh Grant process that you would apply through. It's a it's.

A

A we typically intend to award these within about I'll, say three weeks would be roughly the target from the time you apply to to the time we agree to you know, is this something we want to move forward with or not or want to support or not again, oftentimes applications come in here and we actually decide that perhaps EF support is not the best place to get support, so perhaps there's another Dow funding source or perhaps there's some other connections um that would be.

A

That would be better, certainly, there's, there's back and forth between between the uh the ESP team and the applicants to make sure everyone make sure we understand what the proposal is make sure the team understands kind of what types of constraints there may or may not be be on. uh You know what scope we would be willing to support, but these again these are intended to be lightweight, and this is where we take the risks.

A

And project grants, so this is the last source of uh of grants that we and the ESP team provide directly there's no real cap on funding here. So these are late later stage projects or later stage research activities that require perhaps a a more robust source of funding and support.

A

These applications go through a let's say they might, they might be.

A

Two months would be roughly the target from application to award for for applications in this area, and it's a very collaborative process trying to figure out uh trying to scope the project appropriately, make sure that there's a a an achievable roadmap make sure there's Milestones along the way to to demonstrate progress or to find places to say you know what it's not going to work or or what have you and make sure that we're you know generally make sure that we're all on the same page, and so again these are the the decision to make making process here, like we go back through talking with advisors within the EF pulling in advisors from the ecosystem.

A

If it's something that you know, perhaps they're better better positioned to uh to weigh in on as to you know, is this: the right. Is there someone else working on this Tech? Is there? Is there not um you know, and it does the solution appear viable? Does the team appear capable those those types of questions as well?

A

So certainly it's a it's a more intensive process, um but this is one area there where I think you know to be honest, we've we've started to see a our pipeline in this area to dry up a little bit. um We're not exactly sure why that there's there isn't a there. Aren't people working on those later stage projects now it could just be that everyone's been focused on the merge and focused on projects sort of related in that front and now everyone's trying to figure out well.

A

What is the next thing to be to to actually push forward in in the short term um and in these projects? Oh I'm, sorry, going back to small grants, one second uh when I say short duration. It's like three to six months for for small grants, I'd say: project grants are probably six to twelve six to eighteen month types of road maps that that we'd be laying out with the teams.

A

Okay, so evaluating grants is you know, as I've been alluding to it's uh it's fairly complicated process. We do a lot of due diligence on applications. You know to make sure that you know we ask ourselves a lot of questions. We ask the grantees, probably not as many questions as we ask ourselves, but a lot of questions as well. You know we're looking at you know. Let's see if we look at, is this the best use of resources right? The EF has limited resources. The ecosystem has limited is.

A

Is this the best place to to put the ef's funding to push things forward? um We look at the team. Is this the best team? Is this the best use of that team as well um right? If we have highly capable teams solving trivial problems, maybe we'd be better off trying to direct.

B

A

Help solve a more complicated problem than than perhaps the one they're more interested in it wouldn't be. It wouldn't be the first time if we had a conversation with a team when they proposed a proposed something to us, and we actually tried to direct them to work on something else, because we saw what they were trying to do. We've seen what they've done in the past and we know they're capable of solving a bigger problem than perhaps what they're what they were proposing, or perhaps their scope was, was too limited.

A

um Also, perhaps the the goal of the project was too ambitious, and so then we would try and scale the project down to well. Why don't we just try and find that the proof of concept or the you know the minimum viable product to that needs to get done, prove that we can do that and then perhaps there's a discussion for for follow-on funding, or perhaps that brings you to the point where you don't require EF support anymore now, you've retired the risk to your project and you can move it forward.

A

um Yeah and then I suppose we look at also the you know: what are the side effects of the EF supporting it's always I'd say this is one of the most difficult considerations that we always have to make is what are the chilling effects if we support your proposal and you're the and you get you know, it looks like an EF stamp of approval on your on your solution. Does that mean the rest of the ecosystem stops developing of it right? So we need we.

A

We always need to make those considerations as well, and we also want to make sure that teams are able to have a sustainability plan in their in their roadmap. um It's not always obvious, especially when you're building out public goods I think that's sort of the definition of public goods. So it's there's a dichotomy there of how do you?

A

How do you become sustainable when you're trying to just build the infrastructure like how does a consensus, client team, for example, become a sustainable business? Are they and how? How do you make? How do you come up with the balance there? So it's a consideration. It's it's! A tougher one for us to totally understand, but what we, what we try to avoid is having teams that are clearly going to be dependent on us for the next several years, because there there is no way to monetize ever what they're trying to do.

A

um uh We also try to avoid. We call it King making. So it's sort of like the chilling effect. We put your stamp on your project and now it looks like the EF endorses zap project and no one else should work on that project is just you know, we'll put our stamp on your wallet and there you go. We don't need any other wallets, because now we have the EF indoors to wallet. So we we avoid avoid those situations as as much as possible. uh We also try to avoid.

A

We don't want to enable Bad actors. Obviously I think that's a no-brainer um right, so so that gets into getting to know the teams getting to know their intentions getting to know other projects they've worked on. um Not obviously we don't do background checks or anything like that, but certainly talking to people that that the team knows everyone everyone. Typically, you know the applying for ESP support.

A

You don't need to know anybody to apply um it's an Open Door anybody can apply, but certainly people that are active in the ecosystem have probably been engaged with other other organizations that that we're familiar with, and if there's a if there's sort of a reference we can look at to help validate, then you know that's that helps make things easier as well.

A

We also try to avoid creating our own competition and again that's one that we we shouldn't have to say, but we do see a lot of applications about I'm trying to build applications on algrand or I'm trying to build a new L1 altogether. You know, can you can you please support my project so clearly you know those ones are obvious. Obvious rejections um in most cases you know it.

A

Certainly when you talk about building competition, obvious rejection, but sometimes there's a unique idea in there as well, so that we're always looking for this was one other thing we put in there is we see your proposal? We see your project.

A

What's the really unique piece of tech that you're trying to build, that is actually beneficial that we think, and we we would agree on- is beneficial to uh ethereum right. So sometimes you'll see a team submit a project proposal that actually gets scope. You know requesting hundreds of thousands of dollars that gets scoped down into you know thirty thousand dollars, because that's really. There was really just that one key nugget of tech that that was important to build the rest of it was just an application layer on top.

A

So the general General process, when you submit an application um through the website, say that is you know, you'll.

B

A

Us very quickly and probably within within two weeks, we'll be trying to schedule a call to have that have.

B

A

First level of Engagement and make sure we're all on the same page with what the application is and what the next steps are.

A

You know one thing: that's suppose one thing that's not on this slide would be you know. Obviously, if we keep extending the line out you're going to get to you know if it's small grants- maybe it's just another another week or two to make a decision. If it's project grants there's a whole bunch of other gates in there once we award a grant, there is a formal legal agreement, that's put in place between the EF and the and the team. It's not just uh it's not just a handshake agreement.

A

So there is, you know we need to do kyc checks on teams and individuals. We need to make sure that we have uh that we're onboarding you onto the onto the uh into the program, and so so there is some process involved in that sometimes teams get confused with and and it's not unexpected. So it's just you know. Oh it's awarded where's my funds well, and sometimes it can take. It can take three weeks.

A

It could take six weeks depending on how how long it takes to get that uh legal agreement signed at the end of the process.

A

So I'm going to talk a little bit about what we've, what we've been up to um so I won't won't go into too much here, but I just wanted to kind of show. You like this is the number of applications we've been receiving per quarter since uh early 2020., um and you can see a huge spike in 2022. now I, don't know if that's all completely related to the website. Redesign I, don't know if that's something to do with market conditions.

A

I don't know if that's something to do with the maturity of ethereum today versus where it was in 2021, and you can see you know the yellow one office hours, so you can see lots of office hours support and it's been picking up as the year goes on. You can see small grants, um lots of small grants, applications.

A

Right and- and you know quite a few- quite a few uh sponsorship applications there as well, and the next slide is actually when we convert that into Awards.

A

Right and here what I actually found, what I actually found quite interesting here was, although the number of applications you know, especially if you ignore so this is financial Awards. So we don't. When we're talking office hours, we don't award uh office hours in our system. So that's why you won't see office hours on here, um but when we look at the awards, we actually don't see the same increase so we're actually we're we're seeing tons of applications.

A

I'd say it's like uh if we ignore the office hours we're seeing 50 increase in applications, if not more but the awards. You know if we exclude the sponsorships in Q3, which was all the uh events leading up to the merge and leading up to leading up to Devcon, where even just I think uh in Q3 we awarded about 63 sponsorships uh for merge meetups um right. So that's why that's so big, so this is actually getting to the sort of the Crux of the problem or the Crux of the question, which is you know?

A

How do we get better applications? How do we get everybody here? Everybody working in ethereum, if you have, when you're applying for for uh ESP support, having applications that are more aligned, I think this works out to about a 10, maybe 15 conversion rate, which maybe is not unrealistic, and maybe that's.

A

Maybe that is the way it should be, um but certainly what we would really like to see is you know fewer applications related to my new nft project, more applications related to related to helping build out infrastructure and doing research that actually drives ethereum to to be able to achieve its goals.

A

So this slide is it's basically the same slide as the last one, um except instead of broken down by by the type it's broken down by the category right. So you can just see the the variety of categories and we've we've started to try and increase the granularity of the categories that uh that we're we're trying to I guess, classify the applications or the awards within, um but yeah.

A

Certainly, you can see huge spike in community events, and but again it just stands out to me that that the level is not increasing, even though the volume of applications is increasing. So the team is the team is now you know, screening hundreds of applications, a quarter or a few hundred applications, a quarter where they used to be screening, 120 applications a quarter um and trying to find the trying to find the good projects in there.

A

The good teams uh is I, guess increasingly difficult because it just starts to it just starts it can easily get lost in the noise um at various times.

A

So I won't go into too much on these, so this is just the last a few set of slides so periodically uh the ESP does run targeted, Grant rounds. We do certainly support the other teams, all of the other teams at the EF when they're, when they're awarding grants or when they're running Grant rounds. So Thor was talking about his rounds this morning or his grants this morning, and you know so for, for example, we had a academic Grant round earlier in the year um the response was Far surpassed our expectations.

A

We ended up having to double the the budget uh for awards from what we were originally initiating or expecting. So we ended up awarding 39 grants for 2 million dollars to uh researchers, academics, interns, PhD students, that kind of thing and there's going to be another academic round coming we haven't announced anything yet, but probably January February of next year. I think is is the current plan. So if you know any researchers or then please pay attention to our blogs, for that, Danny was talking about this one. Yesterday, the the merge data challenge.

A

So you know this one closes at the end of the month. So again you can look that one up and apply.

A

C

Have the semaphore.

A

Grants round that again Thor was talking about this morning. It's uh wrapping up in in a few weeks as well. So again, please apply.

A

And I think that mostly wraps up my presentation, so you know please stay in touch. We do have a booth for the entire week, so you can come and find us there will be someone from the ESP team there. For you know all the time there's people out there helping us support it today, while that, while our team is in here um but yeah, come by ask any questions you have. If you want to just stop us while we're here.

A

Stop me in the hall, doesn't matter ask some questions, we'd love to talk, because you know we're not I. Think I might have said this earlier. We're not here to tell anybody what needs what we want to see in an app what we want to see people applying for. We actually want to hear from you as to what you want to apply for. So we have General themes, but you know the problems that need to be solved.

A

You're the boots on the ground trying to get these things done, get the technology pushed forward and if there's any help that we can provide, then by all means. Please ask.

C

We might have time for one or two questions and then we're going to have our web 3 is great panel. So does anyone have a quick question down with another.

B

Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. We are going to look further into it, because we really need a lot of help with our project. I just have a question so in one of the slides, you said that you stay away from Public Funding rounds, so my question is: if we took part to get congruents funding runs. I was still eligible for a grant from the ESP.

B

A

So I I think we'd have to look at the specifics. um Yeah I think that's, that's! Maybe a little bit different right, a Bitcoin, a Bitcoin funding around Bitcoin is funding public goods activities as well. So I think that would be that'd, be something that um we would want to look at. Perhaps so it's not it's not an out right now.

A

I'd say if you're, if you're issuing tokens, if you have active VC rounds that that you're looking at then those ones are kind of off the table, but uh yeah there might there might be extra considerations depending on the project and and what the impact of that project is intending to be.

C

D

Thank you, um hello. My name is sunny I'm wondering what kind of grant opportunities do you have for inclusion and diversity initiatives in the space.

A

Any opportunity that you want to propose I think would be would be my response. I think that it we have run certainly sponsorships. We have explicitly sponsored events where that's the focus um right, whether it's, whether it's um you know just trying to get more women into the group or whether it's trying to find other under other underserved communities um to get into to get into ethereum and to help educate in in those areas so yeah.

A

So it's certainly I can't say what there's there's no specific opportunity, we're open to all to all suggestions and all proposals.

D

Okay, thank you.