You guys might be familiar with all the work that the æternity establishment is pulling when it comes to furthering the development of the advanced æternity blockchain, but — have you heard about the æternity Crypto Foundation’s grants?

The æternity Crypto Foundation is a Liechtenstein-based nonprofit organization. The ACF supports and promotes the open-source development of the æternity protocol and surrounding parts of the æcosystem. Focusing primarily on blockchain technology, the ACF puts a strong accent on technical excellence and user-friendly applications.

As part of its mission, the ACF stands for a strong degree of transparency and seeks to involve the æternity community in the decision-making and application processes for all outstanding grants and donations.

For you to apply for a grant or a donation, in addition to filling out a grant application template, you first have to introduce yourself and your team on the æternity forum and propose your idea for discussion. The forum is the main place for sharing information with the community and furthering transparency with foundation grants and donations.

The ACF believes that transparency and open discussions are the cornerstone of healthy relationships between all: developers, users, miners, token holders, and all community members alike. It is only through fostering strong ties and an æcosystem of trust and honesty can we all grow along with the æternity blockchain.

Over the past years, the ACF has received and reviewed more than 100 applications within the funding categories :

• Open source development — Such as Core Development Team Extension with Tino Breddin
• Research and Education — Such as the Erlang Ecosystem Foundation
• Community growth — Such as the æmbassador Programm
• Culture and Art — Such as The Graffiti æpp

Not to mention other creative endeavours such as Superhero Trading Cards (and associated grants).

The board of the ACF decides about the ultimate fate of all applications, in accordance with the foundation’s statutes and bylaws.

The application process is similar to the process of the CBC (Community Building Campaigns) which looks like this:

1. Sign up on https://forum.æternity.com
2. Introduce yourself to the Forum
3. Add your new application as a Topic to the Forums Grant Applications using the mandatory Grant Application Template.
4. Be responsive and answer all questions within your forum topic during evaluation.
5. During the active stage, post a weekly progress report on your forum topic.
6. Once completed, publish all your results and a report on your forum topic.

The entire forum process will be bundled within one forum topic (the initial topic created during the proposal). An example of a public community campaign can be seen here.

Stages breakdown:

Stage 1 [Draft] — create a new topic in the forum and post your Application

The process starts with stage 3: an open new Application and filled in the Template.
All questions are should be answered as far as possible. If all questions are answered in a sufficient manner, the application will be moved to stage 2: evaluation.

Stage 2 [Evaluation] — answer all questions within your forum topic

The evaluation stage gives everyone in the æternity community and the board members of the ACF the chance to ask in-depth questions. After the feedback period ends, if all open questions get answers, the ACF decides to openly reject the application or proceed with the setup of a term sheet and board ruling.

1. Around 2–4 weeks of feedback period. The feedback period is the most important step during the proposal process. The majority of the community and experts must support the application. Larger high-impact applications, such as the voting for the BRI, might use the governance æpp to signal support (votings are currently not binding but help to signal community support).
2. Setup of a term sheet
3. Foundation board ruling (approximately one week)

The foundation board will publish the results of the board decision and curator ruling. Afterwards, the project will be moved to stage 3, if accepted, or the topic will be closed if rejected or postponed.

The evaluation is conducted in accordance with the following criteria:

• Æ coins from the Block Reward Initiative will be dedicated to æternity’s technical development
• Open-source research relevance of the research project based on ACF research domains and disciplines;
• the originality of the aims and objectives;
• suitability of the project, feasibility;
• track record and expertise of the researchers;
• complementarity of the research partners;
• contribution to increasing open-source research capacities in the relevant research field; and
• contribution towards raising gender awareness and promoting equal opportunities.

Stage 3 [Active] — post weekly updates on your forum topic

Every active project must publish weekly reports on their progress in the forum within their forum application topic. Each update must contain:

• A progress report in layman’s terms
• Time spent
• Participants

Once completed, the project will move to stage 4: completed.

Stage 4 [Completed] — post a final report on your forum topic

The majority of grants are paid out in monthly or quarterly instalments. In order to receive the final instalment of a grant or donation, the project owner must publish a final report and the results of their work. The report must be detailed. The software must be tested and kept up to date and working at least for one year after the completed release. The form of the report is open.

Some examples of final reports can be found here:

• Core protocol contributions to state channels and sync
• Governance æpp
• State channel payments æpp

A full list of all past grants, reports, and donations can be found here.

Applications via email or the web form will be referred to https://forum.æternity.com

We look forward to your submissions!