Grants Program Update, December 2023
The Sia Foundation has grant funding available for community contributors! The Grants Program was created to fund research, development, developer tools, and anything else that will support and further our mission of user-owned data while enriching the Sia ecosystem.
Just design a proposal that meets our requirements, submit it to our forums, and wait for review by our grants committee. If your grant gets approved, you’re on your way to creating the next great project on the Sia storage network.
Check out our site for more info.
The Current State of Grants
*this synopsis does not include January progress*
December saw one of the biggest meetings in Grants Committee history, with a record seven proposals to review in one sitting. We were quick enough to review five, which seems to be the sweet spot for giving each grant its due time. Fortunately, our review periods quoted for each grant type allow us to still review our spares even though we missed a meeting due to the holidays.
I had personally assumed that we’d see a fairly large difference between the review times for Small and Standard grants. And that’s holding true most of the time. Interestingly, we’re finding that well written Standard Grants proposals are just as easy to review as their smaller counterparts. It doesn’t have so much to do with length as it does clarity of the ideas, and our grantees are learning how to adapt to this along with the committee as we go.
We’re seeing a nice array of projects as well, covering different app genres and use-cases. December was definitely a good start to the beginning of the second year of the program, and we’re excited to see how these develop.
Let’s take a look at a selection of recent proposals.
Proposal: Sia investment tracker
What is it?
A small app to track investment portfolio information, and store that data on Sia.
Grant Status
Approved
Notes
While the committee had some reservations about how the user will store the data and methods of inputting that information, Small Grants are the place to prove feasibility and work out the kinks. With a couple months and a small amount of cash, we can determine if a grant has the ability to become something special. We’re excited to see what developer Shubham can do with this idea!
Proposal: HLTC Upgrade for Sia Atomic Swaps
What is it?
Expanding on a previous feasibility study, this grant will add HTLC functionality and integration into the Atomicdex protocol for Sia to facilitate atomic swaps.
Grant Status
Approved
Notes
More on-ramps and an expanded ability to get Siacoins is crucial to the general mission of bringing user-owned data to the globe. This grant accomplishes just that!
Proposal: Lume Web 2024
What is it?
Building on the ambitious Lume Web 2023, developer Derrick Hammer is creating a solid L2 portal to access the Sia network with, and working on new features for the Lume project.
Grant Status
Approved
Notes
While we appreciate seeing extremely targeted projects, something with a slightly more broad scope is always something we’ll consider, and Derrick has a track record of delivering just that with the previous Lume grant.
Proposal: HostScore
What is it?
Previous community project SiaStats provided a ton of useful tools, metrics, and graphs to the Sia community. HostScore wants to emulate some of that now that SiaStats is no longer functional.
Grant Status
Approved
Notes
This is something the community can really use, and we’re incredibly excited to have this useful information be readily available again.
Coming Next
We encourage the community to provide their feedback and ask questions on the Sia Forum! Community contribution and input is the best way to push proposals and projects to the next level.
You can see the list of all proposals here, and our proposal requirements here. See you next month!
Steve
steveisonline on Discord
