Grants Program Update, November 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
As we test out a new end/beginning of month time slot for this article, the changes to our Grants Program have brought in a slew of new proposals. Prospective grantees are excited to tailor their proposals to our Small, Standard, and Large guidelines.
A quick overview of the new proposal structure makes it easy to apply for simple projects with budgets under $10,000 and adds checks and balances for more complex projects above that threshold. The latest slate of grants since we announced these updates are split almost right down the middle, with five grants looking for Small Grant status and seven eyeing up the more stringent structure of the Standard grant life.
Interestingly, despite the slight edge that Standard grants have in overall submissions, Small grants earn the title of “Most Approved” at a four to three ratio (pending one conditional approval). I personally expect this trend to continue, as the new guidelines give us better ways to evaluate these larger proposals so the committee can be good stewards of the Foundation’s funds.
Let’s take a look at a selection of recent proposals.
Proposal: renterd Telegram Alert Bot
What is it?
A Telegram bot to forward urgent renterd and hostd alerts to the Telegram app of the end-user.
Grant Status
Approved
Notes
We absolutely love tooling like this. Some of the best projects in Sia’s history started out as singular-purpose or small-scale tools, so we’re always happy to see someone have a cool idea and pursue it to its best end.
Proposal: IPFS/renterd integration
What is it?
By implementing a renterd storage backend, the IPFS gateway will have the capability to securely store its data using Sia’s renterd. This integration will provide a reliable and efficient solution for storing and retrieving data, enhancing the overall functionality and performance of the IPFS gateway.
Grant Status
Approved
Notes
The committee was excited to see this proposal come through, especially from an immensely talented developer like Alvin Reyes. We don’t mind seeing different protocols playing nice, and Alvin certainly has the blockchain experience to make something like this work.
Proposal: HostScore
What is it?
A tool to replace a number of features and benefits that former community tool SiaStats typically handled.
Grant Status
Info requested
Notes
Proposer Mike76 has a proven track record of successful grants with his work on Sia Satellite and Sia Satellite 2, so we were excited to check this one out. The Sia ecosystem would do well to have resources like this available again, and we hope that some tweaks to the proposal (including the milestones required for evaluating Standard grants) will get this one moving sooner than later.
Proposal: Lume Web 2024
What is it?
A proposal to expand on Lume’s previous work, building an L2 portal for the Sia network.
Grant Status
Info requested
Notes
Proposer pcfreak30 has an ambitious vision for Lume, and already iterated on his proposal once after submitting the initial draft with an eye on slimming it down. The committee requested a couple of changes, namely more demonstrable milestones and the removal of marketing expenses from the budget.
Marketing is always a tricky road in blockchain, especially for registered 501(c)(3) organizations like The Sia Foundation. From a grant perspective, we want to see building first and marketing later. Marketing efforts also bring up a number of compliance issues we’re attempting to sort through as well.
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
