Kadena is committed to delivering the industry-leading hybrid blockchain platform to service the emerging digital economy. Kadena has launched the world’s fastest layer-1 PoW network and is now introducing Technical Grants to foster development and adoption of the Kadena ecosystem.
Technical Grants fund projects that support the growth of Kadena’s ecosystem by lowering barriers to entry, providing novel uses, opening new markets, and more. The Grants encourage innovation through prompted and unprompted grant categories, and they reward participants that deliver results.
Before submitting a Grant Application, please ensure the scope of your project falls within these Guidelines:
- Funding: Requested funding must add proportional value to the Kadena ecosystem. Maximum funding for a single project is set at USD $50,000, with smaller requests receiving faster approval.
- Licensing: All projects must have open source code. We prefer BSD 3-Clause or Apache 2.0, but others may be acceptable.
- Documentation: All projects must provide adequate written documentation explaining how the project works along with any relevant instructions for its implementation or use.
- Frequency: Participants may apply for additional grants, but must complete any current project before receiving funds for another.
- Progress: Funded projects must submit periodic progress reports as mutually agreed.
Priority will be given to projects that also adhere to these non-mandatory criteria:
- Schedule & scale: Priority will be given to projects with a delivery schedule of less than 3 months and a cumulative resource requirement of less than 6 person-months.
- Focus: Priority will be given to projects that address items from the list of Prompted Grant Categories
The evaluation process for new grant applications may take up to 4 weeks. Applications are evaluated on technical strength, detail of specifications, team experience, and usefulness to the Kadena ecosystem.
Kadena’s Technical Grant process is divided into 2 phases; Grant Application and Grant Delivery.
PROCESS SUMMARY
Grant Application
- Determine focus area
- Submit application
- Review and decision
- Mutual agreement
Grant Delivery
- Milestone progress reporting
- Completion and reward distribution
PROCESS DETAIL
1. Determine focus area
- Select a project from the list of Prompted Grant Categories or propose your own unprompted grant project
- Ensure the scope of your project falls within the Guidelines
2. Submit application
All applications must be submitted following the format of the Technical Grants Application Template with all questions fully answered.
Applications may be submitted in one of three different ways:
- Fully public: Public application and public funding amount requested
- Partially public: Public application and private funding amount requested
- Fully private: Private application and private funding amount requested
Public applications should be submitted via pull request to this repo:
- Fork this repository
- In the newly created fork, create a copy of the Technical Grants Application Template
- Move the application into the appropriate folder; Prompted or Unprompted
- Label the file as "project_name.md"
- Fill out the complete application template
- Once complete, click on "create new pull request"
Private applications and private details of public applications should be submitted to build@kadena.io
- Email subject: Format should be “Technical Grants Application - [project name]”
- Email body: Paste a completed application following the format of the Technical Grants Application Template
Note: Preference will be given to public applications.
3. Review and decision
- The Grants Review Committee will review applications and follow up if more information is needed to make a decision.
- Within 4 weeks of receiving an application, Kadena will notify application team leads of whether their project has been accepted for grant funding.
4. Mutual agreement
Upon acceptance, the application team will enter into a mutual agreement with Kadena wherein project details such as timelines, deliverables, and payment schedules will be formally specified in a contract.
5. Milestone progress reporting
- Once progress on the project has begun, grant recipients are required to deliver Milestone Progress Reports per the cadence defined in the Development Roadmap section of their original application.
- These reports should be submitted following the format of the Milestone Progress Report Template.
6. Completion and reward distribution
Upon verified completion of all deliverables across all project milestones including documentation and licensing, Kadena will distribute the final or lump sum reward as agreed.
Note: All grant funds will be disbursed in KDA at a fair exchange rate to meet the grant’s USD equivalent value.
Kadena maintains a list of preferred (“prompted”) grants, but also welcomes unprompted grant applications.
The Technical Grants are focused on funding software development in key categories:
- DeFi
- Blockchain interoperability
- Developer tools
- Analytics services
- Wallet development
- dApps / smart contracts
Visit the Prompted Grant Categories page for a current list of funding priorities.
Explore these resources for additional information and support:
- Prompted Grant Categories
- Technical Grants Application Template
- Milestone Progress Report Template
- Website
- Kadena Docs (resource library)
- Discord
- Email questions and private applications to build@kadena.io
** Kadena would like to recognize and thank the Web3 Foundation for establishing a leading standard for developer grant programs from which Kadena drew inspiration. **