This repository will contain offers that Protocol Labs is making or has made to fund research in areas relevant to our core mission of improving the internet. It is one of the structural research repository described in research/README.md; please follow that link if you're interested in the organization of the research repositories.
Below is an exhaustive list of of the problems Protocol Labs currently intends to fund. To submit a proposal addressing an unlisted problem, first describe the problem you intend to solve in an issue in protocol/research, and follow the issue template. The issue should stimulate discussion and verify that the problem is clearly defined, nontrivial, and important. Then follow our application guidelines to submit your solution. Naturally, even following these steps does not guarantee that we would fund the proposal.
This repo contains Requests For Proposals (RFPs) for the Grant program, which is elaborated below.
- Subscribe to this repo if you want to be updated about potential funding opportunities
Requests for Proposals are a fairly common method for funding individuals and groups to solve problems. In our case, we may have a list of self-contained problems that likely require a sufficiently large time commitment that funding will be often provided at intervals or checkpoints, rather than upon completion. These would have the goal of funding researchers to develop or find novel results on these topics. RFPs are posted as issues in this repo, and a summary of active RFPs may be found below:
- RFP-4: Decentralised Access Control in CRDTs
- RFP-5: Optimize storage and convergence time in causal CmRDTs
- RFP-6: Secret Single-Leader Election (SSLE)
- (more to be announced, please check back later)
- RFP-1: Novel constructions for Proof-of-Replication
- RFP-2: Novel constructions for Proof-of-Spacetime
- RFP-3: Single Secret Leader Election We may reopen inactive RFPs at a later date to encourage explorations of novel directions.
Please watch this repo or check back regularly. We will be constantly adding addional RFPs to this repo.