Cypherpunk Guild Grant Program

Cypherpunk Guild Grant Program

Dear NEAR Community,

The Cypherpunk Guild is pleased to announce the opening of a new grant program to fund privacy-enhancing projects in a variety of areas, from DeFi, to governance, and more.

The Cypherpunk Guild is committed to providing up to 50k USD to projects that aim at expanding the NEAR ecosystem and advancing its mission of empowering people by giving them options to control their money, data, and governance.

The three main areas of interest for the guild are DeFi, Governance, and Social Networks, however, the guild also remains open to exploring and supporting other ideas so do not hesitate to come up with more original suggestions!

Privacy DeFi Infrastructure

As the demand for DeFi applications grows, so does the need to guarantee users’ privacy and safety to secure scalability. The Cypherpunk Guild is looking to fund projects aiming at implementing privacy solutions and strong protection mechanisms for DeFi that will help protect users and DeFi’s smooth ascent. Examples of such projects might include privacy-related solutions encompassing:

-Distributed financial infrastructure

-Prediction Markets

-Identity and KYC

-General Marketplaces

-Derivatives

-Insurance

-Lending

-Asset Tokenization

-Stablecoins

-Exchanges

DAO/Governance Technology

DAOs are emerging in the crypto space as a new form of on-chain governance that allows for decentralized and democratic management of organizations. Since DAOs are run according to member consensus, privacy is essential in order to guarantee an environment free of corruption and pressure for the people engaging in voting, proposal resolutions, and funds allocations.

The Cypherpunk Guild is looking to fund projects that enhance the privacy solutions for DAOs, empower its users, and strengthen the processes of on-chain governance on NEAR Protocol.

Social Networks

The most popular social networks leave their users vulnerable to a variety of threats, such as identity theft, data mining, and the stealing and exploitation of personal information. As we increasingly rely on social networks for communication, we need solutions to guarantee users’s privacy, data protection, and safety.

Being committed to enhancing privacy and self-sovereignty through the use of cryptography, the Cypherpunk Guild is looking to award funds to projects that will work towards the realization of social networks respectful of users’ privacy and safety built on NEAR Protocol.

How To Apply

In order to apply you will need the following:

I. Complete documentation and roadmap (or a well-planned development timeline)

II. A clear and well-thought-out product architecture

III. At least two active devs working on the project

To apply, create a new topic using #community #cypherpunk-guild tags or send us an email with the required documentation at: info@cypherpunkguild.org. Once we will receive applications we are going to create posts on the NEAR forum to get feedback from the broader NEAR community.

We are looking forward to your projects!

27 Likes

HI Aria,

This grant program is super cool! Just pinged over an email to know more on ways of collaboration.

Cindy

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Hi Cindy! Will get back to you soon :slight_smile:

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thank you Cypherpunk Guild!
I’m a privacy freak! imho privacy solutions should be offered as recommended optional feature on de-fi projects :smiling_face:
I hope your program leverages efforts being made on this field.

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Hey @Aria, maybe you should connect with the guys from kycDAO, they are working on a ntNFT solution for KYC. Good luck with your project! :muscle:

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Thank you for the suggestion Kemal! Will reach out!

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Are you looking for any projects on education

We are open to different kinds of projects, so, yes.

hello Aria,

Dear CypherPunk Team,

I’m Hai, from NEAR projects ops of NEAR @ConciergeTeam, and would like to apply for a grant for the Incognito - a privacy hub for Web3:

Incognito is a layer-1 blockchain that aims to bring privacy to both crypto assets and decentralized applications. Incognito supports multi-chain integration via the bridges built to 13 major blockchains on the market: Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, Binance chain, Monero, Dash, Zilliqa, Zcash. Litecoin, Neo, Tomo chain, Polygon, Fantom, and now want to connect with NEAR.

The Incognito team comprises more than 25 engineers and cryptographers. Since the mainnet launch in 2019, Incognito’s privacy blockchain has been adopted with 13 bridges built to major blockchains, +200 crypto assets shielded to the Incognito chain, +2.3k validators worldwide, +$400M shielding volume, +$500M trading volume, +$10M TVL, +20k wallet installations, +3k crypto traders, and ~5M privacy transactions validated.

Please check the Pitchdesk with roadmap for the detail: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Y_0T9vYxiwqauQuuq6WAbiR7MgEtwgwx5yzCrJ-JjVc/edit#slide=id.g1250843f30f_0_12

Thanks and looking forward to your feedback!

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Hey @Aria

I just sent over an email with our recent NEAR proposal, looking forward to your response!

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Hey @Aria! Excellent explanation. I have one question and it would be nice to have your help.

Our company, Hack-a-Chain, is starting the development of a Tornado Cash (A fully decentralized protocol for private transactions) alike product for Near.

Is the Cypherpunk Guild Grant Program the right place for us to apply for a grant?

I believe so, but it would be great to have your confirmation.

We’re an experienced Near development team and are very excited to build this protocol!

Thanks in advance!

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Hey @Hack-a-Chain! Yes, that is definitely the right place :slight_smile: Feel free to get in touch directly with me if you have any further questions!

That’s great to hear! How about we schedule a meeting for next week?

Would you be free on monday some time between 12pm-1pm or 4pm-7pm UTC?

Feel free to suggest another agenda!

Kind regards!

Just book a time in here: Calendly - La Devochka

Best,

Aria

Hello Cypherpunks! Is the grant program relevant right now?

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I recently assisted to a Monero Conference, met dozens of heavyweight devs working on Monero. Most of the devs working on C++ they can digest Rust.

Now I have few “heavy weight” devs to work with on cool things.

Any ideas?

Hello, I have a gaming idea I’d need help with, wondering if the devs at your disposal would be willing to help…