Ethereum Community Fund’s launch event in Tokyo unveils 5 grantees from first batch

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Founding members of the Ethereum Community Fund
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda

See the original story in Japanese.

Six projects supporting Ethereum – Cosmos, Omisego, Golem, Maker, Global Brain Blockchain Labs (GBBL), and Raiden – recently announced the launch of the Ethereum Community Fund (ECF), aiming to help improving Ethereum infrastructure and promote developing dApps (decentralized apps).

Six founding member projects and Ethereum Foundation held the launch event of the fund in Tokyo today where Jae Kwon (Co-founder of Tendermint and Cosmos), Julian Zawisowski (Founder of Golem), Jun Hasegawa (Founder of OmiseGO), and Yasuhiko Yurimoto (CEO of Global Brain / Founder of GBBL) presented onstage about what the fund aims at and intends to onstage, followed by Vitalik Buterin (Founder of Ethereum) and Ayako Miyaguchi (Executive Director of Ethereum Foundation) sharing their aspiration for the fund with an audience.

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin serves the Ethereum Community Fund as an advisor
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda

The aim of ECF is to provide both funding and connectivity, while shaping the strategic direction of the space towards mainstream adoption through the development of infrastructure and compelling end-user applications. The first step towards supporting the growth of the Ethereum ecosystem is the Infrastructure Grant Program which is established as a permanent financial endowment to support and aid projects in building crucial open-source infrastructure, tooling, and applications.

Grantees from the first batch of the Infrastructure Grant Program
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda

During the event today, five grantee projects from the first batch of the program were also announced.

  • Eth Prize
  • Prysmatic Labs
  • Reality Check
  • Swingby
  • XLNT

(Check back here later for description of their services.)

OmiseGo and Global Brain announced yesterday that they are jointly creating the global network of blockchain-focused co-working spaces called Neutrino. The two also announced in December that they would jointly establish another fund focusing on blockchain tech, the amount of which is estimated to be several tens of billions of yen (several hundred millions of dollars). The foundation of the community connecting Japan and the rest of the world as well as easing access to funds for startups may help the rise of the global blockchain startup community.

Advisors for ECF plus grantees from the first batch of the Infrastructure Grant Program
Image credit: Masaru Ikeda

Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy