Overview of the Ethereum Foundation 2022 Layer2 Community Grant Awarded Projects

Author: Rodrigo Vasquez

Compiled by: Peng SUN, Foresight News

Layer2 Community Grants 2022 is a grant program funded by the Ethereum Foundation to encourage the development of Layer2 applications and user education. The total funding for this round was originally planned to be $750,000, later adjusted to $948,000, with project submission dates from October 24, 2022, to December 5, 2022. Over six weeks, Layer2 Community Grants 2022 received more than 130 applications covering various fields, including Layer2 browsers, cryptography, and education. After evaluation by the jury, the Ethereum Foundation's Privacy and Scaling Explorations team recently announced the list of winners.

Overall, the submitted projects can be categorized into six major categories: Community and Education, Data Visualization, Cryptography and Zero-Knowledge Proofs, Data Analysis, Cybersecurity, and User Experience, with the proportions shown in the figure below:

Due to the high quality of proposals, the Ethereum Foundation increased the budget from the initial $750,000 to $948,000.

The winning proportions of projects in different categories also vary, with User Experience projects accounting for the highest proportion at 36.4%, followed by Data Analysis projects at 18.2%. Cryptography and Zero-Knowledge Proofs, and Data Visualization projects each accounted for 13.6%, while Cybersecurity and Community and Education projects each accounted for 9.1%:

Winners List:

22 projects stood out from numerous applications, and below is a brief introduction to the winning projects categorized by type:

Cybersecurity

Candidelabs- ERC-4337 Public Infrastructure

This is an open-source bundler and paymaster service serving as a public goods infrastructure for ERC-4337 smart contract wallets, focusing on Layer2.

Quantstamp- Rollup Security Framework

This project will build a detailed security framework for the unique features of rollups, aiming to establish a foundation of best practices and transparency to help new developers and enable the community to assess the security risks of a specific rollup before use. Similar to those available for smart contract development and advanced rollup security overviews like L2Beat.com. The framework will discuss the concerns and details of end-users and developers regarding the risks of Escape Hatch development and operation, establishing a consistent language for this and other features.

User Experience

Spiro - zkWallet

Multi-signature wallets (like Gnosis Safe) are an effective way to allow multiple users to share control over a single account's digital assets and actions. Unfortunately, current implementations of multi-signature wallets expose the total number of multi-signature addresses and their associated external accounts (EOAs) privacy. The Spiro wallet aims to establish a private multi-signature wallet by adopting account abstraction (EIP-4337) and zero-knowledge proofs to shield end-users.

Kautuk Kundan- Stackr Network

Stackr Network is an SDK for launching independent customizable specific application rollups using familiar Web2-like tools. It focuses on the core principle of rollups, which is to run state machines off-chain and use L1 to store transaction details. This can be achieved through a universal language that maintains application state off-chain and provides an interface for interaction, acting as an independent L2. It allows for the construction of a new class of applications that will have more freedom in execution choices.

ScopeLift- L2 Optimizer

Layer2 networks share security with the mainnet by publishing transaction call data to Layer1. Therefore, Layer2 users pay their portion of the mainnet gas costs when executing transactions. Layer1 gas is over 25,000 times more expensive than Layer2 gas, making paying for call data the primary cost of L2 transactions. Custom routing contracts that use less call data than standard methods can significantly reduce transaction costs when interacting with popular protocols.

Testinprod - Layer1.5

Layer 1.5 enables anyone to launch their own Layer2 by providing simple tools, such as block explorers, asset bridges, monitoring tools, etc.

ScopeLift- Layer2 Governance with Flexible Voting

Flexible voting is an extension of popular governance systems used by many DAOs. It allows for the creation of new types of delegation contracts that make it easier for governance token holders to participate in on-chain voting. One use case is the theme of this funding: Layer2 governance voting. Holders of cross-chain bridge governance tokens can pay cheaper gas fees to vote on Layer2. These votes will be trustlessly fed back to the L1 where the DAO governance system is deployed.

Clement Walter - Starksheet

Starksheet aims to democratize access to and use of on-chain resources (data and logic). It utilizes familiar spreadsheets to help users query and link on-chain resources. These actions are stored on-chain in the form of NFTs, which can later be queried from any other DApp or contract.

Kristof Gazso- Typescript ERC-4337 Bundler

This project will involve developing an ERC-4337 bundler in Typescript and making relevant modifications to Geth nodes for simulation purposes, so that the bundler can run on any chain directly compatible with Geth (including most L2s) with minimal changes. The bundler will also expose the RPC calls defined in the specification and maintain an internal mempool to be future-proof for P2P broadcasting development.

Soul Wallet- Open Source ERC-4337 Wallet

An easy-to-use browser wallet powered by ERC-4337.

Community and Education

Jose Figueroa - L2 en Español

L2 en Español is an open community aimed at researching, educating, and promoting the adoption of all Ethereum scaling solutions. These solutions focus on developers and new users, seeking to keep in sync with these technologies and their utilities. L2 en Español creates content and conducts various activities, from publications to workshops, all for free, while supporting innovation among different projects in this space while maintaining core neutrality.

Bruce Xu- MyFirstLayer2

This will be an open-source, community-driven educational project. It will be a website prepared for those curious about Layer2 but lacking knowledge of Layer2 or blockchain. MyFirstLayer2 aims to help people understand the concepts behind Layer2 in 30 minutes using well-designed charts and interactive animations. After that, we will guide people step-by-step through some real-world Layer2 applications, allowing them to experience the benefits of Layer2.

Data Analysis

Blockscout- Blockscout Block Explorer

Currently, the L2 ecosystem needs an open-source block explorer. Many L2 projects have already used Blockscout, which will improve the availability of L2 data specific requirements. Additionally, new interfaces, features, analytics, and developer-friendly improvements will help create a more transparent and usable community explorer.

Quantstamp- Evaluating Rollup Compression

When discussing rollups, compression is often overlooked. By design, rollups need to provide data to verify state transitions or state roots; however, the method of publication may differ and could include compressed data. The compression techniques used also vary. Quantstamp will explore the use of compression techniques in rollup settings. First, Quantstamp will articulate scenarios where compression is used and document the techniques that may be employed. Second, Quantstamp will investigate existing rollups to examine the methods actually used. Third, Quantstamp will evaluate methods proposed or used in similar systems and attempt to determine why a particular method was used. Finally, Quantstamp will leverage the feedback collected to propose new methods for compressing rollup data and pose open questions to the community.

Diablobench- Performance and Security Evaluation of Layer2 Blockchain Systems

The University of Sydney and EPFL designed a benchmark suite to evaluate the security and performance of blockchain systems. The first evaluation compared Layer1 blockchains such as Algorand, Solana, and Diem and will soon be published at an international conference (Eurosys). Diablobench aims to add Layer2 blockchain systems to the Diablo benchmark and utilize it for the first extensive and realistic benchmarking of Layer2 blockchain systems deployed globally.

Web3-data- Layer2 Activity Tracking and Comparison Suite

Through this project, Web3-data aims to provide a high-quality dashboard suite to help data scientists, researchers, and all community members better understand Layer2 activity;

Web3-data will leverage sources such as Dune, L2Beats, Santiment, CoinGecko, Github, Discord, etc., and in many cases, aggregate data from the entire Layer2 network directly from project APIs/RPCs.

Web3-data will clean and organize this data to provide a dashboard that allows the community to intuitively see changes in key L2 metrics (such as tps, rent paid to Ethereum, TVL growth, daily active addresses, new addresses, total addresses, paid fees, and developer activity based on GitHub affiliated repo submissions).

Web3-data aims to label smart contracts by usage categories (Native transfer, DeFi DEX, DeFi other, NFT, CEX, Stablecoin, ERC20 other, L2 rent, Bridge, Arbitrage/MEV, Utility) and ultimately enable the community to label smart contracts. This labeling will allow us to analyze and visualize usage patterns at a high level and show the "hottest" smart contracts in different usage categories. Web3-data is currently using known labels from Dune, Arbiscan, Etherscan, and others.

L2 Beat- L2 Beat

Continuing to provide transparent and verifiable insights into emerging L2 technologies through expanded metrics and education.

Data Visualization

Quantstamp- L2 Block Explorer Backend API Standards

Quantstamp will clearly define the attributes that a block explorer should implement to be considered feature-complete in a general Layer2 setting. Additionally, Quantstamp aims to propose and specify a standard API interface that Layer2 networks should expose to generic block explorers. Quantstamp envisions that such a standardized interface will significantly simplify the development of multiple block explorers that can plug and play across all Layer2 networks supporting the standard, allowing for reuse.

Ideally, this standard will turn the core development of a new block explorer into a project that can be completed by an experienced team during a weekend hackathon. Quantstamp aims to define a consumer-agnostic standard. Therefore, it does not matter whether it is used by a commercial, open-source, or even potentially decentralized block explorer. Quantstamp will pay particular attention to what unique Layer2 data block explorers should provide, focusing on data related to the security of the chains monitored by Quantstamp.

Blossom Labs- Blobscan

The first block explorer supporting blob transactions in EIP-4844. It indexes and presents them in a searchable format, allowing users to visualize and navigate them easily, providing the necessary infrastructure for scaling Ethereum.

Cryptography and Zero-Knowledge Proofs

Specular - Zhe Ye, Ujval Misra and Dawn Song (University of California, Berkeley)

The most popular Optimistic Rollups (ORUs), represented by Arbitrum and Optimism, strive to extend existing Ethereum client software (Geth) to support the construction of interactive fraud proofs (IFPs), aiming to reuse previous L1 engineering and replicate EVM semantics on L2. Unfortunately, to do this, they tightly couple their on-chain IFP verifiers with a specific client program, remaining oblivious to its higher-level semantics.

This approach (1) excludes trust minimization and permissionless participation of multiple Ethereum client programs, amplifying the risk of monoculture failure; (2) leads to an unnecessarily large and complex Trusted Computing Base (TCB), difficult to audit independently; and (3) suffers from frequent but opaque upgrade processes—further increasing audit overhead and complicating on-chain access control in the long term.

Therefore, the team focuses on building a secure, trust-minimized ORU to address these issues while maintaining scalability and dispute resolution efficiency. To this end, the team designs a native EVM IFP system that precisely executes Ethereum's semi-formal semantics at the level of individual EVM instructions. As part of this work, the team builds Specular, an ORU utilizing modified Geth, requiring only 99 lines of code to support the construction of IFPs—demonstrating the practicality, scalability, and trust minimization of our approach.

Nethermind, Justin Thaler (Georgetown University), Matthew Green (Johns Hopkins University), Pratyush Tiwari (Georgetown University) - Specific Security Analysis of L2 Deployment Proof Systems

The team proposes to analyze the specific security of rollup proof systems (SNARKs, STARKs). The team observes that some proof systems have security analyses in interactive environments, while their security is merely conjectured after applying the Fiat-Shamir transformation. Furthermore, the team believes that, in certain cases, attacks more effective than the so-called security level may be possible.

Ethstorage- Storage Proofs for L2 Dynamic Datasets Using Ethereum L1 Contracts

Given the commitment list of BLOBs in L1 contracts (e.g., KZG commitments from EIP-4844/Danksharding, indexed from 0…n-1), this project studies an efficient proof system to verify that BLOBs are stored off-chain with the required redundancy (e.g., 30~50 physical copies) effectively on L1. By placing these storage nodes in the L2 network and assuming that 1/m of the nodes are honest, an L2 storage network can be established that reuses the security of the mainnet while greatly scaling Ethereum's scalability.

Further research will attempt to answer the following questions: How to establish a proof/verification system if BLOBs and commitments change continuously (e.g., new BLOBs are appended to the list, or a BLOB at an index is changed); and how to establish an incentive/payment system to ensure the ideal replication factor using ETH as payment; whether it is possible to require storage nodes to store part of the BLOB while keeping the mainnet at the same level of security?