rewrite this title Ethereum Foundation boosts ecosystem with $32M in grants in Q1 2025

The Ethereum Foundation has announced the distribution of over $32 million in grants during the first quarter of 2025.

According to the May 8 update, the funding was issued through its Ecosystem Support Program and spread across 94 projects. While the report categorized the recipients by theme and focus area, it did not disclose the specific grant amounts for each initiative.

Meanwhile, this marks a notable 63% increase from the $11.6 million awarded in the last quarter of 2024, signaling a stronger commitment to the growth and improvement of the Ethereum ecosystem.

Ethereum Foundation grants focus on community and education

The largest share of grants went to projects under the Community and Education category, with 32 initiatives receiving funding. These included research, workshops, conferences, and bootcamps to promote learning and network engagement.

The Foundation’s focus on educational outreach and community development demonstrates its effort to enhance Ethereum users’ understanding and ecosystem participation.

Meanwhile, the Foundation allocated 16 grants to Developer Experience and Tooling. CertiK, a blockchain security firm, received two grants among the beneficiaries in this category.

CertiK is working on simplifying the verification process for zkVM (Zero-Knowledge Virtual Machine) circuits. The firm’s efforts include improving modular arithmetic operations and optimizing scenarios where multiple values are stored in a single field element.

Other significant grant categories included Cryptography and Zero-Knowledge Proofs, with 14 projects supported.

The Consensus Layer received seven grants, while both Execution Layers and Protocol Growth and Support categories were each backed by five initiatives. General Growth and Support secured four grants, with an additional two awarded under indirect funding.

The remaining 10 projects were awarded under the “Others” category. This category funded entities focused on advocating for decentralization, in-depth research on stablecoins, and those working on integrating the traditional financial system with Ethereum.

Notably, L2Beat, a prominent Layer-2 data aggregator, also received a grant. This award forms part of the Ethereum Foundation’s ongoing financial support for the platform’s data provision activities, which are seen as essential to the transparency and scalability of Ethereum’s layer-2 solutions.

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