Ethereum Foundation Releases Q1 Grant Project List: Continued Support for ZK, Cryptography, and Protocol Infrastructure

Reported by Jinse Finance, on April 29, the Ethereum Foundation announced the list of grants and ecosystem support projects for the first quarter of 2026, focusing on cryptography, zero-knowledge proofs (ZK), protocol security, and core infrastructure development to continuously strengthen Ethereum's underlying technology stack and long-term scalability. This quarter's grants cover multiple key areas. At the protocol and client level, projects include optimizations for the Geth and Erigon clients, upgrades to the Lighthouse client, and the development of network monitoring tools following the Pectra upgrade, with a focus on improving network performance and resistance to attacks. Additionally, projects such as HSM key management, the validator security tool Vero, and the DISC-NG node discovery mechanism have received support to enhance node-level reliability and institutional-grade compliance capabilities. In the cryptography and ZK domain, the Ethereum Foundation continues to invest in projects such as Poseidon hash function analysis, research on Gröbner basis attacks, exploration of post-quantum and homomorphic hybrid encryption, and formal verification of RISC-V zkVM, further strengthening the security boundaries of zero-knowledge proof and cryptographic infrastructure.