Batch 14: Approved Grants

5.25.23

We're excited to share the latest round of grants with the announcement of Batch 14! This batch includes six grants for a total of $457,900 approved in funding.

After Mesh Security, we're thrilled to be partnering with ATOM Accelerator on another big initiative – integrating Cosmos into Metamask Snaps! This will be a huge unlock as it will enable Metamask's users to sign Cosmos transactions with their existing Metamask accounts.

On the audits side, we've decided to renew our bulk purchase agreement with Oak Security as we've used up almost all of the initial purchase to audit projects like Streamswap, Cron.cat, IBCX, CALC Finance, and Phase. This renewal will allow us to enhance the security and fast track the mainnet deployment of many more projects in the pipeline.

Other grants in this batch include two research-related initiatives:

  • On top of adding more functionality to their security monitoring tooling, the Range team will do a deep dive into rate limits with the aim of improving and extending the functionality of IBC rate limits on Osmosis.
  • In collaboration with Flashbots, Antoine will dig into the potential market implications of implementing threshold-decrypted mempools, which is one of the main items on the Osmosis roadmap.

As always, you can find more information on each grant below.

Cosmos Integration with Metamask

Infrastructure
Funding Amount

50,000 USDC

Applicant

Mystic Labs

Upfront

Completion

50,000 USDC

To add Metamask support for the Cosmos ecosystem in their initial, permissioned launch of Metamask Snaps – an open source system that will allow anyone to extend the functionality of MetaMask. This integration will allow Metamask users to sign Cosmos transactions with their existing accounts. Integrating the Cosmos ecosystem with Metamask will be a huge unlock, as it will give Metamask's ~20M users access to the Cosmos ecosystem in one go.

This grant will be funded in collaboration with the ATOM Accelerator DAO, who will also provide funding to Mystic Labs for this project. Mystic Labs are the lead contributors to DeFund Finance, a Cosmos L1 for asset managers and ETF providers. The team is also a contributor to Agoric and has designed ICS-31, the standard for Interchain Queries.

Bulk Audit Purchase Renewal

Other
Funding Amount

$326,400 (in OSMO)

Applicant

Oak Security

Upfront

$108,800 (in OSMO)

Milestone 1

$108,800 (in OSMO)

Milestone 2

$108,800 (in OSMO)

Completion

To renew our bulk audit package with Oak Security for an additional 12 weeks starting on June 1st, 2023, which will expire if not used after 24 months. Thanks to this purchase, projects will receive a 20% discount on the typical audit fee. Milestone 1 = two months after contract signature; Milestone 2 = four months after contract signature.

So far, Oak has audited a number of projects that have deployed on Osmosis or will deploy on Osmosis soon. These include CronCat, Membrane, IBCX, Streamswap, and Phase. Our previous bulk audit purchase agreement not only made sure that all these projects got audited before deploying on mainnet, but also streamlined their whole audit process which reduced their time to market on Osmosis. This new bulk audit purchase will do the same for upcoming projects that would like to deploy on Osmosis. Oak Security is a leading CosmWasm smart contract auditor and has worked on relevant projects, such as Axelar, Lido, and Mars Protocol in the past.

IBC Observability, Security, and Research

Tooling
Funding Amount

$50,000 (in OSMO)

Applicant

Range

Upfront

$5,000 (in OSMO)

Milestone 1

$15,000 (in OSMO)

Milestone 2

$10,000 (in OSMO)

Milestone 3

$20,000 (in OSMO)

Completion

To build 1) public observability dashboards to monitor the real-time state of Osmosis pools and IBC flows, 2) a monitoring, alerting, and anomaly detection suite for Osmosis’ IBC rate limits, and 3) to perform research on IBC rate limits to improve and extend their functionality. Milestone 1 = at completion of the public observability dashboards; Milestone 2 = at completion of the monitoring suite for IBC rate limits; Milestone 3 = delivery of research report on IBC rate limits.

Real-time observability dashboards with metrics-based alerts and daily/weekly summary reports will help the Osmosis core team and community monitor the current state of Osmosis pools and IBC transactions. Range's monitoring suite and research on IBC rate limits will help the Osmosis community set parameters and have more data-driven and grounded discussions about the trade-offs between security and UX (liquidity and composability) of rate limits. After having received a grant from the OGP, the Range team has completed the inital version of their runtime monitoring toolkit, which is currently in private beta. In the past, the team has contributed to a number of DeFi protocols, audited CW projects with Oaks Security (e.g. Anchor, Mars, Sei), and have found and patched critical vulnerabilities in chains like Stargaze.

A Study of Threshold-Decrypted Mempools, MEV and Their Benefit to Users

Research
Funding Amount

$15,000 (in OSMO)

Applicant

Antoine Rondelet

Upfront

Completion

$15,000 (in OSMO)

To write a research report that will dig into the potential market impacts of implementing threshold-decrypted mempools. A section of the paper will be dedicated to connect some of their results to Osmosis.

Threshold decryption is one of the main items on the Osmosis roadmap, but there hasn't been a lot research to assess its market impact. This research will be very valuable for Osmosis as it will help Osmosis decide whether to implement threshold decryption, how to implement it, and better understand what the potential impact of it will be (both positive and negative). Antoine is the former Head of R&D at Clearmatics, and is educated in cryptography. He will write this research report in collaboration with Flashbots, the top MEV research and development organization working on Ethereum.

Osmosis Client on Urbit

Infrastructure
Funding Amount

1,500 USDC

Applicant

~larryx-woldyr

Upfront

Completion

1,500 USDC

To build an Urbit app that serves a personal client for the Osmosis multi-chain DEX. The Urbit Grants team will contribute three stars (~$7,500 at current prices) in funding to this project.

The first phase of this project is to bundle the existing Osmosis front end and make it possible to serve from an Urbit. Once this is accomplished, a gall back end will be developed to replace the Osmosis client's use of browser local storage. Once completed, users will be able to interact with Osmosis via a decentralized front end served from their Urbit. Urbit is a personal OS designed from scratch to run peer-to-peer applications.

Osmocon 2023 Sponsorship

Education
Funding Amount

15,000 USDC

Applicant

Osmosis Foundation

Upfront

15,000 USDC

Completion

To contribute to the funding of Osmocon, which will be held in Paris on July 21st.

Osmocon will provide a unique opportunity for builders in the space to work and interact with the Osmosis and the wider Cosmos community.