Decentralization Foundation

The foundation hired Professor Tim Roughgarden to prepare the scientific report "Transaction Fee Mechanism Design for the Ethereum Blockchain, An Economic Analysis of EIP 1559". The goal of Ethereum Improvement Proposal EIP 1559 is to smooth the price paid for transactions on the Ethereum blockchains such that the price paid for smart contracts is more predictable. We believe that stable prices for smart contracts are useful, and that this work will help guide the development of other, non-Ethereum blockchains. Not only is the work directly useful, the basic idea of using negative feedback to stabilize a price is a useful one and is a good idea to promote among the crypto token community. We contracted with Prof Roughgarden to spend 45 hours engaging with the community on his research and related topics.

The foundation made a grant in November 2020 to Sigma Prime, an Australian company for continued scientific research and development related to Ethereum 2, which is a long-planned upgrade focusing on scalability and proof-of-stake. Sigma Prime will deliver a scientific report that includes an educational summary aimed at a non-technical audience. We anticipate that the scientific work and software that Sigma Prime produces will benefit the Ethereum community and the broader ecosystem of blockchains. Sigma Prime has implemented Phase 0 of Ethereum 2 in the Lighthouse client, which is a leading implementation.

Other program expenses: Silicon Valley Ethereum Meetup and the Sacramento Smart Contracts Meetup.