In the rapidly expanding landscape of blockchain technology, zero knowledge (ZK) proofs have emerged as a powerful new primitive. Developers seeking to explore ZK’s unique scalability and privacy properties and build production-ready applications are choosing Mina for its lightweight, recursive design and intuitive developer experience.
The following grant programs are designed to empower developers and entrepreneurs to learn and build their ideas on Mina Protocol.
zkIgnite Grants
zkIgnite is a cohort-based, community-governed innovation fund for experienced ZK builders and entrepreneurs in the Mina ecosystem.
The program is designed to support developers with key resources and grants to turn their ideas and passion projects into full-fledged businesses. The allocation of funding is determined by a team of electors from the Mina community.
To date, zkIgnite has funded 50 ZK applications and developer tooling projects pushing the boundaries of what is possible on Mina Protocol through Cohort 1 and Cohort 2. Cohort 3 is accepting proposals until January 31, 2024.
Core Grants
Core is a grant program to fund public goods and address current infrastructure needs on Mina Protocol through an RFP (Request for Proposals) process.
Core grants are allocated on a rolling basis and are specific in scope. They focus on supporting high-priority development areas, including, among other things, token standards, zkOracles, Data Availability layers, new development features, and more.
With a major upgrade of Mina Protocol coming soon, plus bridges and other critical tooling in progress, now is the time to get started building. Mina’s TypeScript framework for zkApps makes it easy, and provides unique recursion properties that make your smart contracts composable and efficient.
Here’s what Mina builders are saying. But don’t take their word for it, read the Docs to see for yourself.
Mina also supports two key features that many other ZK platforms do not support:
1. You can write zk circuits in Javascript!! Super easy to write, and very compatible with @PaimaStudios
Build your onchain game / autonomous world, including the ZK circuits, all in JS! 😍 pic.twitter.com/SyZmFxKL9E
— Sebastien Guillemot (@SebastienGllmt) July 26, 2023
Milestone Alert! 🚀
In just 1 month since its launched, #zkDatabase has soared to new heights of 600+ downloads, boasting 170-180 weekly 🎉Your trust fuels our commitment to revolutionizing provable data @MinaProtocol ♥️https://t.co/tcH8vwDzs4 pic.twitter.com/cYRJO88anH
— Orochi Network (@OrochiNetwork) September 5, 2023
About Mina Protocol
Mina Protocol is being incubated by O(1) Labs, the leader in zk-SNARKs and verifiable computation. Mina Protocol, the world’s lightest blockchain, provides a foundation for the decentralized digital economy (Web 3.0), by affording all participants fully P2P, permissionless access to the chain, from any device. By utilizing recursive zk-SNARKs, the Mina blockchain always stays the same size — about 20 kilobytes (the size of a few tweets). Recursive zk-SNARKs allow nodes to rapidly share and update proof of the correct blockchain state across the network. This breakthrough application of zk-SNARKs solves the issues of scalability and high barrier to entry for nodes that have plagued legacy blockchains to-date. By making it easier for nodes to participate, Mina improves decentralization and therefore security of the network. The Mina blockchain can be easily accessed from any device, including phones and browsers, and can be seamlessly integrated into new decentralized applications (dapps).
