App-Specific Rollup Cartesi Announces A $1 Million Ecosystem Grants Initiative

[PRESS RELEASE – New York City, United States, January 30th, 2024]

Developers can receive up to $50,000 USDC per project, plus dedicated tech support, introduction to accelerators and investors, marketing support and project consulting.

Cartesi (CTSI), an app-specific rollup protocol with a virtual machine that runs Linux distributions, announced today an allocation for $1 million to the Cartesi Grants Program. The program is dedicated to fostering developer talent and enriching the Cartesi ecosystem by supporting new ideas & dApps, research & integrations, developer tooling and gaming. Independent developers, founding teams, DAOs, communities and collectives can apply starting today, Tuesday, January 30th and have the opportunity to receive up to $50,000 USDC per project, subject to community vote. Through this grants program, Cartesi aims to increase the number of long-term contributors and developers building novel applications on Cartesi.

Areas of focus:

New ideas & dApps: Applications and experiments built using the Cartesi framework that offers value to the broader ecosystem. Currently, Cartesi is supporting Complex Vouchers, an advanced voucher system for external interactions.
Research & Integrations: Split into two tracks, Track 1 focuses on research and solutions that integrate Cartesi technology with other innovative technologies. For example, Cartenix uses the Cartesi VM and Nix Package system to leverage reproducible builds in a deterministic and verifiable environment. Having this on-chain provides a much higher level of security and trustlessness for developers.
Track 2 is dedicated to in-depth research on topics identified as crucial for the advancement of the Cartesi ecosystem. For example, open-source research associated with RISC-V, ZK, and Cartesi.
Developer tooling: Tools that simplify and enhance the experience for developers building on Cartesi. For example, Drand is a component of a larger set of tools for generating random numbers on Cartesi’s convenience layer. The goal is to create a framework for Cartesi that will make it easy for web3 developers to create dApps using Cartesi.
Gaming: Games that uniquely leverage the capabilities of Cartesi, such as open-source games that can be reused and built upon, game frameworks, convenience layers, and other infrastructure contributions. Currently under development is Dazzle, a competitive online puzzle RPG that leverages Cartesi Rollups and the Cartesi Machine for high-stake, e-sport-like tournaments.

“This grants program is designed to foster long-term collaboration within the Cartesi ecosystem and increase the convenience and scalability of dApp development for both developers and users,” said Hellenstans.eth, Grants Steward in the Cartesi ecosystem. “The grants program offers financial support and invaluable technical guidance to kickstart any developer’s project.”

Cartesi’s first dApp, Honeypot, launched on the Ethereum mainnet this past summer. This dApp is designed to encourage developers to challenge the security of Cartesi Rollups. The Honeypot fund constantly increases by a compounded 8% weekly and is currently unbroken, holding 139,861 CTSI.

The Cartesi Foundation has committed $1,000,000 in total to the first two waves of the Cartesi Grants Program. During Wave 1, the Grants Program will allocate a maximum of $500,000 USDC, with a further $500,000 USDC available for allocation during Wave 2.

The Cartesi Grants Program’s goal for Wave 1 is to significantly ramp up in speed and scale in future rounds of grant funding by gathering feedback on the grant process and lowering friction for proposers looking to apply for grants. To review the list of projects approved for funding during the pilot, visit governance.cartesi.io. To find out more and apply, please visit the Cartesi Grants Program page on Charmverse.

About Cartesi Foundation

The Cartesi Foundation is a mission-bound organization dedicated to supporting the Cartesi technology and the decentralization of the Cartesi ecosystem. The Foundation’s mission is to be a supporting member of the Cartesi community, through fundings, education programs, grants, strategic alliances, and other focused activities. The Foundation is committed to supporting the development of the Cartesi ecosystem; bringing mainstream scalability and convenience to dApp developers and users. To learn more about Cartesi, visit https://cartesi.io/.

About Cartesi

Cartesi is an app-specific rollup protocol with a virtual machine that runs Linux distributions, creating a richer and broader design space for dApp developers. Cartesi Rollups offer a modular scaling solution, deployable as L2, L3, or sovereign rollups, while maintaining strong base layer security guarantees. To learn more about Cartesi, visit https://cartesi.io/.