TL;DR: The EPF concluded its third cohort and is making ready for the fourth cohort. Purposes will likely be open quickly. Sign up here to get notified when they open.
The Ethereum Protocol Fellowship lately accomplished its third profitable cohort in February 2023. Its completion marked 4 months of immersive studying, analysis and contribution to the Ethereum core ecosystem from a gaggle of proficient and devoted fellows. Earlier than we glance into the third cohort, let’s recap what Ethereum core growth is and the way EPF matches into its panorama.
Protocol growth
On the coronary heart of the Ethereum ecosystem lies core growth, the work on the analysis and code that powers the Ethereum community, which incorporates shopper implementations, specs, and different foundational facets.
Sustaining a wholesome influx of core builders is essential for the continued success of Ethereum. These builders and researchers collaborate to form the course of Ethereum’s cutting-edge roadmap, deal with its varied challenges, and implement the options. Their efforts be certain that the protocol stays up-to-date and might deal with the rising calls for positioned on it by its rising person base.
Nonetheless, leaping into core protocol growth is just not a straightforward process. There isn’t a official group that manages protocol growth. The fast progress of Ethereum protocol enhancements, coupled with scattered data, could make it troublesome for individuals to maintain up. There are various areas and roadmap targets being labored on, every having their very own rabbit holes to dive down.
The Ethereum Protocol Fellowship was designed as an answer to make core contribution extra approachable with the aim of serving to builders be part of the assorted groups that work on the protocol.
Protocol Fellowship
The Ethereum Protocol Fellowship (EPF) is a 4 month permissionless fellowship program that helps to streamline the method of changing into a core developer.
This system is structured to present fellows the autonomy and independence required to work as a core developer. Contributors select their space of curiosity, suggest a challenge, and work on it for the rest of this system. They obtain worthwhile suggestions from present core builders and change into a part of a neighborhood of like-minded people desirous to be taught by doing.
EPF tasks are various and contribute to varied areas, together with analysis, consensus and execution purchasers, testing, and protocol safety. The EPF is absolutely open and permissionless, permitting anybody to observe alongside and take part in this system. A portion of the funds is reserved to award excellent contributions from permissionless members. Many EPF fellows have made worthwhile contributions to the Ethereum core ecosystem, and a few have secured long-term positions on core groups like Lighthouse, Teku, Prysm, Ethereum Basis Analysis, Flashbots, Optimism and others.
Third cohort
Applications for the third cohort opened on September 1st, 2022. After reviewing over 600 purposes and conducting many interviews, 23 members had been chosen to hitch the official cohort. Nonetheless, being a permissionless program, the cohort ended with a complete of 36 contributors.
Throughout the 4 month interval, fellows had the chance to work with 27 core developer mentors from varied shopper and analysis groups. Their work was recurrently reported in over 300 weekly updates. Fellows additionally participated in weekly standup and workplace hours calls to share updates, talk about tasks, and take part in AMA interview periods with mentors and core devs.
Altogether, fellows proposed and contributed to twenty projects, a few of that are nonetheless receiving contributions. These tasks not solely characterize a worthwhile studying expertise but in addition significant contributions to the Ethereum ecosystem.
EPF Third Cohort Projects
| Challenge | Description |
|---|---|
| 4337 Bundler in Rust | Implement bundler for EIP-4337 AA as a standalone entity that may work alongside any execution shopper |
| 4337 Pockets | Modular 4337 browser extension pockets |
| 4844 CL Shopper | Contribute to the implementation of EIP-4844 in Lighthouse |
| Portal Community Ultralight Shopper | Constructing the subprotocols of the Ultralight shopper |
| Consensus Shopper Reward APIs | Assortment of RESTful APIs to boost interoperability throughout beacon node implementations |
| ETH Monitor | Monitoring system to trace community knowledge and on-chain occasions |
| Helios CL P2P | Peer-to-peer networking service for Helios |
| Holon | A rollup analytics software program suite |
| CL Gentle Shopper | Teku mild shopper APIs |
| MEV in Open Video games | MEV mechanisms within the Open Recreation engine to analyse MEV methods |
| Mannequin DAS | Rust implementation of a Safe Kademlia DHT overlay atop the discv5 protocol |
| Prysm Beacon API Compliant Validator | Rewrite the Prysm validator code to be suitable with the usual Beacon API |
| Lowering Belief in Relay | Mechanism to cut back belief within the PBS relay |
| Validator Signing Key Revocation | Revocation mechanism to permit validators to enhance their operational safety |
| Verkle Trie Migration Exploration | R&D for the migration from Merkle Patricia Tries to Verkle Tries |
| Staking Pool Attestation Evaluation | Carry out attestation evaluation of main staking swimming pools |
| Bettering Censorship Resistance | Dashboard to trace community well being and block utilization |
| Hive P2P Exams | Enhance the scope of eth, discv4 and discv5 checks and add new checks for the Ethereum execution purchasers |
| Geth DoS Assault Mitigation | Implement the DoS protection scheme proposed within the DETER paper |
All assets of this system may be present in its repository. You may observe all exercise within the cohort there, checkout tasks assets, growth updates and fellows’ notes. Initiatives usually are not solely FOSS contributions however all the work achieved inside the cohort is absolutely open, being an precise a part of Ethereum’s open analysis and assets.
Nevertheless it’s not all about work and contributions. One of many essential facets of the EPF is the chance to fulfill lots of the inspirational individuals who take part in core growth. Throughout EthDenver, over half of the cohort gathered to take part in EPF Day, a full day of programming with project presentations, panel discussions and social time.
Subsequent Cohort Quickly™️
Following the success of the third cohort, we’re eagerly making ready to start out the fourth cohort of the Ethereum Protocol Fellowship. For anybody all for diving into Ethereum core growth, keep tuned for the applying announcement within the coming weeks. To get notified, be part of the EPF google group.
In the meantime, you’ll be able to put together your utility by making certain a foundational understanding of the Ethereum protocol, contributing to open-source tasks by means of your GitHub account, particularly contributions to current tasks within the Ethereum ecosystem, and giving some thought to the kind of challenge you could wish to work on.
Be part of us in shaping the way forward for Ethereum. Be part of the EPF.
