Grantee Roundup: January 2021 Highlights from Ethereum Blog

Our dedicated grantees have been hard at work as usual – continue reading for some of their latest achievements

ENS

ENS (Ethereum Name Service) operates on the Ethereum blockchain, and it’s not limited to ETH addresses! ENS connects easily recognizable domain names to locations throughout the decentralized web, encompassing Ethereum and other blockchain addresses, Tor .onion addresses, decentralized sites, data hashes on IPFS, and more. ENS is continually broadening its scope, with recent collaborations including:

This is just the beginning – check out the ENS 2020 Overview for a summary of an eventful year, follow ENS on Twitter @ensdomains, and take a look at the 2021 roadmap to discover what lies ahead.

Textile and 3box for IPLD Object signing and encryption

IPLD is a framework for structuring data used in IPFS. Textile and 3Box have secured a joint grant, co-funded by Protocol Labs, to establish a signing and encryption standard that enhances composability and interoperability among web3 applications while ensuring data sovereignty for users. All tasks funded by this grant have now been successfully completed, which includes:

Ethereum developers can now incorporate JOSE standards like JWE and JWS into their IPLD-centric dApps, with more developments on the horizon! This initiative is part of a broader effort to enhance data interoperability across IPFS/IPLD-based applications and tools.
For further updates, follow principal investigators carsonfarmer and oed, who are actively engaging with the community surrounding this project; keep in touch with Textile on Twitter @textileio, blog.textile.io, or Slack; and follow 3box on Twitter @3boxdb, medium.com/3box, or Discord!

bitfly for beaconcha.in eth2 block explorer

With the imminent launch of the beacon chain, the bitfly team sought to ensure there would be an open source eth2 block explorer available from day one. beaconcha.in has achieved this and much more, providing an extensive array of resources for Ethereum stakers and aficionados, which includes:

• Expanding eth2 knowledge base
• A variety of trackers and visualizations, including charts showcasing data on liveness, participation, total stake, and more
• Mobile app designed for monitoring eth2 validators

Stay updated with bitfly on Twitter @etherchain_org or on Reddit u/etherchain.

But wait, there’s more!

• Unirep private and non-repudiable reputation system: finished smart contracts, CLI, and zk circuits
• MPC Phase 2 UI: completed design and specifications; developed components such as server, CLI, and browser client

Stay tuned for more updates next month!