The Run A Node Grants Round aimed to engage diverse users interested in blockchain technology, education, community initiatives, and research. The goal of this round was to stimulate innovative ideas for node operations that extend beyond being merely validators, including tasks like facilitating data queries for academic work, assessing node performance under extreme conditions, and improving user experience for node operators. Applicants had the choice of selecting a Dappnode or submitting specifications to qualify for funding for a custom build.
We received a total of 243 applications. From the applications assessed, we chose 35 recipients from 23 countries to provide support for running nodes. Eligibility criteria for this round required applicants to possess stable, high-speed internet connections with substantial data limits, demonstrate technical expertise with nodes and clients, and commit to operating the node for at least two years. In our assessment, we placed a high priority on unique proposals from varied geographical regions, as well as submissions from student blockchain groups and academic establishments.
The graphs below illustrate the distribution of awarded grants by geographic location and a categorization of the types of awarded nodes:
Below is a brief overview of each project running a node funded through the proactive grants round.
ETHKL – Malaysia: This node is utilized to kickstart the Ethereum Kuala Lumpur community by providing knowledge and hardware capacity to operate a full Ethereum node. Members acquire practical experience in node maintenance, addressing downtime, hardware fixes, pruning, and more. The node also offers a secure and free community RPC endpoint, serving as a learning platform for university students to explore blockchain technology.
SDSU Distributed System Security Lab – United States: Over the last four years, this research team has focused on identifying and mitigating vulnerabilities and Denial of Service attacks on the Ethereum network, relying heavily on running an Ethereum node for their investigations.
FranklinDAO / Penn Blockchain – United States: This node provides an accessible API to the blockchain for developers and researchers associated with FranklinDAO, a student-led initiative promoting blockchain usage at the University of Pennsylvania.
Web3Bridge – Nigeria: Founded in 2019, Web3Bridge aims to train web3 developers in Africa, focusing on education and skills development. With this node, they provide practical learning opportunities for individuals interested in blockchain technology, fostering a local talent infrastructure to stimulate innovation and community advancement.
Champagnat University – Argentina: Champagnat University, via its Faculty of Informatics, plans to use the nodes for collaborative research, development, and educational initiatives encompassing workshops, training, and seminars for students, along with documenting best practices for node operations.
Solo Operator – Brazil: A backend software engineer focused on ongoing research regarding validator privacy and the Lighthouse consensus protocol utilizing this node.
Solo Operator – Hong Kong: As a seasoned node operator across multiple clients, this individual intends to contribute to the Ethereum community by leveraging the node to analyze on-chain data, enhance transparency, and pursue research regarding MEV and node deployment.
SpaghettETH – Italy: SpaghettETH’s objectives in running an Ethereum node are to support a decentralized financial system, seek out innovation possibilities, and actively participate in the flourishing Ethereum ecosystem. They aim to initiate a “run a node” campaign in Italy, subsequently sharing insights with other local communities and creating Italian-language guides on node setup for broader distribution through social media, zines, and live events.
Solo Operator – China: This node will facilitate the retrieval, storage, and sharing of blob data post-EIP-4844 as part of the BlobStar initiative, dedicated to the continuous storage of Ethereum blob data and offering easy access for others. It will run on Reth to gain essential insights into Ethereum’s workings, provide opportunities for syncing data, perform benchmarking, and identify potential improvements to the Reth codebase that enhance its functionality and user experience.
Stanford University, MIT – United States: This research group engages in comprehensive consensus and blockchain research for the Ethereum ecosystem. Operating their own node ensures timely access to complete blockchain archival data from both consensus and execution clients while allowing access for other researchers.
Solo Operator – India: Managed by a systems security engineer, this node focuses on exploring potential vulnerabilities through RPC calls, examining how to address and mitigate these exploits without necessitating each whitehat/auditor to manage their own node for privacy reasons.
Solo Operator – Taiwan: Situated between Taiwan and Canada, this node will be utilized by a developer relations expert to create and distribute engaging educational materials for those interested in the remote operation of nodes.
CENFOTEC University Foundation – Costa Rica: Researchers at Universidad CENFOTEC plan to utilize this node to facilitate Costa Rican universities and innovators’ involvement in the Ethereum community. Their projects include educational content creation, forming university blockchain groups, collecting data and research across multiple clients, developing data analytics, economic models, dashboards, and other visualization tools.
Solo Operators – Singapore: A pair of experts in cryptography and formal verification have collaborated to create a custom node to prepare and distribute research datasets, provide Ethereum RPC endpoints within their local community, and conduct tests on non-standard hardware (Synology NAS) for Ethereum node operation. They intend to publish findings about their experiences running a node on a Synology, including metrics on CPU load, RAM usage, storage needs, and thermal performance.
Ponkila Oy – Finland: Located in Northern Finland, one of the few nodes in the region, this node will investigate infrastructure networking—specifically, NFS and client-host storage solutions via SFP+ links—and to enhance homestaking user experience while maintaining HomestakerOS.
Cochin University of Science and Technology – India: Launched at the incubation center of Cochin University of Science & Technology, this node is operated by students to bolster research. They are developing modules for privacy-oriented RPC, enabling system testing by exposing endpoints and customizing the framework.
Purdue University – United States: The Purdue University Blockchain Club plans to use this node to educate students on decentralized systems and web3 architecture, and aims to operate a full validator node for the Beacon Chain.
Cryptoversidad – Mexico: This node will contribute to enhancing network diversity, provide quality workshops and live sessions surrounding network decentralization and security in Spanish, and disseminate knowledge through blog posts and open-source contributions to empower others interested in running their own nodes in Mexico.
Solo Operator – Argentina: As a participant in SeedLatam and Ethernaut DAO, this node will focus on educational efforts in Argentina to create a Spanish guide covering node setup, its impact, and the necessity of maintaining nodes as public goods. Senior Solidity developers associated with EthernautDAO will also utilize this node to query indexed data.
Solo Operator – Nigeria: Operated by a protocol engineer affiliated with Nethermind, this node will play a pivotal role in projects like Juno, Starknet’s fastest syncing node, and Voyager, Starknet’s leading block explorer. The operator aims to use the insights gained from this node to educate other engineers about Ethereum, its protocols, and its infrastructure, thereby lowering entry barriers into this complex domain for a broader audience.
Miga Labs – Spain: Together with the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance, Miga Labs will utilize this node to evaluate the energy consumption associated with Ethereum nodes utilizing multiple EL and CL clients, including the energy used while operating numerous validators in a testing environment. The findings will be presented on a public dashboard that details the energy usage of the Ethereum network. This research aims to illustrate the advantages of transitioning from PoW to PoS with supporting energy consumption data.
101.CY – Cyprus: 101.CY represents a Cyprus-based community focused on research and practice concerning emerging digital culture phenomena, rights, information freedom, and network geopolitics, particularly from European, Middle Eastern, and African viewpoints. They plan to establish a local experimental node, conduct practical research, and host a public Ethereum RPC endpoint. Furthermore, they will provide a guide for those wishing to operate an Ethereum node over anonymous networks.
SeedLatam – Argentina: The SeedLatam community intends to operate this node to experiment with various Ethereum clients, create a benchmarking dashboard to compare their performance and attributes, allow local developers and researchers to query indexed data for research, provide custom RPC endpoints for community access—either publicly or privately—and produce a guide to assist first-time hosts in establishing their own nodes.
Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi- India: Researchers at IIIT Delhi will run this node to advance blockchain research across Indian institutions. Through this node, researchers aim to inspire students to delve into MEV, Intents, PBS, and other central protocol domains while contributing actively to infrastructure-level research.
ETHKipu – Argentina: KipuStakers will conduct workshops, generate content, and perform tests around DVT with the aim of fostering decentralization and node education in Latin America, alongside efforts to boost node presence in various underrepresented regions. KipuStakers’ primary objectives include boosting the number of (validator) nodes within Latin America, raising awareness of the significance of running nodes, supporting local initiatives, fostering new income sources, and generating revenue (e.g., through their own LSD) to sustain ETHKipu projects.
Vanderbilt Blockchain – United States: The student blockchain organization at Vanderbilt University plans to utilize this node to initiate an educational cohort, guiding students from minimal web3 knowledge to becoming competent blockchain enthusiasts. They aim to establish this node using a minority client, offering a practical example of participation in a decentralized network as they navigate the setup process together with the cohort.
TUM Blockchain Club – Germany: The TUM Blockchain Club, a non-profit organization run by students at the Technical University of Munich, plans to employ this node for educational purposes, onboarding students at TUM through dedicated workshops and hands-on sessions that will provide concrete introductions to Ethereum, its functionalities, and a guide through the process of setting up and managing Ethereum nodes. The node will also serve as a testing ground for various clients and as a reliable data source for students interested in blockchain analysis, enabling them to mine, analyze, and leverage Ethereum data for academic research and innovative initiatives.
Ethereum Guatemala – Guatemala: The Ethereum Guatemala community, in collaboration with La Universidad del Valle, intends to operate this node to develop educational resources and academic inquiries centered on Ethereum nodes in Central America. Ethereum Guatemala’s mission extends beyond education alone, seeking to strengthen the network’s resilience and anti-fragility by managing local nodes and validators.
Princeton Blockchain Club – United States: Princeton University’s largest student-run blockchain hub, the Princeton Blockchain Club, which includes over 200 undergraduates, graduates, and alumni interested in web3’s frontier, will run an archive node to assist researchers within their community. Their aims include contributing to Ethereum’s overall health by managing minority consensus and execution clients, operating a local block explorer, and providing an RPC endpoint along with access to historical state data for research teams and other groups on campus.
Oregon Blockchain Group – United States: A student-run organization at the University of Oregon, the Oregon Blockchain Group aims to educate university students about blockchain. This node will be utilized to teach students how to operate nodes, promote awareness of client updates, facilitate core dev meetings, and develop infrastructure and tools for node maintenance.
ITU Blockchain – Turkey: Founded at Istanbul Technical University, the ITU Blockchain Club has over 2,500 members and will leverage this node for educational initiatives by developing workshops and events centered on educating individuals on the setup and operation of nodes and conveying their importance to a decentralized network.
University College Dublin – Ireland: The UCD Maker Society at University College Dublin intends to use this node to enhance the network’s decentralization, facilitate education and understanding of Ethereum, and promote innovative projects within the Ethereum ecosystem. Operating a local node is essential in transitioning University College Dublin into a hub for Ethereum research and education, ensuring that respective programs are not overly theoretical and instead equip students with a genuine understanding of the network, its structure, and the collaborative efforts involved.
Solo Operator – Italy: This node will support a research initiative aimed at developing a node implementation with RPC endpoints accessible via the LoRa network. The goal is to facilitate connectivity to the Ethereum network in remote areas where conventional cellular service is limited or nonexistent. This project seeks to enable residents of rural locations to engage with Ethereum for transactions, smart contract interactions, and accessing the DeFi ecosystem while pioneering innovative applications leveraging DLT infrastructure.
Solo Operator – United States: This node’s primary function is to handle RPC requests and customized RPC requests; these endpoints are particularly useful for stakers, builders, and enthusiasts. Additionally, it will also serve archival roles to preserve historical blocks and blob data.
Solo Operator – Venezuela: In collaboration with a university in Venezuela, this node will facilitate research and education for a wide range of developers and researchers in the region.
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