The Ethereum Foundation releases its Q1 funding list: continued support for ZK, cryptography, and protocol infrastructure.

The Ethereum Foundation announced its Q1 2026 funding and ecosystem support program, focusing on cryptography, zero-knowledge proofs (ZK), protocol security, and core infrastructure development to continuously strengthen the Ethereum underlying technology stack and long-term scalability. This quarter's funding covers several key areas. At the protocol and client levels, support includes optimizations to the Geth and Erigon clients, upgrades to the Lighthouse client, and the development of network monitoring tools after the Pectra upgrade, with a focus on improving network performance and attack resistance. Projects such as HSM key management, the validator security tool Vero, and the DISC-NG node discovery mechanism also received support to enhance node-level reliability and institutional compliance. In cryptography and ZK, the Foundation continues to increase investment in projects such as Poseidon hash function analysis, Gröbner-based attack research, exploration of quantum-resistant and homomorphic hybrid encryption, and formal verification of RISC-V zkVM, further strengthening the security boundaries of zero-knowledge proofs and cryptographic infrastructure. In terms of the developer ecosystem, the BuidlGuidl education system is being upgraded, the ERC standard community is being built, the WalletConnect signature clearing library is being developed, and toolchains such as Open Creator Rails are being continuously advanced to lower the development threshold and improve user interaction security. Meanwhile, L2BEAT continues to provide Layer 2 transparency analysis, strengthening the scaling ecosystem's data infrastructure. In addition, the foundation supports privacy technologies (such as Tor integration and the Privacy Pool SDK), decentralized identity (did:ethr standard upgrade), DAO governance research, and public goods experimental projects, covering the complete ecosystem structure from the protocol layer to the application layer. Overall, this round of funding continues Ethereum's long-term investment in the three core areas of "cryptography + ZK + protocol engineering," emphasizing the support for future multi-layer scaling and institutional application deployment through infrastructure and standardization.