DEVgrants (styled as ÐΞVgrants) was Ethereum's first grants program, launched on April 7, 2015 by ETHDEV. The program offered funding for contributions to both the Ethereum platform and projects built on Ethereum.
Goals
The program had three stated goals:
- To provide developers the opportunity to spend significant time on their Ethereum projects and bring them to completion
- To extend the codebase with useful components not the main focus of ETHDEV, but valuable to the ecosystem
- To increase outreach to other communities and the general public
Structure
DEVgrants focused exclusively on giving a boost to efforts already in progress — applicants needed to have already begun work on their project before applying. The program was explicitly not a venture capital program, bounty program, or DApp seed funding program.
Eligible projects needed to be already underway and delivering value to critical components of Ethereum core software, its development process, or key parts of the ecosystem (common services, APIs, ABIs).
Application Process
Interested parties submitted three items to the DEVgrants administrator at grants@ethereum.org:
- A proposal outlining the intended work
- A project plan with timelines and estimated working hours
- A proposed methodology for reporting on progress and outcomes
Evaluation was conducted in two phases: an initial evaluation by the DEVgrants administrator, followed by a final evaluation by the DEVgrants board consisting of Ethereum founding members plus the administrator.
Grant amounts ranged from approximately $1,000 upward, with funding available in ETH or fiat currency.
Significance
DEVgrants represented one of the earliest structured approaches to funding open-source blockchain development. It established a model that would later evolve into the Ethereum Foundation's broader grants programs and inspire similar initiatives across the blockchain ecosystem.
The program was referenced in Vitalik Buterin's critical update about The DAO vulnerability as a funding avenue for developers building security tools for smart contracts.