Guidelines

.Goal of the Raiden Trust

The Raiden Trust’s mission is to strengthen and foster the greater Raiden ecosystem by supporting projects and individuals working on complementary or foundational components or applications that help to build and grow the Raiden Network.

.Criteria for eligible grant applications

1. Beneficial to the greater Raiden ecosystem
   We are offering grants to anyone that contributes to building and growing the Raiden Network ecosystem. This definition of eligible grant applications is purposely kept very broad to allow for a wide range of projects. Projects supported could vary from someone contributing to an open source library that the Raiden Network relies on to building a Raiden Network mobile wallet. It also means that a grant application can be anything from a small side project to an effort requiring several full-time employees.
2. Open source
   Projects must be open-source or at least plan to open-source near-term.
3. No immediate plan to seek funding
   Projects should not plan to raise capital via equity financing or token sale models in the foreseeable future.

.What we offer

Funding

The size of the grant depends on your requirements and budget projections. The maximum grant size is intended to not exceed $100,000. Receiving consecutive grants is possible depending on the progress of your project.

Mentorship

Leverage the potential of your project through mentorship by providing you access to our network in the Ethereum ecosystem. For example, if you encounter technical problems a Raiden Network core developer may be able to help you.

.Examples of what we wish to fund

While we know that the possibilities of eligible grant applications are endless and that the best ideas may be entirely unexpected, we want to provide you with some categories and specific ideas that we think could make a great grant application:

1. Research, e.g. economics PhD researching p2p payment channel networks, especially with respect to the so-called “imbalanced channel” problem, see here
2. Development tools or extensions, e.g. building a Raiden client or Raiden library in another language
3. Applications on top of Raiden, e.g. a file-sharing service with micropayments; also see more hacking ideas here
4. User adoption, e.g. creating educational resources, organizing meetups, hosting workshops, etc.
5. UX improvements, e.g. building a more advanced wallet, wallet integrations or Raiden Network visualizations

Please note that we do not intend to grant funding to projects which are on the core roadmap of the Raiden Network project itself. If you want to work on the core roadmap you can always apply directly for jobs at brainbot. You can see what’s on the roadmap here.

.Application process

Grants are reviewed in waves

There will be a submission window starting and closing every two months. The first submission window of the year lasts from January 1st until March 1st. While collecting new submissions, we will review grant applications from the previous round. All grant applications will be reviewed two months after its respective submission window ended. In short, you can always apply!

The decision-making process

The Raiden Trust is managed by the trustees of the Raiden Trust, who are supported by a team of grant managers as well as an advisory board consisting of subject matter experts. If you want to learn more about our legal structure, read the legal launch blog post here.

The process to decide whether the Raiden Trust will provide a grant to a project is straightforward and follows the pattern below:

1. SA grant application is submitted via this form
2. The Raiden Trust team conducts an initial screening
3. If the initial screening is successfully passed, the advisory board will further review the application
4. The Raiden Trust team and/or advisory board may want to conduct an interview with the applicant and/or ask for additional information
5. The advisory board makes a recommendation to the trustees
6. The trustees will then take the final decision

.General remarks

1. If you are a team you should have a single point of contact to handle communications
2. We will not just pay out grants but also monitor the project’s progress and potentially tie grant payouts to milestones
3. Your team will need to pass a standard KYC/AML procedure at some stage during the review process

.FAQ

1. Can I apply as a legal entity or private person?
   If a legal entity has already been established, apply as such. If not or if you’re in the process of forming a legal entity apply as a private person initially.
2. I have received some form of other funding already, but it is not sufficient. Can I still apply?
   Yes, but you would need to disclose your entire use of funds.
3. Does the Raiden Trust require equity in return?
   No, the Raiden Trust does not require any equity or control over your project.
4. What is expected of me when I receive a grant?
   This depends on various aspects such as grant size. It will be agreed upon before receiving funding. We may ask you to give periodic updates on the project’s progress.

Please note that these guidelines are always a work in progress and will get updated as we learn along. If you have suggestions you can always reach out to us.

Do you have any further questions? We are happy to help at contact@raidentrust.li