Web3 Foundation

Web3 Foundation, also known as W3F, is an organization that funds research and development teams that are working on the advancement of the decentralized web, also known as web3Web3. The organization was founded in 2017 and is located in Switzerland. Its stated mission is to nurture applications for decentralized web software protocols.

W3F contributes in multiple ways so that a safe and stable web3Web3 is built. One way it does that is through the distribution of grants. Since the organization initiated the rewarding of grants, more than 300 web3-relatedWeb3-related projects have been funded in over 50fifty countries. The projects that have received grants vary in their scopes, with some focused on low-level infrastructure development and others that are developing digital wallets.

The organization has two grant programs: general grants and open grants. The general grant recipients are monitored by the Grants Committee to ensure that the project is on taskon-task and the grant is distributed asat specific milestones.

The open grant program is tracked on GithubGitHub, providing transparency for all parties involved. The use of GithubGitHub allows for comments and feedback to be documented throughout the journey of the project. For this program, recipients can receive up to $30,000.

Both research and software development are funded by W3F. The organization states that it has a particular interest in projects that research benchmarking, new primitives (technical/economical), analysis of existing protocols and implementations, and security testing.

One of W3F's most popular and successful projects is Polkadot, a blockchain that is designed to connect blockchains and networks so that they can communicate and conduct transactions.W3Ftransactions. W3F announced in November 2022 that Polkadot's native token, DOT, had morphed from a security to a software, thus allowing it to exist outside of the realm of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.

Web3 Foundation, also known as W3F, is an organization that funds research and development teams that are working on the advancement of the decentralized web, also known as web3. The organization was founded in 2017 and is located in Switzerland. Its stated mission is to nurture applications for decentralized web software protocols.

One of the founders speaking about W3F

W3F contributes in multiple ways so that a safe and stable web3 is built. One way it does that is through the distribution of grants. Since the organization initiated the rewarding of grants, more than 300 web3-related projects have been funded in over 50 countries. The projects that have received grants vary in their scopes, with some focused on low-level infrastructure development and others that are developing digital wallets.

The organization has two grant programs: general grants and open grants. The general grant recipients are monitored by the Grants Committee to ensure that the project is on task and the grant is distributed as specific milestones.

The open grant program is tracked on Github, providing transparency for all parties involved. The use of Github allows for comments and feedback to be documented throughout the journey of the project. For this program, recipients can receive up to $30,000.

Both research and software development are funded by W3F. The organization states that it has a particular interest in projects that research benchmarking, new primitives (technical/economical), analysis of existing protocols and implementations, and security testing.

One of W3F's most popular and successful projects is Polkadot, a blockchain that is designed to connect blockchains and networks so that they can communicate and conduct transactions.W3F announced in November 2022 that Polkadot's native token, DOT, had morphed from a security to a software, thus allowing it to exist outside of the realm of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.

In the Web3, we are redefining data structure, given that we live in a connected world. It is important to note that Blockchain is only one of many technologies in this Decentralized Web Stack. While Blockchain is a great P2P way to record who did what and when, it is not ideal for storing large amounts of data, for two reasons: (1) scalability: blockchains are too slow, and (2) doesn't allow privacy by design: never store private data on the Blockchain.

The transition from client-server internet to the decentralized web will be gradual rather than radical. As the decentralized web stack is still maturing, the transition seems to be shifting from centralized to partially decentralized to fully decentralized. Furthermore, it is important to point out that while decentralized architectures are more fault tolerant and attack resistant, they are also slower. While it is likely that the future of the internet will be more decentralized, this does not mean that we will get rid of centralized systems altogether. Centralized systems also have advantages and will likely prevail, but only for specific use cases.

A visual framework of the protocols that enable a decentralised web. This resource includes examples of the teams and projects building Web3 protocols.

Grants play a large part in our commitment to building the Web 3.0 ecosystem. Currently we are most interested in teams building with Substrate or Polkadot, however we consier all applicants. Apply for a grant today!

W3F Grants is proud to issue our first grant to ChainSafe Systems! ChainSafe will develop the next node implementation of the Polkadot Runtime Environment (PRE) in the Golang programming language.

The best part about working in technology is the ever-changing landscape of tools and opportunities. Over the last few years, a new tool has begun maturing that will deliver more opportunity to create and capture value than any tools that have come before. Distributed ledger technology enables developers to coordinate financial incentives in a few lines of code.

Where "web2.0" enabled developers create "information" web apps, web3 lets developers create "value" web apps. Some may hear this and think "We already have stripe, they are awesome" -- and I don't disagree. While Stripe and their competitors make it easy to interact with the traditional banking system, web3 is something very different.

Right now, web3 mostly refers to apps that allow users to interact with the Ethereum blockchain. What makes Ethereum so special is that is was the first blockchain to have a "turing complete" language. This language enables something called smart contracts, or "persistent scripts" as Vitlaik now prefers. Smart contracts can hold value (cryptocurrency) and distribute it based on their logic.

Ethereum is by far the more robust and welcoming developer community at the moment. Though technologies like Lightning network are rising stars, for now, Ethereum is where it's at. The most popular developer tool, Truffle Suite, just passed one million downloads. Despite the fluctuation in pricing, developer interest in blockchain has seen a steady increase in recent years.

While still in its infancy, web3 is the most exciting place to be as a technologist of any stripe. Though this blog series focuses on developers, I hope to encourage anyone and everyone to get excited about the possibilities. Beyond developed nations, DLT is having profound effects in the communities that are embracing it. Rarely does one get the opportunity to create a new platform, but web3 is that opportunity right now.