The Chainlink Community Grant Program provides financial resources to the many development teams and researchers building a more functional, accessible, and socially impactful Chainlink Network. In order to fuel the growth of the Chainlink community and accelerate the adoption of hybrid smart contracts, the Chainlink grant program continues to support work that makes it easier, faster, and more efficient to build, test, and interact with new smart contract applications.

To meet this goal, we actively support initiatives that help new smart contract developers join the ecosystem and assist existing developers by simplifying the experience of working with blockchain-based applications. A significant part of this means directly investing in the infrastructure and frameworks needed to develop smart contract applications across an array of blockchain networks, creating intuitive Web 3.0-enabled user interfaces, and maintaining existing key developer tools. One such framework that has proven critical to the Ethereum and EVM-based blockchain ecosystem is the Ethers JavaScript library. 

As a complete, compact, and general-purpose library, Ethers has become the de-facto library for interacting with Ethereum and other EVM-based blockchains. Ethers provides developers the ability to keep client-side private keys safe, import external JSON wallets and mnemonic phrases, connect to Ethereum or EVM-based blockchain nodes over JSON-RPC or third-party providers, get native support for ENS domains, and more. At around only 88kb compressed, Ethers is one of the most lightweight and complete JavaScript frameworks in the Web 3.0 world.

Because the Ethers library plays such a crucial role in the Ethereum and EVM-based blockchain ecosystem, including many blockchains supported by Chainlink oracles, we are excited to announce that Ethers has been awarded a Chainlink Community Grant. This grant will fund the expansion of the JavaScript library to additional EVM-based blockchains such as OKexChain via ancillary packages. 

Increasing support for additional EVM-based blockchain networks will enable Ethers to further simplify the development and deployment of Web 3.0 applications. As part of this grant, an ancillary package specifically for the OKExChain will be created, with additional support for more EVM-based blockchains that Chainlink oracles will support in the future. Additionally, Ethers will create detailed developer documentation for ancillary packages and provide ongoing maintenance to ensure that the packages work as expected. 

Part of the work will also include the creation of clear guidance that empowers external blockchains to start creating their own ancillary packages—making way for Ethers to support their modified EVM chain in a frictionless manner. Illustrating how EVM modifications can be supported through ancillary packages, means the Ethers library can continue to expand in scope in the number of Web 3.0 developers who can build hybrid smart contract applications across multiple blockchain networks.

“I’d like to extend a huge thanks to Chainlink for their consideration and for their contribution to Ethers. The Chainlink community grant will specifically go towards extending the new and exciting world of ancillary packages to include and maintain a more diverse collection of blockchains, as well as the documentation to facilitate others and further extend Ethers functionality.”  — Richard Moore, Ethers maintainer 

Through the Chainlink Community Grants program, we look forward to continuing to empower more and more Chainlink ecosystem teams, developers, researchers, and social impact projects that are both researching and building key tools and infrastructure that accelerate the development of hybrid smart contracts, secure oracle networks, and impactful technology that improves the world. We will continue supporting the community as a key driver of Chainlink’s rapid growth, because only together can we make universally connected, hybrid smart contracts into the dominant form of digital agreement.

About the Chainlink Grant Program

If you want to learn more about the Grant Program, check out this blog post that further expands upon its goals and the criteria for submission. If you would like to participate in the Chainlink Grant Program, please apply here. Chainlink Community Grants are provided in cash and/or LINK.