In anticipation of the upcoming mainnet launch of Namada, the foundation is planning to recommend a genesis block with a minimum of 20% allocated to privacy tech builders and advocates for prior contributions.

31 January 2023 - The Anoma Foundation, which fosters the development and sustainability of the Anoma ecosystem, has today announced that it is making a substantial sum of retroactive public goods funding available to projects that contribute to common causes of privacy and autonomy. The funding scope covers research and technical implementation work in relevant fields, public advocacy for the right to privacy, and artistic and community efforts to help realize a private, flourishing world.

In anticipation of the upcoming mainnet launch of Anoma’s first fractal instance, Namada, a proof-of-stake layer 1 for interchain asset-agnostic shielded transfers, the foundation plans to recommend a genesis block with at least 20% of initial token supply dedicated to retroactive public goods funding.The foundation will allow anyone, including entrants, to nominate a third party. If selected, both the nominee and the person who nominated them will be rewarded for their contribution, incentivizing a symbiotic community within the ecosystem.

Awa Sun Yin, Co-Founder of Namada and Anoma said: “Privacy-preserving protocols and applications in the multi-chain are rapidly growing, but this horizontal growth doesn’t lead to better privacy for users because it is often fragmented by currency, platform, and application. Without protocols like Namada, the number of privacy solutions will continue to grow without necessarily improving privacy guarantees for users of these solutions. We want to grow interchain privacy across major ecosystems including Cosmos and Ethereum, which is why we are making this funding available.”

Christopher Goes, Co Founder Namada and Anoma said: “For every well known project and initiative that has contributed to the cause of interchain privacy, there are ten more that we don't know. While it is impossible to trace all contributions perfectly, we want to invite the public to help us learn more about important initiatives in the space that may have gone under the radar. By doing this, we can begin to compile a directory and a history of contributions, which is itself a public good, both as a more accurate allocation of credit and as a resource for retroactive distributions performed by future projects.”

The funding is open to a broad spectrum of categories including:

• Research work in cryptography, distributed systems, and cryptoeconomics, especially concerning designs which Namada uses, such as zero-knowledge proofs, Tendermint BFT, and proof-of-stake.
• Implementation work in cryptography, distributed systems, cryptoeconomics, and data structures, especially code which Namada imports directly or is inspired by.
• Public advocacy work defending individual and collective rights to privacy, free speech, and self-determination.
• Local meetups, user groups, and online tutorials which help people understand what privacy technology is available and how to protect themselves.
• Art, speculative fiction, and critical analysis reflecting on the role of technology in individual and cultural consciousness related to privacy.

Nominations must be submitted by the 5th of March 2023, when the Anoma Foundation will compile these into a recommendation for funding allocations in the Namada genesis block. The foundation invites written nominations to be posted on the Namada forum in the RPGF category as separate threads. By opening up the process to public nomination, the Foundation hopes that recognition can be spread far and wide, and not just concentrated on already well known projects.