1inch Foundation launches $3M grants program for DeFi developers

The grants program will be distributed to developers over the next 12 months via 1INCH tokens.

1inch Foundation, the non-profit organization of the 1inch decentralized exchange aggregator, has earmarked $3 million to fund new protocol upgrades as part of a grants program targeting developers.

Over the next 12 months, 1inch Foundation will disburse grants for projects in the following categories: network development, community development and research and analytics.

The network development category targets aggregation products, automated market makers, wallets, layer-2 protocols and integrations involving the 1inch API.

For community development, eligible projects include educational materials, local meetups and hackathons.

In the research and analytics category, 1inch Foundation is looking to fund projects around data analytics and research.

Projects that have recently started in decentralized finance, or DeFi, and have no prior funding history are eligible to apply, 1inch Foundation said. After submitting an application, eligible applicants will be invited for an interview to determine grant potential. Winners will receive a formal grant offer and begin the onboarding process.

1inch Foundation also announced that it has awarded its first grant of $100,000 in 1INCH tokens to DeNet, a decentralized storage and hosting platform.

“DeNet’s concept is based on utilizing unused disk space on personal computers for storing and hosting dApps,” the Foundation explained.

The 1inch Network officially launched in April of this year, though the project has been on crypto watchers’ radar for much longer, having burst onto the scene during an ETHGlobal New York hackathon in May 2019. As Cointelegraph reported, 1inch launched its mobile application on Apple iOS in April. More recently, the protocol revealed a new stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar.