SSV DAO to Distribute $10M in Grants for Staking Projects Ahead of Ethereum Merge

SSV DAO, the decentralized autonomous organization behind decentralized staking infrastructure ssv.network, will distribute $10 million in grants to development teams working on decentralizing Ethereum’s consensus layer in preparation for the network’s long-anticipated transition to a proof-of-stake model, scheduled for August, the company said in a press release Monday.

The SSV (Secret Shared Validator) DAO accrued $10 million in assets through strategic partnerships with Coinbase, Digital Currency Group (DCG is the parent company of CoinDesk) and OKEx. SSV DAO will funnel more than $3 million into open and predefined grants for developers building applications and staking pools and other tools needed by the network. In addition, the organization has earmarked $3 million for bug bounties and $4 million for incentivized programs for early adopters and testers. The grants will be distributed in USDC, ETH and SSV tokens.

Since March, SSV DAO has awarded $1 million in grants to companies and builders like RockX, Swell, Forbole and Ankr, but SSV.network protocol lead Alon Muroch hopes the DAO’s commitment to double down on grants will incentivize companies and developers to build on top of the SSV protocol.

"The Ethereum community has identified DVT [Distributed Validator Technology] as a crucial component in ensuring that the protocol remains decentralized and secure,” said Muroch. “We encourage development teams to join the grant program and unlock distributed staking on Ethereum for the next billion users."

Although many crypto companies have begun to tighten their belts as industry leaders declare bankruptcy or pursue mass layoffs during the bear market, SSV.network's director of marketing, Eran Efrima, views the recent market downturn as an opportunity to step up the group's mission.

“A lot of brainpower is still in the industry, a lot of companies are still developing [and] Ethereum is definitely not going anywhere, which means the only logical thing to do is to double down now,” Efrima told CoinDesk.

Increasing the number of individuals working on the staking infrastructure needed for decentralized staking applications is especially imperative for Efrima’s team following the completion of the Sepolia testnet merge, the penultimate merger test before Ethereum’s big merger, known as The Merge on Wednesday.

Mass layoffs across the industry have provided the perfect opportunity for Efrima’s team to attract workers committed to the future of Web3, Efrima said.