171 forum posts, 86 proposals, and 1,980 comments later — community electors have voted on 24 zkIgnite Cohort 2 projects to receive funding.
After 12 weeks of workshops, office hours, and building teams and proposals, zkIgnite has successfully onboarded its second cohort of projects. These selected teams will now embark on three more months to build out their zkApp and developer tooling proposals while benefiting from the program’s funding and mentorship support.
Judging Criteria
A diverse panel of community Electors diligently evaluated all the submitted proposals and cast their votes to determine which projects will receive funding from the 500k USDC and 500k MINA tokens grant pool. Electors used a rubric as a guiding framework for their assessments.
| Judging Criteria | |
| Impact | Does the zkApp have the potential to benefit and deliver real value to users? Does the proposal bring new and innovative ideas to solving their problem(s)? |
| Scalability & Growth Potential | Does the zkApp have the potential to bring the next million users onto Mina Protocol? |
| Architecture | Does the proposed architecture design demonstrate a good understanding of Mina Protocol & o1js (formerly SnarkyJS)? Will the proposed architecture support the application’s desired impact and scalability? |
| Feasibility | Are the proposed milestones feasible to achieve with current o1js functionality? Did the proposer identify key risks and articulate how to work around them? |
| Team | Based on the information provided, does the proposing team have relevant experience to help them deliver on their milestones? |
Electors were responsible for providing feedback over the course of 5 weeks. Each project received 3 elector scores on a 1-5 scale based on the above criteria. These scores were then used as a reference during the voting period, where each elector had a proxy 16.67k USDC to allocate on the platform. You can find the detailed process and list of all funded projects here.
Funded zkApp Projects
Electors have selected 10 zkApp proposals for a total of over 245K USDC and 147K MINA in funding.
The projects cover a wide range of use cases, including but not limited to DeFi, identity, NFTs, privacy, social media, staking, and voting. Here are the grantees.
Mina Liquid Staking: 59,999 USDC and 35,999 MINA
The team has proposed to develop liquid staking on Mina by wrapping staked Mina received from delegators into derivative SsMina, along with a value-accruing no-claim model. In addition, they plan to be the entry point for Ethereum liquidity to flow into Mina by leveraging the zkBridge.
Team: Staketab
On-Chain Funding Platform: 32,500 USDC and 19,500 MINA
The project seeks to bring workflows on-chain, such as investments, grants, and accelerators, utilizing ZKPs and the Mina blockchain to do so in a way that preserves investors’ privacy during funding and voting. The vision is to encourage open and transparent interactions between startups and investors and foster trust and effective decision-making.
Team: phn2211#9875 and team
Other zkApp funded projects include:
| zkApp Project | Grant |
| ZkSnap – Verifiable on/off-chain DAO voting with ballot privacy | 25,000 USDC & 15,000 MINA |
| MinaNFT – Redefine the NFT game | 25,000 USDC & 15,000 MINA |
| zkLocus – ZK-SNARKs Powered Geolocation Privacy Service | 22,000 USDC & 13,200 MINA |
| iZiSwap – Bring Mina with on-chain order book and concentrated liquidity DEX | 20,000 USDC & 12,000 MINA |
| Sealed Bid Auctions | 16,000 USDC & 9,600 MINA |
| zkSmart-ID – Personal Identification Data and ZK Smart Contracts Join Forces | 15,500 USDC & 9,300 MINA |
| Auditable Social Media Platform | 15,000 USDC & 9,000 MINA |
| MAC! (Mina Arbitrated Contracts) – simple escrow smart contracts to secure interactions with MINA security deposits | 14,400 USDC & 8,640 MINA |
Funded Developer Tooling Projects
Electors also selected 14 developer tooling proposals for a total of 243K USDC and 145K MINA in funding.
These projects aim to enhance the development experience, so that building privacy-first decentralized apps becomes more secure and streamlined. As a result, developers can channel their efforts toward nurturing their creative ideas instead of grappling with the intricacies of data storage, administration, and infrastructure management. Here are the grantees.
Decentralized Credit Protocol: 35,000 USDC and 21,000 MINA
This project seeks to build a decentralized credit protocol using the Interactive Zero Knowledge (IZK) technique and Mina’s zkApp toolkit. Leveraging these technologies, the project will attest to the data authenticity and integrity of users’ web data while protecting their privacy, in order to create a flexible and scalable user credit system for different use cases.
Team: xiang7670 and team
zkApp Umstad – AI Agent for zkApp Builders: 33,300 USDC and 19,980 MINA
zkApp Umstad is a project to build an AI Agent powered by the Open AI GPT language model. It will be extensively trained on Mina’s protocol, zkApps, smart contracts, o1js, as well as zero knowledge proofs.
Team: berkingurcan#3633
| Developer Tooling Project | Grant |
| zkApps / Ecosystem Hub and zkApp Testing Groups | 26,600 USDC & 15,960 MINA |
| MinAuth – zkProof based auth | 24,950 USDC & 14,970 MINA |
| EasyMina 2.0 – Gear up for the bull market | 22,000 USDC & 13,200 MINA |
| Doot(दूत) – Enhanced oracle model to bring trustworthy, verifiable and o1js-compatible data feeds on-chain | 20,000 USDC & 12,000 MINA |
| zkCredential – ZK Verifiable Credentials | 18,000 USDC & 10,800 MINA |
| zkNotary – a zkOracle for Mina powered by TLSNotary | 15,000 USDC & 9,000 MINA |
| zkApp.store – A zkApp marketplace for Mina Protocol | 15,000 USDC & 9,000 MINA |
| Mina Playground – Improvements & New Features | 10,000 USDC & 6,000 MINA |
| Snarky-ML – Enable SnarkyJS with machine learning capabilities | 10,000 USDC & 6,000 MINA |
| Mina Ecosystem 101 | 10,000 USDC & 6,000 MINA |
| Privacy Token on Mina | 7,000 USDC & 4,200 MINA |
| Educational Video Series And Podcast For Community | 2,500 USDC & 1,500 MINA |
What’s Next for Cohort 2
Thank you to everyone who participated in this program. The amount of remarkable project proposals and skills demonstrates the excellence and creativity within the community. Although there were many proposals and not every project could receive funding in this round, quality was never in question — every proposal showcased impressive, thoughtful work.
Over the next three months, funded projects will be using their grants to bootstrap their proposals and start building. While zkIgnite grants are meant to kickstart projects in the ecosystem, they are not intended to cover their entire scope, and additional support will be provided to zkIgnite builders beyond the cohorts. This has proven to be a successful trust and accountability model for Mina builders after over 80% of cohort 1 projects successfully delivered on their 3-month milestones.
Now, grantees will be able to work with their teams to build out and achieve the milestones they’ve proposed while participating in workshops, learning fundraising strategies, and establishing their own crypto ventures.
This next phase will also bring on a fresh cohort of mentors to join forces with these projects. If you’re interested in being a mentor for cohort 2, applications close on September 15, 2023. You’ll need to log in to or create a zkIgnite account first.
Register for zkIgnite, Cohort 3
If your project did not get funded or you missed out on the opportunity to participate in Cohort 2, we encourage you to join zkIgnite Cohort 3.
While a date has not been confirmed yet, register your interest to be notified as soon as spots open up.
More funding will be available, along with improved workshops, technical support, and new opportunities for non-technical contributors. If you’re interested in co-building the future of zero knowledge and becoming part of a talented community of developers and entrepreneurs, you’re invited to sign up. Get a glimpse of what some weekly gatherings are like here.
About Mina Protocol
Mina is the world’s lightest blockchain, powered by participants. Rather than apply brute computing force, Mina uses advanced cryptography and recursive zk-SNARKs to design an entire blockchain that is about 22kb, the size of a couple of tweets. It is the first layer-1 to enable efficient implementation and easy programmability of zero knowledge smart contracts (zkApps). With its unique privacy features and ability to connect to any website, Mina is building a private gateway between the real world and crypto—and the secure, democratic future we all deserve.
