The Institute for Applied Numogrammatics (IAN, “The Penumbra Foundation”) is excited to announce Round 2 of the Eclipse Microgrants Program. This is a 2-month grant program designed to reward the work of builders of all kinds within Penumbra communities. The total grant pool is 100,000 $UM, with 20k $UM available per grant. Funded projects have the option of applying for and receiving additional funding. Whether you’re working on engineering-related projects, or marketing and community, or you have your own idea for a contribution to Penumbra, check out the proposal topics below and apply today!
Applications close on Friday, 6th of June at 11.59pm UTC. Teams and individuals welcome.
Priorities/RFPs (+ Open RFP)
Penumbra Developer Documentation & Tools
Seeking improvements to Penumbra developer experience and reduced friction for building Penumbra apps. Create comprehensive documentation for connecting to Penumbra, working with PRPCs, handling encrypted blockchain data, enabling user interactions, and sending transactions. You will be able to reference or repurpose existing resources to make them more developer-friendly.
- Optional extension: Swagger-like UI for easy API testing and accelerated development onboarding
Penumbra Example Applications
Seeking demonstration of practical implementations of Penumbra’s privacy-focused protocol. This would involve creating sample applications to showcase possible use cases within the Penumbra ecosystem. In the process, the work should illustrate the constraints, design patterns, and development of best practices of the process to support future development work. Thus, in addition to the application, the deliverable would be to create reference implementations for developers new to the ecosystem with lessons learned.
Penumbra Product-Specific Help Material
Seeking contextual, product-specific help content directly accessible within each product (Veil, Penumbra FX, and Prax Wallet), with a number of ways to structure the grant depending on grantee’s capacity, skillset and interest.
Possible deliverables include:
- Expanding existing help content including product-specific guides, FAQs, and getting started materials.
- Creating a framework for embedding help content directly in products (reusing existing components is acceptable).
- Migrating relevant content from guide.penumbra.zone to product-specific locations.
- Creating easy-to-access contextual help within each product’s interface.
- Helping component design aligned with branding of Veil, Penumbra FX, and Prax Wallet.
Optional: define a smaller scope than above for your grant, i.e. only generate and migrate content, choose a specific product, or focus on designing the help UI/UX.
NFT Puzzle Creator/NFT Community Strategy
Seeking an experienced puzzle maker and NFT enthusiast to devise a series of codes for NFT owners to crack in an upcoming Penumbra NFT collection drop. The puzzle deliverable will be accompanied by related lore for the NFT collection and an NFT Community Management strategy. A successful proposal will provide past examples of online puzzle games developed (with credentials/proof) and a few ideas for ways that puzzles, ciphers, cryptograms, and/or other could be integrated in an NFT collection and its community. The grant recipient will be brought into current conversations with current NFT collaborators about art, lore, and NFT release plan, and be able to shape elements of the released NFTs.
Note: this grant recipient will be automatically shortlisted for the role of the NFT Community Manager, managing NFT community elements (Social Media, Discord channels) starting from 1 month before launch (TBD, possibly around August 2025) and going for 1 year following, with compensation in a % of NFT supply as equity.
The Token Factory
Seeking developers to build a Token Factory for the Penumbra protocol that enables token creation and management within the shielded pool. This innovative primitive would allow for verifiable token launches with frontrunning protection through the Penumbra protocol’s batched DEX operations. Implementation should demonstrate core token factory actions (creation, minting, burning) and showcase the unique possibilities of fair token launches using bonding curves in a privacy-preserving environment. The selected team will work closely with members of the Penumbra Labs and Radiant Commons teams to explore this intersection of privacy and token economics. For more technical details and initial discussion, see: Token Factory on Penumbra.
Open RFP
Also welcoming innovative proposals from individuals and teams who envision unique ways to contribute to the growth and development of Penumbra protocol and its ecosystem. We are seeking forward-thinking initiatives that align with the mission of advancing privacy-preserving technology in decentralized finance, whether through technical development, community building, infrastructure improvements, ecosystem integrations, or novel applications that haven’t yet been considered. Reviewers particularly value proposals that show creative approaches to expanding the Penumbra protocol’s utility while maintaining its core focus on privacy and security.
Review Criteria
- Project proposal addresses the stated problem it seeks to address.
- Technical/operational specification is well-considered and feasible.
- Application is direct & concise (bullet points encouraged), but not “phoned in”
- Deliverables and timeline are achievable within 2 months
- Note: if you scope a project to need more than 2 months, then there must be a 2-month deliverable such as an MVP/Proof of Concept
Additional Criteria for Grantees:
- Note for technical projects that anything produced as a part of receipt of an Eclipse Microgrant will need to be dual licensed MIT+Apache2.
- Passed verification steps: KYC/KYB*, anti-bot, minimal AI generated text, Github account history or other relevant proof of experience, IAN Grant Agreement signed.
Timeline
Week of May 15, 2025- Call for Proposals released
May 14th Community Call Q&A & Microgrants 1 Recipient Presentations
June 6th 11:59pm UTC: Application window closes
June 27th 11:59pm UTC: All applicants are informed of proposal status including any feedback
July 11th, 2025: 50% disbursement + onboarding
Signed grant agreement & KYC/KYB* verification required.
Grantees will respond to project update requests in Discord throughout project timeline.
September 4th, 2025: Required video call/community call presentation of project
September 12th, 2024: End of grant cycle.
- Finished grants: share in an update the finished product + demo + lessons learned
- For incomplete grants: share a product update + request for deadline extension
- For MVP/Proof of Concept: share a demo + pitch for additional funds + new timeline
50% disbursement by September 30th or completion of project (whichever comes later) + impact/feedback form.
How to Apply
Please submit your application here by June 6th, 11:59pm UTC.
*= KYC/KYB
All engagements with IAN require KYC (Know Your Customer), or KYB (Know Your Business, if the engagement is with a company). These are required to ensure the Foundation engages with legitimate entities. Webslinger will provide each applicant with a link to complete this process.
KYC Requirements
- Proof of Identity (Passport, ID)
- Proof of Address (Bank Statement, Utility Bill) < 6 months old
- Likeness (Selfie)
KYB Requirements
(all docs must be stamped, dated <1 yr old)
- Certificate of Incorporation
- Memorandum Of Association
- Registry of Directors & Shareholders
- KYC of Owner/UBO (same as above)