Introducing Aleo Feature Bounties

Grants Program Update

This past June, our core team announced the first iteration of the Aleo Community Grants Program. Our intent was to provide community members with opportunities to contribute to the Aleo open-source ecosystem and fulfill our vision of creating a private and personal experience for everyone on the web.

Since the program's launch, we've received many applications and approved some for funding. In the coming months we'll be working closely with our grantees to build projects and create content that showcases the power of Aleo and that accelerates the growth of our ecosystem.

Since we launched this program, we realized that we could also take advantage of these grant projects to improve Aleo's domain-specific language, Leo, by encouraging developers to contribute.

For context, Leo is the first formally verified compiler for zero-knowledge proofs and is able to convert a developer's high-level code into zero-knowledge circuits. It is capable of abstracting low-level cryptographic concepts and integrating private applications into any stack. It also introduces high-level syntax that makes it easy to write and intuitive to express logic in zero-knowledge. From our new layer-1 blockchain which immutably stores programs and data, to our development studio and online REPL, we provide a complete set of tools for the developer who wants to build the next-gen web.

Introducing Aleo Feature Bounties

In order to encourage outside contributions to Leo, we are excited to announce the launch of the Aleo Feature Bounties Program.

Whether you're a seasoned compiler engineer, an adept web developer or a weekend hacker, we encourage anybody to start working on a feature bounty. Our goal is to take advantage of our very talented developer community to help build features that YOU want to see to make Leo the go-to language for developing with zero-knowledge.

For this initial program Aleo has committed $1M in total funding from its treasury. This funding will be allocated to both the Feature Bounties and Community Grants Programs. Depending on the size and complexity of the feature, each bounty will have a different price. If a feature ends up being more work than initially anticipated we will consider raising the price. Payments for feature bounties can be made in your choice of USD, USDC, BTC or ZEC. After the Aleo mainnet launch, we plan to expand that list to include Aleo credits as well.

Aside from the money you would receive for completing a feature bounty, you will also be recognized within our community. This will be reflected in the form of placement on our community leaderboard and attainment of Aleo Achievements. We will be sharing more details on these initiatives soon.

Incentivized Testnet Feature & Bug Bounties

As many of you aware we also launched our incentivized testnet a few weeks ago. Since Aleo is an open-source software project we highly value ANY & ALL community contributions, but particularly appreciate people who have taken the time to help us catch bugs and implement new features during the testnet.

We would like to announce that for the duration of the incentivized testnet (which formally ends on February 14th) any PRs submitted to the snarkOS and/or snarkVM repos which we accept & merge will be worth 500 Aleo credits. Quadratic rewards do not apply here, meaning that the 500 Aleo credits will be ON TOP of any blocks you've mined or previous merged PRs you've submitted. For more information on Aleo's testnet and our quadratic mining scheme please check out our Testnet Announcement.

Claiming a Feature Bounty

To work on a feature bounty for Leo first you should check out the Flagged Feature Bounties in the Leo repository on the Aleo GitHub page. These bounties can be identified with the label "feature bounty."

To work on a feature and/or bug bounty for snarkOS and/or snarkVM first check out the snarkOS issues or snarkVM issues list in each respective repository on the Aleo GitHub page. All issues for snarkOS and snarkVM are fair game for claiming a bounty.

Once you've found a bounty that you'd like to work on for Leo, snarkOS or snarkVM you'll have to do the following:

  1. Create a Discord account and join the Aleo Discord server if you haven't already.

  2. Make yourself known by commenting on the issue in GitHub. Alternatively, you can propose a new feature or bug by filing a GitHub issue. If our team determines that it's a feature we'd like to provide a bounty for we will accept the issue and you can begin working on it. For filing a new issue please use our templates for each respective repo (Leo / snarkOS / snarkVM).

  3. State that you are working on the bounty or new feature.

  4. Include the date that you began working on the bounty or new feature.

  5. Provide your Discord handle so we can reach out if needed.

  6. We highly encourage you to interface with or engineering teams in the #leo-lang or #snarkOS channel on Aleo's Discord server to discuss your progress and any dependencies.

  7. Bounties will be awarded on a first-come-first-served basis. Multiple people can attempt a single bounty but only the first PR to be merged will receive payment.

  8. Multiple community members can agree to collaborate on a bounty. To make this official both parties should leave a comment on the GitHub repo expressing this.

  9. In order to receive payment for a merged PR you will be required to complete KYC. We will reach out to you individually on Discord to facilitate this process. If you are a US or Canadian citizen you will also need to prove that you are an accredited investor.

  10. Please note that if we decide to merge your code with our own codebase you will be required to relinquish copyright to Aleo Systems, Inc.

Aleo Community Grants

For those interested in applying for a community grant you can still do so. Simply complete and submit an Aleo Grants Program Application. All applications will be accepted on a rolling basis and assessed weekly by our review committee. If selected you will be contacted by Aleo's grants program manager to discuss next steps. Just like the Feature Bounties Program payments for community grants can be made in your choice of USD, USDC, BTC or ZEC. You'll also be recognized within our community via our leaderboard and by receiving Aleo Achievements.

Whether you're a seasoned developer looking to build an application on Aleo, a designer who wants to build interactive tutorials for our products, or a web privacy advocate who would love to help create marketing materials, there is a grant opportunity for you. Grant recipients are not only contributors to our ecosystem, but owners who we hope continue to play a role in our community beyond the scope of the original grant.

Please note that all information you need regarding the community grants application process can be found in the application itself. Moving forward we will NOT be allocating funding based on categories. Instead, we ask that you come up with an amount of funding that you think is fair given the nature of your grant. If you are selected to move forward in the application process you will be required to explain why you requested the amount of money that you did.

Questions?

If you have any questions about Leo feature bounties please reach out to us in the #leo-lang Discord channel and for snarkOS or snarkVM feature & bug bounties the #snarkOS Discord channel. For questions about community grants please reach out to us in the #grants channel on Aleo's Discord server. You can also send an email to our grants program manager at grants@aleo.org. We'd be happy to assist you.

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