Ecosystem
Aleph Zero & ink!ubator — joint endeavor to support the ecosystem
Mar 31, 2023
AI Summary
Aleph Zero has joined an initiative to kickstart the growth of the ink! ecosystem together with Astar Network, Web3 Foundation, Parity Technologies, Phala Network, and 727 Ventures.
After a successful ink! 4.0 WASM Mainnet smart contracts release, it’s time to enable builders to get out more of this technology. While getting all set to support all the Aleph Zero projects via our own Ecosystem Funding Program, today we’re happy to announce yet another program.
ink!ubator has just been launched for all builders in the ink! ecosystem to kickstart the adoption of WASM.
What is ink!ubator?
ink!ubator is funded by the Polkadot Treasury’s Bounty Program to support the growth of ink!-based ecosystems such as Aleph Zero, Astar Network, Phala Network, Polkadot, Kusama, and others. It focuses on a few key areas: developer growth, security audits, full-stack tooling, as well as high-impact product launches.
The initiative provides three tracks:
Builder Track – starting Q2 2023
The Builder track will only accept two projects that will use ink! in their development. Aleph Zero will support the projects with technical help, along with Astar Network, Phala Network, and 727 Ventures.
The accepted projects within the Builder track will receive the following perks in four phases:
- 10,000 USD per month from the total of 50,000 USD budget for hiring and product development
- One-day product planning session with a mentor
- Contract audit with a team from the Auditor track with audit fees covered
- 20,000 USD marketing budget
- Livestream product presentation to the ink! community
Auditor Track
Two experienced consultancies will receive support in expanding their offering into ink! security audit services.
The accepted companies will also receive technical onboarding to ink! from the Aleph Zero core team and other partners. Auditors within this track will have the opportunity to provide security audits to projects within the Builder Track and Ecosystem Grant.
Ecosystem Grants Track
The incubator enables projects to receive grants for ink! projects in three categories.
Canary Dapps
Canary Dapps might not be battle-tested enough to become a serious use case—but there’s still significant potential for them to go beyond simple tutorials and become a useful reference for other developers. These could be DEXes, lending platforms, NFT Marketplaces, multi-sig digital vaults, or other ideas.
Technical showcase
Full-stack applications that showcase the advantages of ink! over other smart contract languages are also eligible for receiving a grant. The cases don’t have to be business-oriented but should clearly demonstrate the superiority of ink! language. The example ideas within this category could be innovative games and collectibles, or decreasing the size of contracts, among other things.
Infrastructure
The last category supports developing ink! ecosystem’s infrastructure and tooling. All libraries, static analysis and on-chain contract verification projects, as well as initiatives that improve developer and debugging experience are welcome.
Supporting projects within the Aleph Zero ecosystem
ink!ubator becomes an interesting opportunity for the projects building on Aleph Zero as they explore the potential of ink! language. While the program starts just now, stay tuned to the updates from Aleph Zero as we introduce the Ecosystem Funding Program that will support projects within the ecosystem directly!
