original title: "what about developing the tool of the grant after the flowering? "
Source: ETHPanda

On 27 February, Raul Romanutti, a member of the Etheleum Foundation Finance Coordination Team, published an article entitled " Everything is fine until the burning is done " (This Is Fine (Until the Grant Runs Out)). The article presents Project Odin - a structured sustainability support plan for a small, strategic team that has received significant EF funding。

On the other hand, it's easy for Odin to be included in the EF's another public goods program. But it's not the same as the usual Grant: it's not a new start-up fund, it's not an open application, it's a long-term running mechanism for funded teams in stock. EF Blog aims at a two-year time frame: helping these teams to establish credible and sustainable pathways to reduce long-term dependence on single funding sources; where field-based strategic advisers run alongside implementation cycles of approximately 12 months。

Odin is concerned about the road after Grant。

This is also the point in the tweet of 0xRahul. Instead of referring to the question as “EF or financing public goods”, he focused on the sustainability of the developers' tool team: large, complex and heavy-scale open-source tools that cannot be sustained by enthusiasm or short-term Grant over the long term。

In the past, the Chinese community discussed public goods, focusing more on Gitcoin donations, RetroPGF distributions, EF funding lists, or whether a project was suitable for donation. Project Odin points to a later stage: how can a public goods project not be carried away after it has proved important

grant is still important, but the problem is changing

Dismiss a misread first: Project Odin is not an EF signal to stop financing public goods。

According to public information in recent years, EFs continue to provide ongoing funding for protocol research, client, password, ZK, developer tools, education and public goods experiments. The projects listed by the EF Ecosystem Support Programme in 2026 Q1 Global Update still cover various infrastructure and tool orientations such as EtheemJS campaign, BuidlGuidl, WalletConnect clear signing library, L2BEAT 2026, DISSC-NGGeth, Lighthouse, Vero, Formal Protection. Similar quarterly funding lists have been in place for the past few years。

grant didn't disappear, just it couldn't solve everything。

for early projects, grant can reduce start-up costs; for research-based work, grant can cover exploration that is not easy to commercialize; and grant remains an important source of funding for community education and public infrastructure. however, if a tool team, which has already relied on a large number of projects, has only one major source of funding in the long run, the risk becomes concentrated。

As mentioned in EF Blog, many teams do not lack technical capacity, and the short board is found in unskilled skills such as fund-raising, external communication, organizational design, legal structure, etc. The team would write the compiler, do research, and maintain the webcafe, but not necessarily have the energy to answer the questions: who relies on us most? Which users are willing to enter into long-term support contracts? What jobs can be procured by businesses? What revenue does not affect project neutrality

Odin's trying to make up for it is this part of the capacity。

Why is the developers' tool the easiest to get stuck here

In the long push, 0xRahul lists four traditional developers ' tools: large company open-source, bound larger products, commercial SaaS, and pro bono maintenance。

These four models are clearly limited by Etheum。

Large corporate open-source tools are often strong but long-term dependent on corporate strategy. Eco-benefits occur when companies are willing to invest; maintenance priorities change as they change direction. For ecosystems such as Etheum, which emphasize credible neutrality, it is not stable to place key tools in the long-term interest of single companies。

Tools to bind large products are similar. It serves a product line or platform user, but it is difficult to remain fully open. The developer tool for Etheium needs to be used across wallets, across client lines, across L2, across protocols, and closed gardens weaken its public attributes。

Commercial Saas can solve some, but not all. Many crypto teams are themselves in the early stages, with limited R & D budgets. More importantly, the value of tools such as compilers, languages, foundations, websters, transparency platforms is often reflected in the safety and efficiency of the entire ecosystem and it is difficult to charge direct fees to individual users。

FINALLY, IT IS PRO BONO MAINTENANCE. SMALL RESERVOIRS OR PERSONAL TOOLS CAN BE DRIVEN BY INTEREST IN THE SHORT TERM, BUT NOT BY LARGE INFRASTRUCTURE. COMPILERS REQUIRE LONG-TERM TESTING AND SECURITY RESPONSES, LANGUAGES REQUIRE ROAD MAPS AND COMMUNITY GOVERNANCE, P2P WEBBANKS REQUIRE CROSS-PROJECT COORDINATION, AND RISK MONITORING PLATFORMS REQUIRE CONTINUOUS DATA MAINTENANCE. THESE ARE NOT ONE-OFF JOBS。

Developers ' tools often fall into an awkward position: they are too low to be lost; they are too public to generate income naturally。

Project Odin does not do accelerator

EF Blog describes Odin as a structured support scheme, but it is not the same as an entrepreneurship accelerator。

Accelerators typically serve growth-oriented companies, targeting products, markets, financing and scale-up. Odin does not ask the public goods teams to tell a story about the venture scale, but is concerned that they will be able to deliver on a sustainable basis over multiple funding cycles and become more stable institutions。

The basic mechanism of Odin is that each team will have a field-based strategic adviser. The consultant did not come for a training exercise, but was involved in the sustainability planning and implementation of the team on a permanent basis. The process consisted of approximately three phases:

I don't knowThe first stage is to comb out realistic optionsI don't know. What are the teams living on? What forms of financing have been tried in the past? Who benefits from it in the ecology? What sources of funding are available? What are the costs of each channel

I don't knowPhase two is the authentication pathI don't know. For example, dialogue with potential funders, partners, business users, DAO delegate or protocol teams to determine which direction is not paper-based。

I don't knowThe third phase is implementation。This would include preparation of fund-raising or cooperation materials, establishment of cooperative lines and, where necessary, design of support contracts, service agreements or other replicable forms of income。

this process does not sound like a "public good" narrative, but it addresses the most realistic part of the project: the team can't always start looking for money at the end of the runway。

Why was Vyper chosen

Vyper is the first pilot participant for Project Odin。

This choice is not surprising. Vyper is the Pythonic smart contract language for EVM, emphasizing safety, simplicity and readability. EF Blog mentions that Vyper has protected more than $27 billion in chain value at historical peaks. Even today, it sustains thousands of contracts and billions of dollars in TVL。

Language and compiler are typical public infrastructure. Once they are in trouble, the impact is not on individual applications, but on all the agreements and developers that depend on them. However, in terms of business models, such projects are not easy to handle: the core language should remain open, secure and formalized certification capacity needs to be continuously invested, and long-term teams cannot be supported by community donations alone。

The newly created Vyper team Foundation for Verified Software just put the issue on the table. The FVS Network of Officials shows that the agency is concerned with formalized validation research, open tools and ecological support, and the current projects include Vyper, Vyper-HOL, Verifereum, and HOL4. EF Blog also places Vyper / FVS at Odin's first pilot participant。

THIS IS NOT YET A RUNAWAY COMMERCIAL MODEL. MORE PRECISELY, IT IS AN ORGANIZATION THAT IS EXPERIMENTING WITH LONG-TERM RESEARCH AND OPEN-SOURCE TOOLS, WITH TEAMS LOOKING AROUND FORMALIZATION, AUDITING, TRAINING, SUPPORT CONTRACTS OR BUSINESS POCS TO GENERATE STABLE INCOME。

In the Chinese community, Vyper is not just "a language project supported by EF". As DeFi, L2 and institutional funds become increasingly demanding for contractual security, formalization of such capabilities may also evolve from research topics to procurementable professional services。

libp2p and L2BEAT: two comparative cases

EF Blog starts with libp2p. It is a P2P stand used by many Web3 systems, and is also used by Etheium clits for nodes detection, news dissemination, block and certifier voting. EF Blog uses it as one of the recent cases of financial pressure to illustrate the extensive reliance on open-source infrastructure and the possibility of reaching out when resources are insufficient。

this case illustrates the financial dilemma on which the bottom depends: the more users, the less clear the direct payment relationship. each project seeks to stabilize libp2p, but it is difficult to say which project should bear the main maintenance costs。

L2BEAT OFFERS ANOTHER ANGLE。

L2BEAT is a well-known transparency tool for the Chinese community to track long-term risks and data such as L2, Bridge, DA, ZK. It is not a pilot for Odin, but it publicly discloses the source of funding and is suitable for portfolio cases。

According to L2BEAT ' s donation page, its sources of funding include Partners Fund, Etheum Foundation Grants, Optimism RPGF, Gitcoin, awards and compensation for participation in L2 government partnerships, special grants, conference sponsorship, reports and dashboard exploration, direct community donations, etc。

This list is interesting. It shows that the public goods team does not necessarily have two paths: either it depends entirely on Grant or it becomes SaaS. A long-term team that provides neutral data and professional judgement can be supported by multiple ecological actors. However, it is premised on the need to clarify the sources of funding and to allow the outside world to keep its incentive structure under review。

A combination of financial mechanisms, not just one answer

In the last two years, the Chinese community has become more familiar with the public financing mechanisms of Gitcoin, Optimism Retro Funding, Protocol Guild and Drips. They are often discussed in the context of "diversified sources of finance" and "sustainable income flows"。

These mechanisms, however, do not address the same issues: Gitcoin Grants is better suited to bring community signals and help early public goods to be exposed and start-up finance; Optimism Retro Funding rewards work that has already had an impact and is suitable for compensating for past contributions; Protocol Guild has established a longer-term chain-based funding mechanism for Etheleum L1 core R&D contributors; and Drips is concerned with dependency funding, hoping that funds will flow along dependency to open-source upstream projects。

For the large developers ' tool teams, the key is not to choose the only answer in these mechanisms, but to understand the boundaries of each fund. QF requires repeated project solicitations, the results of Retro Funding are uncertain, and DAO grants are affected by governance cycles and token fluctuations, and direct donations often do not cover stable team costs。

Project Odin also focuses not on the creation of a new financial mechanism, but on helping teams to combine existing mechanisms and potential income: Grant can support research, retro funding can reward impact, DAO or protocol can provide dedicated support, business users can buy services or support contracts, and partners can jointly develop POC。

These all sound like ordinary business issues, but for many public goods teams, general ability to operate is in itself short-lived. The real complement to Odin is the ability to translate "the value of the project" into "who relies on it, who is willing to sustain it, and what income does not undermine its public identity"。

in other words, it is not a slogan but a more specific set of portfolios, partnerships and organizational capacities。

How can the Chinese community understand

The Chinese community used to look at public goods, often with two entrances。

One entry is donation. At the beginning of each round, for example, Gitcoin will have project recommendations, donor tutorials, interactive guides. Public goods are more like community participation here。

The other entrance is news. EF publishes quarterly funding lists, Optimism opens Retro Funding, and a project gets Grant. Public goods are more like ecological flows here。

Project Odin provides a third entry: the long-term operation of the public goods team。

for the chinese community, this perspective is closer to the developers and the parties to the agreement. an agreement cannot be forwarded for help only when it lacks money if it relies on an open bank, a risk data platform, a compiler, a certification tool or a security infrastructure for a long period of time. what makes sense is that these dependencies are included in their own ecological budgets: which instruments are critical to us? should long-term support be provided? is there a need to purchase support contracts? should we be involved in this? should public expenditure on goods be retained in the governance budget

It is not accurate to describe it as a charity issue; it is closer to the supply chain issue. Public goods are important not because they are "worthy of being donated" but because many teams already rely on them in daily development, security, data and governance judgements. Since this dependency is real, supporting it is not just an expression of goodwill, but also an ecological risk management。

If an agreement is willing to spend money on markets, incentives, growth and brand names, but not on the basic tools it relies on, it saves not the cost, but the cost is transferred to the maintainer and the ecology as a whole. Project Odin deserves attention because it takes this issue one step further from "who wants to finance": who really relies on these teams should be involved earlier in their sustainability design。

Project Odin will not solve all public goods financing problems. It is also currently a structured support plan for a small number of strategic funded teams. But it makes clear that a long-delayed issue: a public goods project cannot only prove its worth when applying for a grant, but also find out who really depends on himself, who is willing to sustain themselves, and what kind of income does not undermine their public identity。

this may be a signal to discuss the next stage of the discussion with the taicha public. the question in the past was "who should be funded," and now the question is "how can a team that has proven to be important not to be chosen by the next grant?"。

References

& lt; 1> Etherum Foundation Blog: This Is Fine

& lt; 2> 0xRahul tweets on Project Odin

& lt; 3> Foundation for Verified Software

& lt; 4> Etheum Foundation Blog: Allocation Update - Q1 2026

< 5>Ethereum Foundation ESP: Funded Projects

& lt; 6> L2BEAT State / Funding sources

& lt; 7>Protocol Gild docs

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