ETHSecurity Initiatives Round

The ETHSecurity Initiatives Round is TheDAO Security Fund's second funding round. It works as a crowdsourced, public to-do list of Ethereum security work. Anyone can propose an initiative, co-fund one, or bid to build one, and community co-funding decides what gets funded.

Key Details

• Host: TheDAO Security Fund
• Milestone payouts managed by: Giveth
• Round period: live from 2026-09-15, running until the end of January
• Initiative types: RFPs (Request for Proposals) and Grants
• Platform: initiatives.thedao.fund

Funding or Award

• Funding comes in three ways:
  • Anyone can donate directly to each initiative's multisig
  • Companies sign pledges to sponsor specific initiatives. Pledged money is only collected once the initiative is fully funded, and the backer's logo is promoted alongside the initiative
  • Initiatives not fully funded before mid-November are ranked by the 200 ETHSecurity Badge holders, and the top initiatives get completed from TheDAO Security Fund's treasury
• Organizations that would benefit from a piece of work are invited to put in 15% and help raise the rest
• If an initiative doesn't get enough funding and doesn't make the badge holders' final cut by the end of January, its pledges are never collected
• Funding goes out after milestones are completed. The first milestone can be paid up to 50% in advance, and each milestone is paid within 14 days of acceptance
• TheDAO Security Fund has 69,000 ETH staked, earning ~5 ETH a day to support Ethereum security
• Round One: more than 20 ecosystem funders and 3,934 donors put over $1.6M into Ethereum security projects. To date the fund has coordinated over 1,000 ETH to 135 security projects

Focus Areas

Initiatives that would make Ethereum meaningfully safer. There are two kinds:

• RFPs: outline a budget and draft milestones but have no team chosen yet. Each RFP comes with an example solution, so the budget, adoption milestones and a picture of a possible solution are outlined from day one
• Grants: name the team up front, because that team already has a head start on the work. A Grant proposal includes definitive milestones and a thorough justification of why this team is the one to deliver

Live on the board at launch: RFPs (team wanted)

• Provider-Independent, Client-Verified ENS Resolution ($150,000)
• Production-Ready Local-First Safe UI ($120,000)
• Directory of Value ($185,000)
• OPSEC Ratings Coalition ($150,000)
• Community Fuzzing Tooling for Ethereum Ecosystem Projects ($150,000)

Live on the board at launch: Grants

• End-to-End Formally Verified Vyper Compiler ($600,000, Vyper Foundation)
• Decentralized, Privacy-Preserving EDR ($300,000, Auditware)
• thatsRekt: EVM Exploit Alerts for the Public Good ($45,000, thatsRekt)
• Automated EIP Compliance Checks for Ethereum Clients ($20,000, PRSpec)
• Fund Echidna Development Through 2027 ($48,000, Echidna)

Eligibility

• Anyone can propose an initiative
• Any qualified team can bid on an RFP once it is fully funded
• Grants are for teams that are extremely well positioned to make Ethereum safer with a solution they've already been working on. Grants already in progress that need further funding to finish are also invited

Timeline

• Launch: proposing and fundraising for initiatives is live
• Mid-November: ETHSecurity Badge holders allocate the fund's money (voting details to be announced)
• End of January: Round 2 ends, and initiatives left unfunded close with it

Application Process

• Propose: go to the submit page, copy the AI guide, talk it through with an LLM, and paste the result into the form. Proposing should take under half an hour, and approval a few days. TheDAO Security Fund, through Giveth, reviews every submission and helps shape it into an initiative with a defined scope, budget and draft milestones
• Fund: pledge as a company to a specific initiative, or donate directly to its multisig
• Build (RFPs): once an RFP is fully funded, a 30-day proposal window opens and teams submit proposals on the platform. The RFP's milestones are only an illustrative draft, and improving them or proposing a different solution is encouraged. Giveth, with a team of technical experts, selects the team within 7 days of the window closing. The strength of the adoption milestones is an important part of how competing proposals are judged
• Grants: once a Grant is fully funded, the named team has a 15-day window to file its formal plan with the timeline and final milestones
• Start: once a team is selected, an agreement is signed and work can start

Rules and Conditions

• Every initiative must put at least a third of its budget behind adoption milestones: named users, real integrations, TVL protected, or production use in critical infrastructure
• Each milestone is judged pass or fail by an independent technical reviewer with no ties to the team, named in the agreement before work begins. Giveth double-checks the reviewer's work
• If more funds are needed to complete the work, the team is expected to reach out to the ecosystem for a stop-gap loan
• If a milestone stalls past its agreed delivery date, the team gets a 21-day deadline to complete it. If they miss it, TheDAO Security Fund can reclaim the unspent funds and put them toward other Ethereum security initiatives

Resources and Contact

• Initiatives board: https://initiatives.thedao.fund
• Propose an initiative: https://initiatives.thedao.fund/submit
• Transparency page: https://thedao.fund/transparency
• Ethereum Foundation, Trillion Dollar Security: https://blog.ethereum.org/2025/05/14/trillion-dollar-security
• Telegram: @griffgreen (https://t.me/griffgreen), @Snakeagram (https://t.me/snakeagram), @Cotabe (https://t.me/Cotabe)
• Email: info@thedao.fund
• The team will be at ETHSpain, ETHTokyo, Token2049 and Devcon