What happened?
The Ethereum Foundation’s Ecosystem Support Program announced a reworked grants model on November 3, 2025. They paused open applications earlier and replaced the old approach with two formal tracks: a Wishlist for broad goals and Requests for Proposals (RFPs) for defined problems. The change is meant to focus the team’s limited capacity on strategic priorities and create a steady, ongoing pipeline of targeted funding.
Who does this affect?
Builders, open-source teams, and public‑goods projects looking for Ethereum Foundation support are the most directly affected. Teams will now need to align proposals to Wishlist areas or respond to specific RFPs, using office hours to check fit before applying. Smaller projects may face clearer expectations but also better coordination, guidance, and connections if they match the Foundation’s priorities.
Why does this matter?
Focusing grants on prioritized areas like cryptography, privacy, the application layer, security, and community can speed up critical infrastructure and tooling that the whole ecosystem depends on. That concentrated support tends to accelerate product development and adoption, which can boost investor confidence and put upward pressure on ETH and related projects over time. At the same time, projects that don’t fit the new tracks could see slower funding, creating short‑term winners and losers and potential volatility for smaller tokens tied to those projects.