The Mina Foundation Transparency Report is a quarterly report that includes key platform metrics and protocol developments, among other important updates.

1 General Update

The Mina Foundation continues to make significant strides in supporting the Mina community, with a focus on community-driven initiatives, developer engagement, and protocol governance improvements. This update covers key developments in our Community Grants Programs, including zkIgnite’s third cohort achievements, the relaunch of the Mina Navigators program, and the Core Grants Program’s latest project grants. Additionally, we’re enhancing protocol governance through the introduction of a new MIP process, fostering transparency and collaborative decision-making within the Mina community.

1a Community Grants Programs

zkIgnite

zkIgnite is a cohort-based, community-governed grant program for developers to turn their ideas into full-fledged businesses.

Cohort 3 builders presented their final milestones during August, 2024, which community electors then reviewed and voted on - you can find the presentations here. Five technical reviewers evaluated each project, and those who received 3 or more ‘yes’ votes are considered successful. Based on this criteria, 17 out of 21 Cohort 3 projects successfully delivered their milestones, marking an 81% delivery success rate. 

After participating in cohorts 1, 2 and 3 of zkIgnite, Protokit founders Raphael Panic and Matej Sima joined Mina Foundation full-time in July 2024, where they continue development of Protokit, a protocol development framework for privacy enabled application chains. Other Cohort 3 grantees will continue developing their projects, with some planning to launch on mainnet over the coming months. 

Projects are paid 33.3% upfront (upon passing KYC), then 33.3% after successful completion of their midpoint milestones, and the final 33.3% upon completion of their final milestones. The total committed grant amount is 1,279,431 MINA, of which a final amount of 282,644 MINA, corresponding to final milestones, was paid to Cohort 3 projects in Q3, 2024.

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Mina Navigators

Mina Navigators is an ongoing developer program designed for early to mid-lifecycle teams to experiment and build on Mina. The program was relaunched for Season 2 in June, 2024 with a new structure and several improvements based on Season 1 learnings, with the goal of funding at least 100 projects over the course of 2024.

This season of the program presents developers with two grant tracks (Starter and Growth), and also introduces a Navigator’s Exploration Team (NExT), comprising experts from o1Labs, Mina Foundation, and experienced builders from the community. 

As of September 2024, the Growth Track has received 57 applications, of which 19 have been funded,  A total of 28 builders have been invited to join the Starter track.  447,000 MINA has been distributed in Q3.This includes payments made to Navigators S1 winners and both tracks in Season 2.

NExT (Navigator’s Exploration Team) is responsible for evaluating Navigators’ milestones, and providing feedback on the architecture. NExT also works closely with grantees to provide technical guidance and assistance where necessary, improving the developer's journey. NExT members (from the community) earn MINA for their efforts. A total of 70,000 MINA has been paid since the beginning of the Navigators program.  

Proposals for Season 2 are live on MinaResearch forum and are open for public comments.

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Core Grants

Mina Foundation’s Core Grants Program aims to support projects committed to improving the Mina Protocol, focused on two primary funding areas. The first relates to ecosystem advancements, covering specific deliverables in areas that promote the growth of the Mina ecosystem. This can include anything from token standards, to zkOracles, DA layers and more. The second area is focused on supporting public goods. By actively participating in open discussions and submitting proposals, community members not only play a key role in shaping the vision of Mina but also have the opportunity to secure funding.

A public facing project board is updated to keep the community informed, supported by regular community calls by the Mina Foundation team.

In Q3 2024, under the Core Program, Mina Foundation issued grants to the following applicants following their successful proposals:

• Economics Design - Tokenomics report RFP
• zk Security - Private Credential API RFP
• Piconbello - zkPassport RFP‍
• Pallad - Wallet Provider API RFP

Work is currently underway on these projects and progress can be tracked via the Project Board.

In August, the Fungible Token Standard was also published after the completion of the security audit from Veridise.

In September, Geometry Research released their implementation for verifying Celestia data-availability proofs in Mina, made possible by a joint grant from the Mina Foundation and Celestia.

1b Decentralized Protocol Governance

The team recently published a MIP Upgrade proposal introducing a new and enhanced MIP process, complete with a revised template and multiple categories, including engineering, governance, and economics, along with new roles.This MIP Upgrade is the biggest proposal for improvement to the Mina Protocol’s governance since the launch of the MIP process.The draft is now available for review on Mina Research.

Additionally, the team is working on other important workstreams to promote knowledge-sharing about different governance concepts and support Mina Protocol’s governance workstreams with the correct tools. The Mina Protocol Governance Knowledge Hub was launched in August, 2024, where progress is shared.

You can find more updates and join the protocol governance discussions on Mina's Discord server, under the Protocol Governance category, in the following channels:

• #governance-announcements - the most important updates;
• #surveys - open surveys to gather everyone's thoughts and ideas to improve proposals;
• #general-discussion - the primary place for all protocol governance discussions;
• #minaresearch - general questions or discussions related to topics from MinaResearch.