Today we are announcing the NexusForge Grants Program, a $10 million commitment to fund teams and individuals building on the NexusForge protocol. The funds are allocated from the NexusForge treasury and will be distributed over the next 18 months. Our goal is simple: accelerate the ecosystem by supporting the builders who are creating the tools, integrations, research, and community resources that make verifiable agent infrastructure useful for everyone.
$10M Across Four Categories
The grants program is organized into four categories, each with its own funding allocation and review criteria:
Infrastructure ($5M)
The largest allocation goes to infrastructure projects that improve the core NexusForge stack. This includes proving optimizations (alternative prover implementations, GPU-accelerated provers, mobile provers), node client improvements, alternative execution environments, developer tooling (debuggers, profilers, testing frameworks), and monitoring and observability infrastructure. We are particularly interested in projects that reduce the barrier to running a NexusForge node or improve the developer experience for building and deploying agents.
Integrations ($2M)
Integration grants fund projects that connect NexusForge to other protocols, platforms, and services. Examples include bridge integrations that allow NexusForge agents to interact with new chains, oracle integrations that expand the data sources available to agents, DeFi protocol adapters that simplify agent interactions with lending, DEX, and derivatives platforms, and enterprise middleware connectors (Kafka, RabbitMQ, cloud provider APIs) that make it easier for institutional teams to connect NexusForge to their existing infrastructure.
Research ($2M)
Research grants support academic and applied research that advances the state of the art in verifiable computation, agent systems, and related fields. Topics of interest include formal verification of agent manifests, novel approaches to verifiable model inference, cryptographic protocol analysis, mechanism design for decentralized compute markets, and privacy-preserving agent architectures. We welcome proposals from university research groups, independent researchers, and industry labs.
Community ($1M)
Community grants fund educational content, events, and ecosystem resources. This includes technical tutorials and guides, video content and courses, hackathon organization and sponsorship, translation and localization of documentation, community-run support channels and forums, and open-source agent templates and starter kits. We believe a strong community is the foundation of a healthy ecosystem, and we want to invest in the people who are helping others learn and build.
Application Process
Applying for a grant is straightforward. Submit a proposal through our grants portal that includes a clear description of what you are building, why it matters for the NexusForge ecosystem, a timeline with milestones, a budget breakdown, and the team's relevant experience. Proposals are reviewed by the NexusForge Grants Committee, which includes members of the core team, external advisors, and community representatives.
We review proposals on a rolling basis. Small grants (under $25,000) are reviewed within two weeks. Medium grants ($25,000 to $100,000) are reviewed within four weeks. Large grants (over $100,000) go through a two-stage process with an initial review and a follow-up interview, typically completed within six weeks.
Timeline
- February 5, 2026: Grants portal opens for applications
- March 1, 2026: First batch of small grants awarded
- April 2026: First batch of medium and large grants awarded
- Ongoing: Rolling review through August 2027
What Should You Build?
To give you a sense of the kinds of projects we are excited about, here are a few concrete examples:
- A GPU-accelerated prover that runs on consumer hardware and reduces proof generation time below 100ms
- A visual agent builder that lets non-developers create and deploy NexusForge agents through a drag-and-drop interface
- A Uniswap v4 hook that uses NexusForge agents for verifiable MEV protection
- A formal verification toolkit for agent manifests that can prove safety properties before deployment
- A comprehensive video course covering NexusForge from zero to production deployment
- An agent marketplace where developers can publish, discover, and fork verified agent templates
These are suggestions, not requirements. We are open to creative proposals that we have not thought of. If you believe your project will make the NexusForge ecosystem stronger, we want to hear about it.
How to Apply
Visit grants.nexusforge.io to submit your proposal. If you have questions about whether your idea fits the program, drop into our Discord's #grants channel -- the Grants Committee monitors it daily and is happy to give informal feedback before you submit a formal application.
We are building the infrastructure for a verifiable future, and we cannot do it alone. If you are a builder, a researcher, or a community leader who shares that vision, we want to fund your work. Apply today.