Hi @Sov and Grants Committee,
Thank you for the feedback on our earlier Solana client-tooling idea. We understand that the proposed functionality was already covered or was not a current funding priority, so we will not pursue that scope.
Before preparing another application, we would like to take a more evidence-first approach. We are considering a short, self-funded research sprint to identify one concrete and currently unowned problem within the priorities described in CIP-82:
- Developer onboarding and enablement
- Strategic ecosystem alignment
- Novel applications built on CoW Protocol
- Integrations capable of producing measurable protocol usage
The research would include:
- Reviewing current CoW repositories, issues, technical discussions, grants, and active development.
- Checking whether each identified problem already has an owner, an existing solution, a pending grant, or a place on the core-team roadmap.
- Speaking with the relevant maintainer before proposing implementation.
- Producing a public evidence package describing the problem, affected users, existing solutions, and measurable acceptance criteria.
- Building a prototype only after the problem and external ownership are confirmed.
We are not requesting funding for this research sprint.
Before beginning, could the committee clarify:
- Which one or two CoW areas currently need external problem discovery or technical research?
- Are unsolicited grant applications still welcome under the CIP-82 priorities, or should external builders wait for published RFPs?
- Is the Volume-Based Integration Program accepting new applications during the current grant cycle?
- If the research identifies a genuine, unowned problem and the relevant maintainer confirms external ownership, should the next step be an RFC, a prototype, or a formal grant application?
- Is there any current problem area for which the committee does not want external proposals?
Our intention is to avoid duplicating existing work and return only if we can demonstrate a verified problem, a practical implementation path, and measurable value for CoW Protocol.
Thank you.