Budget
Every figure on this page is read from the official application when the site is built, and the build fails if the totals don't add up.
The Skyhook grant requests $255,000 over 39 weeks. Almost all of it pays for research and engineering time; the rest covers build servers and RPC providers. $25,000 is paid on approval as startup funding, and the remainder is paid milestone by milestone, only after reviewers accept each deliverable.
By category
- $220,000Compensation · 86.3%
- $25,500Hardware & software · 10.0%
- $9,500Services (RPC providers) · 3.7%
Total $255,000. $25,000 is requested up front as startup funding; the remaining $230,000 is paid out milestone by milestone, on acceptance.
By milestone
| Milestone | Due | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Startup funding | On approval | $25,000 |
| M1. The Reverse Direction | 5 weeks from approval | $20,000 |
| M2. Programmability | 11 weeks from approval | $40,000 |
| M3. Full Privacy | 18 weeks from approval | $55,000 |
| M4. Mobile | 24 weeks from approval | $45,000 |
| M5. Liquidity That Runs Itself | 30 weeks from approval | $35,000 |
| M6. Documentation and Papers | 39 weeks from approval | $35,000 |
| Total | $255,000 |
Justifications
Quoted unchanged from the official application.
Compensation
- Lead Researcher is being paid $134,750 for 9 months (~$180,000 per year rate), well below industry standard rates for a major researcher in this field (source: Paradigm lead track researchers are paid $390,000 per year)
- The rest of the funds go as follows:
- Samriddha (UI/UX developer) is paid $41,250 (~$55,000 per year rate) as a part-time UI/UX developer, for our bridges and integrations
- $44,000 is reserved for hiring graduate students if required to assist in research.
Hardware & software
Paying for dedicated server slots to run builds and prototype infrastructure for all 9 months, as well as paying for miscellaneous costs during the entire 9-month research run.
Services
Paying for provider RPCs such as Alchemy for multiple chains to run continuous fuzzing and simulations. These costs add up quickly: we ran out of our $5,000 Alchemy grant in 1.5 months of research.
It's lower here because we'll use the hardware costs provided to set up our own RPC nodes, and phase out of Alchemy completely within maximum 2 months.
Startup funding
To purchase the hardware, as well as Alchemy credits to begin the runway. Since this is a project we are resuming rather than beginning, the need for Alchemy and other RPC provider credits, as well as build credits, is now, not after milestones start.