The Sia Foundation welcomes contributors from all over the world to come and build on Sia through our Grants program. Our goal for this program is to fund research, development, developer tools, and anything else that will support and further our mission of user-owned data while enriching the Sia ecosystem.
The following section outlines the proposal requirements, the proposal process, and evaluation criteria for the Sia grant program. Read on to get started on your own grant application.
- Name of organization or individual and project name.
- Purpose of the grant: who benefits and how the project will serve the Foundation’s mission of user-owned data.
- Code contributions must be open source.
- Timeline with measurable objectives and goals.
- Any potential risks that will affect the outcome of the project.
- Budget and justification.
- Reporting requirements: Progress reports to the foundation/committee and to the community.
- Create a proposal with the above requirements in mind.
- Submit your proposal at https://forum.sia.tech/c/grants/8.
- Open discussion will ensue in the comment section from the community.
- The Grant Committee convenes every two weeks to review the following:
- New proposals, to accept, reject, or request more info.
- Existing grants, to assess their progress.
- Newly completed grants, to review their outcomes.
All proposals are reviewed by the Grant Committee. When evaluating a grant proposal, the Committee considers the following factors while utilizing a scoring matrix to ensure a thorough vetting process.
- In line with Foundation’s mission: Does the proposal address a recognized need in the decentralized cloud storage community? Is the need consistent with The Sia Foundation’s mission of user-owned data?
- Community Impact: Will the project provide a meaningful volume of services and/or people served in the decentralized cloud storage community (in particular the Sia community)?
- Goals, Objectives & Outcome: Are there clear goals and objectives written? Are measurable outcomes evident?
- Deliverable: How well does the individual/organization demonstrate the ability to deliver and measure proposed outcomes?
- Risks and Technical Feasibility: Is the risk reasonable for the timeline provided? Please be thoughtful if the risk is high enough to impact the outcome of the project.
- Budget Justification: How well does the applicant justify the budget?
- Luke (Sia Foundation)
- Nate (Sia Foundation)
- Chris (Sia Foundation)
- Manasi (Sia community)
- Mike76 (Sia community)
- Redsolver (Sia community)
The Sia community would love to see the following projects built. If you are interested in building one of these projects, please reach out to the community on Discord to discuss your proposal.
Nextcloud is a suite of client-server software for creating and using file hosting services. Interested in building a NextCloud Sia integration?
IPFS is a widely used peer-to-peer hypermedia protocol that supports content addressing. A renterd storage backend would allow an IPFS gateway to store its data on Sia.
S3 is a widely adopted object storage protocol created by AWS. A renterd S3 gateway would allow data stored on Sia to be accessed via the wide variety of software that supports the S3 protocol.
FUSE (Filesystem in Userspace) is a Unix-based filesystem that allows users to mount a virtual filesystem in userspace. With FUSE integration, users could mount renterd storage as a virtual drive and access it from their local file system. With write support, users could modify files and folders stored on renterd directly from their local machine.
iSCSI and NFS are both network file-sharing protocols commonly used in enterprise environments. Integrating renterd with iSCSI and NFS would allow users to mount remote storage volumes and access renterd storage as a local disk. This would make it easier for organizations to use renterd as a secure and cost-effective alternative to traditional storage solutions.
A Telegram bot (or any other messaging service) that forwards any urgent renterd alerts from the Alerts API.
Sia is a thriving ecosystem of data storage enthusiasts, open source software, and commercial data storage platforms. Apply for a Sia grant and start contributing.
Private and decentralized open-source cloud storage app with encrypted file sharing and media streaming support.
Content-addressed storage, but fast. Works with Sia and any S3-compatible storage provider.
The Sia Central Host Browser lets you explore and filter Sia hosts by a variety of criteria.
The Sia Foundation looks forward to funding your open source research and development projects.
Your path to a Sia Foundation grant starts with a proposal. Among other things, your proposal outlines what you want to do, how it will benefit the Sia ecosystem, and how much money you’ll need. Our committee then makes a determination to approve, conditionally approve, or reject, with your next steps provided to you as a response to your proposal.
You can apply for a grant by making a new post in our forum here, under the Grants category. You can refer to this post for proposal requirements.
You can join the Sia Foundation Discord and ask questions in #grants-program.
Our goal for this program is to fund research, development, developer tools, and anything else that will support and further our mission of user-owned data while enriching the Sia ecosystem.
Approved grant funds can cover all costs associated with your project. Common project fees include development, operations, services, and more.
Grants are reviewed and accepted by the Sia Grants Committee and in parallel approved by the Sia Foundation Board of Directors.
- Foundation employees: Luke Champine, Nate Maninger, Chris Schinnerl
- Community members: Redsolver, Mike76, Manasi Vora
They meet every 2 weeks.
One week before the meeting, to ensure committee members and other users have time to review the proposal and ask you questions about the proposal. Not to worry, the committee will review your proposal at the next meeting!
- In line with Foundation’s mission: Does the proposal address a recognized need in the decentralized cloud storage community? Is the need consistent with The Sia Foundation’s mission of user-owned data?
- Community Impact: Will the project provide a meaningful volume of services and/or people served in the decentralized cloud storage community (in particular the Sia community)?
- Goals, Objectives & Outcome: Are there clear goals and objectives written? Are measurable outcomes evident?
- Deliverables: How well does the individual/organization demonstrate the ability to deliver and measure proposed outcomes?
- Risks & Technical Feasibility: Is the risk reasonable for the timeline provided? Be thoughtful if the risk is high enough to impact the outcome of the project.
- Budget Justification: How well does the applicant justify the budget?
Grant committee support will post feedback and/or approval on the forum in your proposal post.
If approved, you’re all set! You’ll then move on to our Post Approval process, which includes communicating with our operations team to complete the paperwork associated with your grant in compliance with United States Law.
If conditionally approved, you’re good to go as long as you commit to making our recommended changes. The committee will communicate further with you during the Post Approval process.
If rejected, it’s not the end of the road. We’ll provide feedback on where your proposal was lacking so you can fix it up and re-apply.
Simply add a new comment to your proposal with the new application and ensure that it aligns with the criteria provided above while also taking into consideration why your previous application was rejected.
Grants are only offered in USD at this time.
If approved, you’re all set! You’ll then move on to our Post Approval process, which includes communicating with our operations team to complete the paperwork associated with your grant in compliance with United States Law.
If conditionally approved, you’re good to go as long as you commit to making our recommended changes. The committee will communicate further with you during the Post Approval process.
Grants are only offered in USD at this time. For grants with a timeline of 1 or more years, payments will be made quarterly. For grants with a timeline of less than 1 year, payments will be made monthly. Grant payments are made the 15th of every month. Please note that it may take a few days for payments to be received.
- Monthly reports are due the 2nd of every month after your grant has been approved.
- Please use the following form for your monthly report submission.
- On the forum where your proposal was submitted, just add a comment to your proposal.
If you’re still within your original grant period but funds have run dry, you can request additional funds. The committee will review this request and recommend approval or rejection.
If you’ve completed your project and wish to continue working under a grant, you can submit a new proposal for committee review.
If you’re interested but have questions or need help submitting your grant feel free to join the discord server and hop in the #grants-program channel to chat with Kino, Frances, and the committee members. This channel provides a space to ask questions, discuss the grant program, share ideas, provide feedback, and collaborate with community members.
0 block height
84,610 online hosts
388 active hosts
4.36 PB total storage
1.01 PB used storage
11,244 M total registry
129 M used registry
20,995 commits
72 contributors
479 forks
43 releases
