Filecoin, operated by Protocol Labs, has announced details on their Spacewarp program which will help deliver $450,000 in funds to blockchain developers and project teams through a variety of ways. The move comes before the launch of their Filecoin virtual machine on their mainnet.

Spacewarp funding

Spacewarp has funding prepared for 5 separate categories that will all help boost the network which is set to expand with the virtual machine. 

1. Next Step Microgrant

   Filecoin has created a microgrant up to $5,000 to be paid out in Filecoin to qualified candidates who apply for the grant. The funds will assist projects with developing late stage steps for their roadmap.

   To be considered for the grant, teams will need to have built a working product that is associated with Filecoin or other technologies created by Protocol Labs such as IPFS or libp2p.

2. Leaderboards

   Community-led leaderboards will be established to help highlight successful projects that deserve recognition. Voting will be held in rounds and winners receive prizes. While details on prizes are sparse, it’s safe to assume that they will involve Filecoin, IPFS, and other services run by Protocol Labs.

3. Hackathon

   Protocol Labs will host a hackathon to help support new and growing talent in the web3 space. $150,000 has been allocated to the prize pool to further incentivize teams to build innovative projects on the Filecoin mainnet to help it grow and become more efficient for users.

4. Bounty Program

   A bounty program has also been created to help make the new Filecoin virtual machine bug proof and resistant to future issues that could deter the network. This is especially important because the finality of blockchain code makes it difficult or even impossible to correct errors that have already been submitted to the blockchain. Developers are incentivized by a $100,000 prize pool for detecting and fixing early bugs.

5. Accelerator

   The accelerator program aims at supporting new teams and projects as they build on the Filecoin network. Builders will get mentorship training that can help them craft projects correctly and without major errors and complications learned in the past from leading experts at Protocol Labs. 

   The accelerator project also includes future funding options as well to allow these projects to continue to survive. This is extremely important as many projects run the risk of losing funding before their goals are accomplished, preventing major innovation from happening.

Collaboration with Tableland

To further reinforce the launch of their mainnet and virtual machine, Filecoin has also announced a collaboration with Tableland to support teams with funding by building new projects that focus on Filecoin and Tableland.

Filecoin will provide up to $5,000 in matched funding for projects as well as supporting development of new proof-of-concept products and protocols that further the success of web3 all together. 

Filecoin has also stated that they will be giving special consideration to projects that are able to develop novel concepts for NFTs, GameFi, and the metaverse where innovation has been stagnant during the past year with the public reception of NFTs consistently dropping.