The PBS Foundation is a not for profit foundation based out of the Cayman Islands. The mission of the Foundation is to spearhead research pertaining to Proposer-Builder Separation (PBS) and to provide infrastructure support for those committed to the ethos underlying PBS. The PBS Foundation will focus on issuing grants that can support a more independent and robust validator ecosystem underlying Ethereum. The following RFP pertains to PBS research grants.
Since Ethereum moved to proof-of-stake, centralization in Ethereum has become a significant concern for the ecosystem. In order to prevent centralization in staking pools, mev-boost was adopted as an implementation of PBS in order to democratize access to MEV among all validators, and to allow us to observe the MEV in the ecosystem.
While mev-boost has been successful in its initial objectives, there are still many open research questions that need to be examined, and a number of problems that need to be solved. There are still significant levels of centralization in both block builders and relays.
We are requesting proposals for research that can help the ecosystem to better understand how the current implementation of PBS is working, and how the ecosystem can improve on the current implementation.
Below you can find a list of topics we would like to see addressed by proposals.
Orderflow and transaction life cycle analysis and insights
Analysis of how PBS is being approached across L2s
Geographical distribution of validator nodes
Enshrined PBS (ePBS, “on-chain” PBS)
Testing, security, & performance
The PBS Foundation is interested in any research proposals pertaining to any area of Proposer-Builder Separation and is not limited to the areas outlined above. Feel free to apply for an non-RFP research grant to propose a research question with a different focus.
We are looking to accept multiple proposals pertaining to the PBS ecosystem that aim to design, refine, build, analyze, and/or test both theoretical and practical concerns. Anyone can submit a proposal to the PBS Foundation for review. The proposals will be reviewed and delivered by the research grants committee.