Protocol Guild is a collective funding mechanism that distributes donated tokens directly to Ethereum Layer 1 core protocol contributors through onchain, time-weighted vesting. With over $100 million in cumulative donations and approximately 190 active members across 30 teams, it is the largest sustained funding initiative for Ethereum's core infrastructure workforce.
The mechanism is simple: Protocol Guild maintains a publicly verifiable, onchain registry of active contributors. Donated assets vest over a 4-year period and are split proportionally based on each member's longevity-weighted participation. There are no proposals to evaluate, no grants to apply for, and no influence over protocol direction — just a neutral channel for the ecosystem to compensate the people who build and maintain Ethereum's base layer.
How It Works
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Onchain membership registry: A self-curated list of active Ethereum L1 contributors — spanning execution clients (Geth, Reth, Nethermind, Besu, Erigon), consensus clients (Prysm, Lighthouse, Lodestar, Nimbus, Teku), research, testing, and coordination teams — is updated quarterly through member votes.
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Donations flow in: Any address can contribute ETH or ERC-20 tokens at any time on Ethereum mainnet (theprotocolguild.eth) or across L2s including Arbitrum, Base, Optimism, Polygon, Scroll, and ZKsync.
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4-year vesting: Donated assets vest over a 4-year period through Split and Vesting contracts (via 0xSplits), supporting contributor retention and long-term alignment.
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Proportional distribution: Funds are allocated based on time-weighted participation — members who have contributed longer receive proportionally larger shares — with permissionless claiming.
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The 1% Pledge: Protocol Guild has established a social norm for token-based projects to allocate a portion of their native token supply to Ethereum core development. Notable pledgers include ether.fi (
$27.5M), Taiko ($20.9M), EigenLayer (1% of EIGEN supply), Puffer Finance, and the Aligned Foundation.
Key Metrics
- Cumulative donations: Over $100 million from 832+ unique donors across 8,282+ individual contributions
- Active members: ~190 contributors across ~30 teams
- Median annual payout: ~$54,000–$66,000 per member
- Member retention impact: 59% of members report Protocol Guild support is "very or extremely important" to their ability to keep contributing to Ethereum
- Compensation gap addressed: Core protocol contributors earn an estimated 50–60% below comparable market rates
Participating Teams
Protocol Guild's membership spans the core teams building Ethereum's base layer:
- Execution clients: Geth, Erigon, Nethermind, Hyperledger Besu, EthereumJS, Reth
- Consensus clients: Prysm, Lighthouse, Lodestar, Nimbus, Teku
- Research & development: EF Research, Ipsilon, Privacy & Scaling Explorations, Robust Incentives Group, TXRX
- Coordination & support: EF Security, EF Protocol Support, EF Testing, EF DevOps, Ethereum Cat Herders, Portal Network, Solidity
Background
Protocol Guild was founded by Trent Van Epps and launched as a one-year pilot in May 2022 with 111 members. The initiative emerged from a recognition that Ethereum's core protocol work — underpinning hundreds of billions of dollars in ecosystem value — suffered from a persistent compensation gap that traditional grants and foundation funding alone could not close.
The pilot demonstrated strong product-market fit, growing to 128 members and attracting significant donations. Protocol Guild has since evolved through a v2 smart contract upgrade that moved the membership registry fully onchain (eliminating offchain trust assumptions), expanded to accept donations across multiple L2s, and grown its membership to approximately 190 contributors.
In 2025, Protocol Guild marked Ethereum's 10th anniversary of zero downtime — a direct testament to the sustained work of the contributors the fund supports.
