RGB Grants Program
Technical Contributions to the RGB Protocol Ecosystem
The RGB Protocol Association establishes the RGB Grants Program to support the research, development, and maintenance of critical infrastructure within the RGB protocol ecosystem.
This program is intended for independent developers, research groups, and corporate engineering teams willing to contribute high-quality, production-grade work that advances the RGB protocol, its core libraries, and its surrounding tooling.
The Association seeks technically sound proposals that improve security, scalability, interoperability, privacy, and developer adoption across the RGB stack.
Program Scope and Objectives
The RGB Grants Program aims to:
- Strengthen the core RGB protocol and its implementation
- Improve interoperability with Bitcoin and the Lightning Network
- Advance privacy-preserving and resource-efficient architectures
- Support the development of reliable, open-source tooling
- Encourage long-term sustainability of the RGB ecosystem
All funded work is expected to adhere to open-source best practices and rigorous documentation standards.
Proposal Eligibility and Evaluation
Proposals may be submitted by individuals or organizations. Each proposal will be evaluated by the RGB Protocol Association based on:
- architectural soundness
- Alignment with the RGB protocol design principles
- Feasibility and clarity of scope and deliverables
- Expected impact on the RGB ecosystem
Grant Evaluation and Assignment Process
The grant process follows three main steps:
Application
Applicants submit a technical proposal as part of the RGB Grants Program application process.Evaluation and Grant Offer
Proposals are evaluated by the RGB Protocol Association.
For selected proposals, the Association defines the approved scope, grant amount, milestones, and delivery timelines, and may issue a grant offer to the applicant.
Project Assignment
Upon acceptance of the grant offer, the applicant formally signs off on the project terms and the project is officially assigned.
Grant disbursement is conditional upon successful completion and technical review.
Funding is provided on a project basis and is conditional upon the successful delivery of the agreed milestones in the grant offer.
Priority Technical Domains
The following domains represent current technical priorities. Proposals outside these domains may still be considered if they demonstrate clear value to the ecosystem.
1. Layer 2 RGB Support
Development efforts aimed at enabling robust, secure, and scalable usage of RGB assets over the Lightning Network.
Representative areas include:
- Ark integration
- Submarine swaps support on RGB LN channels
- HODL invoice extensions
- Asset push amount during LN channel establishment
- RGB LN channel splicing
- RGB-aware BOLT12 invoices
- Tor support on RGB Lightning Node
2. Core Protocol and Library Development
Enhancement and maintenance of RGB protocol and foundational libraries.
Representative areas include:
- Improvements to RGB Libraries
- On-chain atomic swap protocols
- Performance, correctness, and consensus-safety improvements
3. Privacy, Cryptography, and Resource Optimization
Research and implementation of advanced techniques to improve privacy and efficiency.
Representative areas include:
- Integration of Zero-Knowledge Proof systems
- Reduction of bandwidth, storage, and computational overhead
- Trust-minimized and decentralized consignment exchange mechanisms
4. Infrastructure and tooling
Development of infrastructure components and tools that improve reliability and developer experience.
Representative areas include:
- RGB tooling for node operators and service providers
- Improvements to deployment, monitoring, and maintenance workflows
5. Ecosystem and P2P Integrations
Expansion of RGB functionality through integration with decentralized communication and P2P systems.
Representative areas include:
- Nostr-based RGB interactions (https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nostr)
- Hypercore-based (core data replication layer used by Keet and the Pear runtime (https://github.com/holepunchto/hypercore)
Grant Structure and Funding
- Grant size: the grant size will be evaluated case by case, depending on the project complexity, however kindly note that potentially a project can be evaluated up to 40K USD.
- Grants are disbursed upon successful completion and technical review
- Milestone-based delivery may be required for larger or multi-phase projects
- Continued collaboration opportunities may be offered upon successful delivery
Submission Process
Applicants are expected to submit a technical proposal including:
- Problem statement and proposed solution
- Technical architecture and implementation plan
- Milestones, deliverables, and timeline
All accepted contributions must be released under an approved open-source license compatible with the RGB ecosystem.
Call for Technical Proposals
The RGB Protocol Association invites qualified contributors to participate in the ongoing development of RGB.
Organizations and individuals with expertise in Bitcoin, Lightning Network, cryptography, distributed systems, and peer-to-peer architectures are encouraged to submit proposals.
Reference Repositories and Documentation
Applicants are expected to be familiar with the existing RGB codebase, tooling, and documentation. Proposals should reference and build upon the current state of the RGB ecosystem.
Key reference resources include:
RGB Protocol main development repositories:
The primary repositories for RGB protocol development are maintained at
RGB Tools repositories:
A curated collection of tools and experimental projects for building, testing, and integrating RGB-based applications is available at
Official RGB documentation:
The technical documentation for the RGB protocol is available at
Reference website:
General information, ecosystem updates, and high-level overviews can be found at
Applicants are encouraged to review these resources thoroughly before submitting a proposal and to clearly indicate how their work integrates with, extends, or improves the existing RGB ecosystem.