Despite its revolutionary technology and world class talent, the EOS ecosystem hasn't met the growth expectations of many in the EOS community. Some blame Block.one for this sluggish growth. Others blame Block Producers. But the truth is that the decentralized EOS community itself is ultimately responsible for EOS ecosystem development. And now, with the formation of the EOS Network Foundation (ENF), this community is poised to begin exercising this responsibility in a big way.

Funded directly by the EOS network and guided by the leadership of Yves La Rose, the ENF began deploying capital immediately. A 200,000 $EOS grant was transferred to EdenOnEos and $3.4m of EOS Recognition Grants were agreed upon by the ENF's Board of Advisors. According to La Rose:

"The Board came up with an objective set of criteria that would allow them to make fast and efficient decisions on which projects were to be recognized for these initial grants. To be considered, each project or business needed to already be established and known by the majority of the board. Keep in mind that none of these projects submitted an application and there were no pitch decks, so each decision was made based on a project’s reputation and its history of building on or working with EOS. Every project or business being recognized will receive the same amount of funding regardless of their contributions."

These Recognition Grants will be given to 34 projects, each of which will receive $100,000. There are to be five rounds of grants. The first round was recently distributed to six projects operating in EOS media, NFTs, and community.

Initial Recognition Grant Recipients

AtomicAssets — The EOSIO standard for NFTs. This standard makes it easy for users to generate EOS NFTs. It has attractive features like low RAM costs and the ability to back assets with tokens. Anyone can buy, sell, or trade EOS AtomicAssets in the AtomicHub marketplace.

ByWire News — A blockchain publishing platform and new aggregator. According to the website, "Bywire is the first news outlet in the world to utilize blockchain technology - a system which guarantees accountability by ensuring that when a publisher does inevitably make an error, Readers will be able to access a permanent record of all changes made." In part, this accountability is made possible by storing content on InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) and hashing to the EOS public blockchain. A decentralized self-governing structure incentivizes good and accurate reporting, in part by leveraging users' EOS accounts.

EOS Go — EOS Go has been providing news and information for the EOS community since 2017. Its content is published in both English and Chinese. The EOS Go homepage features an excellent collection of EOS projects for the community to use as a reference.

EOS Microloan — EOS Microloan provides financial services in the EOS ecosystem. It allows the unbanked to borrow funds and produces investment returns for participants willing to provide those funds. By rejecting the debt-based liquidity of the legacy banking system and instead employing asset-based liquidity, EOS Microloan is creating a more sensible and accessible financial infrastructure. MLT utility tokens and a smart contract called 'divmicrofund' facilitate this activity.

Finney.World — Finney is a fictional character designed to educate people about cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. Originally launched as an NFT series on EOS, this character now serves as a crypto mascot on multiple blockchains. Finney NFTs have been used to incentivize content creation and community engagement.

Koreos — Koreos provides translations of EOS content written or spoken in English. This creates an important communication bridge between the global East and West. Koreos was an early DAO and was one of the first EOS communities in South Korea.