Sarang Noether here with a one-time funding request. It was suggested that the Monero Research Lab send some folks to the upcoming Blockchain Protocol Analysis and Security Engineering 2018 conference at Stanford, and to the Real World Crypto 2018 conference in Zurich. The programs are jam-packed with three days of excellent talks relating to cryptographic distributed ledger technologies. This request is for my research brother Surae Noether and I to attend the Stanford conference, and for Surae to attend in Zurich.

One of the major reasons the Lab was founded was to ensure that Monero researchers stay on top of new developments in the field, and academic conferences remain one of the single best ways for researchers to exchange knowledge.

We are requesting the same types of funding as if we were attending on behalf of an academic institution: flights, lodging, rental car, and meals. Below is the breakdown in USD and total in XMR for each conference, using the most reasonable estimates for expenses we could find.

Sarang (Stanford).

Flight: $400

Meals: $288

Rental car: $230

Lodging: $823

TOTAL: $1741 = 4.81 XMR (using $362/XMR as of 1/5/2018 from monero.how)

Surae (Stanford).

Flight: $250

Meals: $288

Rental car: $0 (shared with Sarang)

Lodging: $0 (shared with Sarang)

TOTAL: $538 = 1.49 XMR

Surae (Zurich).

Flight: $2200

Meals: $530

Lodging: $260

TOTAL: $2990 = 8.26 XMR

SUPER DUPER GRAND TOTAL: 14.56 XMR (rounded to 15 XMR because the forum system got angry about decimals)

Our attendance serves two purposes. The first is getting all that chocolatey, gooey, steamy, creamy knowledge from other leaders in cryptography, security, and mathematics, which will help feed into future projects. The second is for us to serve as ambassadors on behalf of the Monero and Lab teams to the larger research community during the conferences. It's good for the Lab to have public faces, and we'd be honored to attend.

Finally, this is an opportunity for community input on conferences. The Lab's fine folks know of conferences that come up from time to time, but we're sure to miss some. If an event comes up that you think deserves Lab attendance, let us know!