The Tezos Foundation has just released its second Biannual Report which describes the group’s overall progress in Q3 and Q4 of 2019. Published on March 19, the report clearly states that Tezos Foundation owns $635 million in assets right now. It’s much more than that of the $232 million raised in its infamous initial coin offering.

When asked to the company’s CFO about how the foundation was able to achieve such a warchest, Roman Schnider describes to the media that the project benefits from positive crypto market dynamics. He said:

The increase is largely due to the appreciation of our blockchain assets over the last three years, BTC and XTZ in particular.

The report released emphasizes how the foundation use its funds, which reveals that it grants more than $37.6 million for the Tezos ecosystem since August 2019.

Further, it focuses that the grants are divided into three main categories. The categories are research and development efforts, ecosystem projects, and community support. To apply for the grant, one has to pass the complex four-step process. It’s where the proposal will be evaluated by several committees and undergoes different due diligence reviews. Tezos Foundation will manage the entire process, which approved 78 grants out of more than 200 in recent times.

Several Notable Grants by the Foundation in late 2019

Though the Tezos Foundation doesn’t reveal any specific funding amounts awarded to date to each project, the report notes that payments are for completing specific milestones.

Research efforts are currently highly determined towards Tezos’ smart contract languages. Organizations such as Blockmatic, Buidi Labs, Kyoto University, The Marigold Project, and others, were all receiving fundings for developing Tezos’ smart contract languages. Other grants were awarded to Cryptium Labs, DaiLambda, and Nomadic Labs for their work on Tezos core software, including staking, privacy, and performance enhancements.

More than 40 organizations to date have received grants for building ecosystem tools and applications. This includes many implementations of Tezos block explorers and staking tools developed by separate companies.

Tezsure also receives some grants, which is an insurance platform based on Tezos, and camlCase, a company working on bringing decentralized finance to Tezos.

Around $13 million was also given to local Tezos communities across the globe. Of which, most of them are engaged in spreading awareness of the project by organizing dedicated meetups and hackathons. Communities providing educational material also receive financial support.

Plenty of reserves

As per the previous media report, one of the major purported drivers for the popularity of Tezos is its foundation’s war chest.

By contrast, the Ethereum Foundation’s wallet currently holds $85 million worth of ETH. This approximately matches the figure the foundation disclosed in May 2019 as part of a $30 million funding commitment.

Though EF reports fiat reserves as well, two more funding rounds of that magnitude would consume the majority of its available capital – while Tezos could continue funding projects at a similar rate for at least seven years.