I asked Astra to look through my published science, identify new directions, and draft five NIH R01 proposals -- the multiyear, $1M-$2M grants that support much of academic biomedical science. In about one hour, using roughly $20 in compute, it produced entirely reasonable proposals. They were well grounded in my work and structured to appeal to study section reviewers. They looked very similar to what I would write if my goal were to get another grant. Astra reproduced that logic well. It turned existing work into questions, hypotheses, and experiments that would look familiar and defensible to a study section. The output was immediately recognizable as the work of an experienced academic scientist. If AGI means being able to produce the work of highly trained professionals, this is a clear concrete example. It produced something academic scientists spend a great deal of time doing. Academic medical centers build careers, laboratories, and their finances around this process. Scientists spend years writing these proposals as the next fundable extension of their work.

Science is splitting into two camps on AI: those looking to restrict it, and those looking to integrate it. We're in the second camp. Scientists spend months assembling grant applications that run hundreds of pages. We'd rather they spend that time doing science. 1⃣We find the best matched researchers for an RFP using in-house AI tools 2⃣Read their ORCID & published work 3⃣Auto-generate a preregistered proposal draft for the RFP on @ResearchHub 4⃣Send it along with an outreach message The science and the submission fully belong to the researcher. We want to lower activation energy, but not the bar.

Ethereum is for shipping. Here are 35 things the Ethereum ecosystem launched, upgraded, and announced through August. 1/ GnosisDAO approved a vote to transition @gnosischain from its own L1 to a ZK-proven Ethereum L2 rollup with synchronous composability, so apps on Gnosis and Ethereum can interact in a single transaction. 2/ @BlackRock introduced the BlackRock Select Treasury Based Liquidity Fund (BSTBL) with a tokenized share class on Ethereum mainnet for managing stablecoin and digital asset reserves, and began tokenizing share classes of its $311B European money market fund series on Ethereum. 3/ @aztecnetwork launched Alpha v5, a protocol upgrade that reduced private transaction proving times and brought the first wave of privacy-preserving apps to the network. 4/ @Uniswap processed $1B+ in stock token volume and $20B+ in total volume on @RobinhoodCrypto's Robinhood Chain since its July launch. 5/ @ethPandaOps introduced the Platåberget testnet, preparing client implementations for Glamsterdam, Ethereum's next network upgrade. 6/ @Morpho crossed $880M in total deposits on Robinhood Chain in its first <2 months live and reached $5.75B in total deposits on @base. 7/ @web3privacy shared the Ethereum Privacy Ecosystem Mapping 2026, an updated map and repository covering Ethereum’s privacy ecosystem. 8/ @Revolut announced the phased rollout of its euro-denominated stablecoin EURR, live on Ethereum for eligible users. 9/ @aave v4 surpassed $525M in deposits on Ethereum. 10/ Coinbase Tokenized Stocks launched on @base for non-U.S. users, held 1:1 by a regulated custodian, owned in self-custody wallets, and usable across DeFi 24/7. 11/ @FreedomFactory opened presales for the PQ1, a fully open-source, air-gapped hardware wallet that signs with post-quantum cryptography through an Ethereum smart account. 12/ @OctantApp launched Epoch 13, its latest funding round, focused on privacy on Ethereum and across the open internet. 13/ @selfxyz and Google Cloud launched the USAT Mainnet Faucet on @Celo, letting anyone verified on Self claim USA₮. 14/ @PrivacyBoost launched the Privacy Boost App, a frontend to send private transfers from your connected wallet. 15/ @Whitechain_io, the distribution-focused network connected to the WhiteBit ecosystem, announced it is evolving from an L1 into an Ethereum L2 built on the OP Stack. 16/ @ether_fi added tokenized stocks, portfolio-backed loans through @aave, and other new features to its crypto neobank. 17/ @ethereuminsti announced its ecosystem funding round and supporter coalition, welcoming 100+ organizations to support Ethereum's institutional onboarding, and shared that Open Standard's Open USD stablecoin will launch on Ethereum on day one. 18/ @class_lambda and @gattacahq shared that their PropAMM (pAMMs) infrastructure has facilitated over $2B in total volume swapped on Ethereum. 19/ @theInterfold, an open-source protocol for confidential coordination and encrypted execution environments built on Ethereum, launched its Network Alpha production environment. 20/ @arbitrum activated ArbOS Elara, bringing more responsive fees and 4x bigger Stylus smart contracts to Arbitrum One, along with new features for chains built on the Arbitrum stack. 21/ @Uniswap launched v4 Permissioned Pools, a hook standard to enforce allowlists on swaps and liquidity deposits while the protocol itself stays permissionless, bringing regulated assets to AMM trading with launch partners @SuperstateInc, @Securitize, and Dowgo. 22/ @EthCoordinate, a new crypto-native organization building on the EthStaker community's work, was formed to support Ethereum governance coordination, facilitate stakeholder interaction, and accelerate Ethereum adoption. 23/ @MetaMask launched the MetaMask Agent Wallet, an agentic wallet with built-in spending limits, allowlists, and risk profiles. 24/ @ResearchHub, a tool for the open funding, publication, and discussion of scientific research built on Ethereum and @base, launched a new homepage to surface open research proposals and funding requests. 25/ @base opened applications for Base Batches 004, a startup accelerator program for 10 early-stage teams, and also launched Base Verify Onchain, a privacy-preserving identity layer for apps to enforce one-person-one-claim onchain distributions. 26/ @Cloudflare announced Wallets, enabling AI agents to buy APIs and content with stablecoin payments over the x402 payment standard. 27/ The @ethereumfndn launched the better[.]codes autoresearch challenge to advance post-quantum Ethereum, built with @zksecurityXYZ and @eigenlabs on @yukonresearch, putting a machine-verified security problem on a public leaderboard that anyone can push forward. @Lighter_xyz also launched the Lighter Prover challenge, an autoresearch competition to make Lighter's production exchange faster. 28/ Privacy-focused wallet @staycloakedxyz reached $650k in deposits and $1M in volume in its first 90 days live. 29/ @mtpelerin added support for @ensdomains names as sending and receiving addresses when creating personal IBANs for bank transfers in crypto. 30/ @Blockspace_ETH was announced, a company focused on out-of-protocol infrastructure for Ethereum blockspace. 31/ @0xprivacypools launched onchain payroll support, allowing employers to provide recurring wage payments with privacy for salary amounts and recipient addresses. 32/ Fake World Assets (FWA), a NFT gacha protocol by @token_works, launched the FWAir NFT distribution mechanism with an initial 111 item PFP collection. 33/ Builder @z0r0zzz launched zSwap, a fully onchain decentralized exchange built on Ethereum, with all code, including frontend and application logic, stored on mainnet smart contracts. 34/ MMO game @playcambria surpassed $10M in total game volume in August, and @LootSurvivor and Cambria launched a 72-hour onchain dungeon competition. 35/ @EFDevcon released the official Devcon 8 travel guide for Mumbai ahead of this year's Devcon 8 conference in November.