1. Q2 at a Glance
Q1 carryover projects closed this quarter:
fiber-checkout completed with an excellent evaluation, delivering a live npm package, working demo, and video — the “Pay with Fiber” button now exists for any React developer. ckb-probe completed with strong deliverables — v0.1.0/v0.1.1 shipped, Docker reproducible environment provided, bilingual documentation delivered, and the builder is now exploring Community Fund DAO for long-term maintenance. CKB Dev Doctor was rejected — the committee could not identify a specific developer workflow where existing diagnostic tools were insufficient, and the proposal failed to demonstrate that the problem was real and urgent for CKB. The committee redirected the builder toward producing a structured developer onboarding guide instead. DAO Live Widget was rejected — insufficient differentiation from existing governance tools, and no evidence that CKB DAO voters needed this specific interface. CKB-UGMP (formerly CKB-UGAP) was approved after revision — the builder narrowed scope, provided a clear verification plan, and demonstrated strong technical alignment with CKB’s Spore/DOB infrastructure. Now In-Progress. Nervos Brain remains In-Progress, continuing development as a $2,000 project under the tiered-funding policy.
Q2 new applications:
| Project | Direction | Status | Grant |
|---|---|---|---|
| CKB Developer Onboarding Guide | Structured developer guide | Closure — committee-closed due to insufficient CKB development experience | — |
| Dular | Mobile money + Fiber settlement | In-Progress | $2,000 |
| Tiko | Creator commerce expansion | Rejection — multiple revision cycles, scope never clarified | — |
| Tiko Creator Commerce Validation Sprint | Narrowed re-proposal from Tiko | Submitted — awaiting review | — |
| Cell Sandbox | Visual playground for CKB Cell Model | Submitted — awaiting review | — |
| CKB Wallet Behaviour Intelligence | Federated ML for wallet classification | Submitted — pre-review feedback given, awaiting revisions | — |
| CKB-Sweep | Sponsored Cell consolidation utility | Submitted — pre-review feedback given, awaiting revisions | — |
| CellKit Actions | Reusable transaction-action toolkit | Pre-review — pre-review feedback given, awaiting revisions | — |
| CKB Builder Lab AI | Interactive developer onboarding simulation | Pre-review — pre-review feedback given, awaiting revisions | — |
8 new applications in Q2 (excluding Tiko re-proposal and CKB Developer Onboarding Guide), compared to 7 in Q1. Application rate continues to grow.
Q2 outcome summary across both carryover and new projects: 2 completed (fiber-checkout, ckb-probe), 1 closure (CKB Developer Onboarding Guide), 3 rejected (CKB Dev Doctor, DAO Live Widget, Tiko), 3 approved and In-Progress (Nervos Brain, CKB-UGMP, Dular), 6 Submitted under review, 1 re-proposal Submitted for Q3.
2. Ecosystem Insights: Three Directions Deepening in Q2
No one told these builders what to build. They arrived independently, from different countries, with different backgrounds. Yet their proposals cluster around three clear directions — two carried forward from Q1 with new evidence, one emerging this quarter.
Direction 1: Fiber’s protocol capabilities are being turned into real-world products.
fiber-checkout completed the frontend “Pay with Fiber” component as a live npm package with demo and video — any React developer can now add Fiber payments in minutes. Dular is building mobile money settlement on Fiber for African markets, using operator-managed testnet nodes with phone-number-based transfers and M-Pesa integration. Two projects, two entry points (web component, mobile money), one signal: Fiber’s protocol layer has tooling, and that tooling is now being applied to concrete economic scenarios beyond the CKB-native developer community.
Direction 2: CKB’s unique state model is getting an interactive layer.
CKB-UGMP (approved) improves the Spore/DOB minting experience, making digital object creation on CKB more seamless with better metadata handling and IPFS integration. Cell Sandbox (submitted) proposes a visual playground for the Cell Model — a no-code canvas for creating cells and assembling transactions, with input/output Cell display and multi-wallet connector support. CellKit Actions (submitted) proposes turning common CKB transaction patterns into reusable, inspectable code with a web playground. Three different approaches — minting infrastructure, visual simulation, reusable transaction components — but all attempting to make CKB’s Cell Model and Spore protocol more accessible and programmable for developers who are not yet deep in the stack.
Direction 3: AI-assisted developer onboarding is being tested.
Nervos Brain (approved in Q1, ongoing) continues building an Agentic RAG-powered developer assistant — Spark’s first $2,000 project under the updated tiered-funding policy. CKB Builder Lab AI (submitted late Q2) proposes interactive simulation environments for learning CKB concepts, plus a lightweight AI learning assistant scoped strictly to in-platform educational support. Two projects, one question: can AI meaningfully reduce the gap between reading CKB documentation and writing working CKB code? Nervos Brain’s final testing will provide the first evidence. The fact that a second builder entered this space in Q2 suggests the problem is widely felt — not just by newcomers, but by experienced developers who see onboarding as a persistent ecosystem bottleneck.
What this means:
Builder proposals are becoming more specific and more grounded. Q1’s directions were broad (Fiber access layer, developer experience, Web5 experiments). Q2 sees those directions deepen: Fiber is not just “missing tooling” but now has completed tooling being applied to mobile money; developer experience is not just “hard to get started” but now has node-level diagnostics and transaction component libraries targeting production workflows; AI is not a vague hope but a specific hypothesis being tested with $2,000 and a defined measurement plan. The increase in application volume (9 in Q2 vs 7 in Q1) combined with higher specificity suggests the ecosystem is entering a new phase: less speculative, more practical. Builders are no longer guessing what CKB needs; they are building what they themselves needed, and submitting evidence that it works.
3. Quality Control: Filtering, Correcting, and Terminating
A grant program that only reports successes is not honest. Spark’s value lies equally in what it funds, what it rejects, and what it stops when delivery falls short.
CKB Dev Doctor, Rejected.
Proposed a CLI diagnostic tool for CKB development environments. The committee could not identify a specific workflow where existing tools (Docker logs, CCC debug output, testnet error messages) were insufficient. The proposal described a solution before establishing that the problem was real. The committee redirected the builder toward producing a structured developer onboarding guide as a more impactful alternative — the builder’s existing research on diagnostic checklists and environment requirements would provide a strong foundation for such documentation.
CKB Developer Onboarding Guide, Closure.
This project was submitted following the committee’s redirect from CKB Dev Doctor — shifting from a CLI tool that faced a bootstrapping paradox to a high-quality, comprehensive developer guide that could be accessed without pre-installing any software. The committee closed the project after the deliverables failed to meet standards, due to the developer’s insufficient hands-on CKB development experience. This case illustrates a limit of the redirect strategy: a builder’s skills may align with one format but not another, and committee guidance cannot compensate for domain expertise gaps.
DAO Live Widget, Rejected.
Proposed a Discourse governance widget for CKB DAO voting. Did not demonstrate that existing governance participation tools were failing or that CKB DAO voters needed this specific interface. Insufficient differentiation from existing tools. The “build it and they will come” assumption remains a common failure mode.
Tiko, Rejected after multiple revision cycles.
Initial scope included 7 product categories (ticketing, digital drops, memberships, collectibles, creator profiles, analytics, marketplace). After liaison feedback narrowed to 3, the proposal remained a feature development plan rather than a hypothesis validation plan. The committee’s core question — “what exactly will you build in 6 weeks and how will we verify it?” — was never satisfactorily answered. The builder was responsive and iterated on feedback, which the committee values; but responsiveness cannot substitute for clarity. A significantly narrowed follow-up proposal (Validation Sprint) has been submitted for Q3 review.
CKB-VM Sail Formal Verification, Submitted but not pursued.
The proposal requested $1,000 for foundational formal verification work using Sail specification and Coq theorem prover — a project of significant technical merit, proposed by a builder with direct experience at PLCT Lab on the Sail & ACT team. Pre-review feedback was provided outlining that the project falls outside Spark’s scope as an infrastructure-class initiative rather than a tool-class verifiable MVP. Spark’s mandate is rapid prototyping of developer-facing tools with clear, short-term verification paths. Foundational verification research, while valuable to the ecosystem, requires a different funding model and longer timeline. The builder did not respond to pre-review feedback. We thank the builder for the proposal and wish them success in securing suitable funding through the appropriate channels.
These cases reinforce the standard established in Q1: demonstrate the pain, demonstrate that existing solutions don’t solve it, then propose your solution. The bar has not lowered. In a world where AI can generate plausible proposals and passable code in minutes, the ability to think clearly about problems and scope is more valuable than ever.
4. Spark → DAO Graduation Pipeline
No projects graduated from Spark to DAO in Q2. However, one project is actively exploring the path:
ckb-probe — upon completion, Clair asked about long-term maintenance funding. The liaison advised engaging the community (Nervos Nation Telegram) to build awareness and gather user validation before approaching DAO. This is the recommended path: demonstrate community need, collect usage evidence, then graduate. A potential candidate for Q3 graduation if community traction is demonstrated.
Nervos Brain — remains the most likely next graduation candidate if its current phase demonstrates sufficient traction and user adoption.
The pipeline is working as designed: Spark incubates, validates, and graduates. Not every project should grow — many (fiber-checkout, ckb-probe) are complete at Spark scale. The ones that graduate will be those with multi-year roadmaps, ecosystem-wide impact, and demonstrated community demand.
5. Operational Updates
Platform : All Q2 applications were processed on Nervos Talk with the Spark-Program tag. The migration from Discord is now complete. All historical proposals, decisions, and discussions are publicly accessible.
Tag system evolution : The Pending / Submitted / In-Progress / Closure / Completion / Rejection tag system continues to work well. Community members can track project status in real time without Discord access.
Payment : CKB-only payments remain standard.
“How to Verify” requirement : Now firmly embedded in the application process. All projects that completed in Q2 had strong verification sections, and this directly contributed to smooth closure. Projects that lacked this section received it as a key pre-review feedback item.
Tiered funding policy: Nervos Brain ($2,000) continues as the policy’s active test case. CellKit Actions ($1,500) and CKB Builder Lab AI ($1,950) both applied above the $1,000 standard — both received budget-reduction feedback in pre-review. The committee’s position remains: $1,000 is the default; exceeding it requires explicit justification tied to deliverables.
Liaison workflow: Pre-review feedback is now provided more systematically before formal committee submission — covering budget alignment, How to Verify completeness, To-Do List granularity, and overlap with existing tools. This has reduced the number of under-prepared proposals reaching formal review.
6. Q3 Outlook
Based on current pipeline and community signals:
pending revision: Cell Sandbox — the committee sees genuine innovation potential, pending responsive revisions on UX and feature completeness (input/output Cell display, wallet connector diversity, help documentation).
Under review: CKB Wallet Behaviour Intelligence, CKB-Sweep, CellKit Actions, CKB Builder Lab AI — initial reviews or pre-review feedback in progress.
New follow-up: Tiko Creator Commerce Validation Sprint — a significantly narrowed re-proposal. Pending review.
Anticipated directions:
- More developer tooling at the infrastructure layer (transaction action kits, Cell simulation)
- More Spore/DOB minting and application tools (UGMP paving the way)
- Fiber payment integration in real-world contexts (Dular pilot results)
Open question for the committee:
The application volume continues to grow (8+ in Q2 vs 7 in Q1). The pre-review workflow is helping filter proposals before formal review, but the time commitment is increasing. Should Spark consider publishing a more detailed application template or mandatory pre-submission checklist to further reduce friction?
Spark Program Committee
2026年6月