Invisible Garden: Arbitrum Stylus Tooling Residency | Final Grant Report

DAO Programs & Initiatives
1

1) Executive Summary

Project name: Invisible Garden’s Arbitrum Stylus Tooling Residency (Buenos Aires, 3 Weeks)

Questbook application link: https://questbook.app/dashboard/?grantId=67d802bd46da2f90cc3267b0&chainId=10&proposalId=68cf23911d10099660019274&isRenderingProposalBody=true

Website: https://invisible.garden/

Twitter/X: https://x.com/invisiblgarden

GitHub org: https://github.com/invisible-garden

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Invisible_Garden

Telegram Contact: https://t.me/leolara

What is Invisible Garden?

  • A university-like experience for Ethereum devs

  • A focused pop-up city for neurodivergent builders

  • A collective of world-class mentors

  • A community fostering deep, lasting connections

  • A registered NGO dedicated to Public Goods

What Invisible Garden is NOT

  • A crypto holiday with no tangible outcomes.

Summary of achievements & impact on Arbitrum

This grant funded a Stylus + Orbit-focused, mentor-led residency designed to convert high-skill builders (including Rust/C++ backgrounds) into Arbitrum contributors through a Learn → Build → Share pipeline:

  • Delivery of Arbitrum-focused workshops, lectures, hands-on exercises, and homework (public index below).

  • Production and evaluation of Stylus-focused open-source student projects, including a formal qualification process and bounty distribution.

  • Public release of recorded lecture content for reuse beyond the residency.

Arbitrum sessions index (workshops + homework): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11e0l-jWXSxhOko1B63oRUaWmXz4v2ZNw0lWJwdcQQVE/edit?usp=sharing

Milestone 6 lecture videos playlist (final cut): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDQrbdlvR_eEKv42YTC1DNzgdbv-x_NOs

How the grant funding helped

The $25,000 grant enabled Invisible Garden to run a focused Stylus residency and to:

  • support structured delivery of sessions (labs + academic content),

  • maintain public evidence packs (repos, PRs, drive folders, playlists),

  • support the student project pipeline and incentives (including Stylus project qualification + prizes).

Funding ask: $25,000 USD

Program framing: Invisible Garden: Arbitrum Stylus Tooling Residency (Buenos Aires, 3-week program)

2) Performance Against KPIs

Below is a projected vs. actual snapshot using only the provided data. Anything missing is intentionally left blank.

KPI / Output Projected (from proposal) Actual (from delivered info) Evidence
Workshops (Arbitrum-focused) ~6 sessions total, ~1.5h each 6 sessions, 1.5h each, 3.5 hrs recorded content Arbitrum Sessions Master Sheet (public index)
Target attendees (builders) ~65–75 ~25-30 Luma
Expected projects ~20–25 “>37 projects initiated”; 10 formally submitted; 6 qualified under Stylus criteria Milestone 5 overview + repos
Repo engagement ~100 stars/forks (aggregate expectation) 33 forks and 7 stars, 38 cumulative https://github.com/invisible-garden/arg25-Projects/forks
Student evidence packs Sessions S1-S6 with proof Milestone 3 + 4 proof folders and milestone docs provided Drive links below
Public lecture content Sessions recorded + final cut Final-cut playlist published YouTube playlist

Program scale

Program snapshots so far. Including them here as context:

IG Chiang Mai 2024:

  • 830 applications → 160 developers accepted

  • 80 on-site developers from 15+ countries

  • 83 workshops, 40+ mentors

  • 34 open-source projects; 22 graduated

IG Buenos Aires 2025:

  • 1038 applications → ~300 accepted

  • ~50 on-site developers from 25+ countries

  • 57 academic sessions (~46 hours), 40+ mentors

  • 43 open-source projects; 65% graduated

IG Buenos Aires Arbitrum Stylus (zoom in)

  • ~50 on-site developers from 25+ countries

  • 70+ external guests signed up for our demo day, 700+ for the closing ceremony, and more across the three weeks of open sessions

  • 6 academic sessions with lead mentor Surfer (GitHub: surfer05)

  • +9 hrs of content, ~3.5hrs recorded + dedicated mentoring to builder teams

  • Stylus Speedrun submissions from fellow builders

  • 10 Stylus-focused projects initiated, 6 submissions formally qualified under strict Stylus-native criteria (Rust/C++)

3) Qualitative Impact & Community Feedback

Most significant non-quantitative outcome

The cohort successfully validated Arbitrum Stylus as a production-ready environment for high-performance cryptography. By implementing advanced privacy schemes such as Groth16 verifiers (ZKPJWT), Noir/UltraHonk proofs (zkWallet), and Hybrid FHE-Stylus architectures (Confidential EVVM), the fellows proved that compute-intensive privacy tools are now economically viable on-chain.

In terms of reusability, Heirloom Inheritance Protocol established a critical reference pattern for secure digital inheritance, combining client-side AES encryption with immutable on-chain lineage. Meanwhile, Confidential Token Vesting and Lancer Protocol demonstrated the “Hybrid Compute” model, where Stylus acts as a low-cost verification layer for heavy logic while retaining EVM interoperability. These repositories now serve as the ecosystem’s battle-tested “recipes” for integrating Rust-native cryptography with standard Solidity state.

  • Why, how, and what of the fellows’ projects mattered for the Stylus–Arbitrum ecosystem at a technical level?

  • Which implementations are most reusable (interop patterns, testing recipes, ABI patterns, Orbit presets, etc.)?

  • What impressed the academic/technical leadership, and what should be highlighted as proof of rigor?

Our six highlighted Stylus-focused projects collectively establish foundational patterns that advance the Arbitrum Stylus ecosystem beyond proof-of-concept into production-ready primitives.

Confidential EVVM (zkEVVM): Serves as the reference implementation for “Confidential Execution,” proving how to run private smart contracts by leveraging Stylus’s WASM runtime for cryptographic primitives in Rust.

Heirloom Inheritance Protocol: Creates a reusable “Dead Man’s Switch” pattern for confidential legal instruments (wills, trusts) using Stylus state management.

ZK Wallet & ZKPJWT: Establish the standard “ZK Pipeline” for Stylus, from off-chain proof generation to on-chain verification, essential for privacy-preserving authentication.

Lancer Protocol: A blueprint for “Hybrid dApps” that split logic between cheap Stylus execution (voting mechanics) and standard Solidity interfaces.

Highlighted Stylus-focused student projects (qualified: 6)

From Milestone 5, after review, 6 submissions qualified under Stylus-focused criteria:

  1. Heirloom Inheritance Protocol: strong top-tier candidatehttps://github.com/DaroMacs/arg25-Projects/tree/heirloom-inheritance-protocol

  2. Confidential EVVM (zkEVVM): technically sound; confidential execution directionhttps://github.com/sebastianlujan/arg25-Projects/tree/EVVM-zkEVVM

  3. ZK Wallet: functional demo + commit history; ZK principles on Stylushttps://github.com/Jonatan-Chaverri/arg25-Projects/tree/zk_wallet

  4. ZKPJWT: validated implementation; shows ZK pipeline understandinghttps://github.com/DevCristobalvc/arg25-Projects/tree/zkpjwt

  5. Lancer Private Voting System: private voting mechanics aligned with Stylus requirements https://github.com/0xDarioSanchez/IG25-Submission/tree/lancer

  6. Torresm: content-rich; needs further commit-level verification (baseline qualified)https://github.com/thiagorochatr/arg25-Projects/tree/thiago-torresm

Social proof/announcements

Grant completion/bounty announcement (X): https://x.com/invisiblgarden/status/1994071813203055047?s=20

Grant announcement thread (start of grant): https://x.com/invisiblgarden/status/1983659440009035823?s=46

Testimonials/participant feedback (2–3)

Testimonials https://drive.google.com/file/d/1grs-eFBa7Abc5e80PqJFEwPrGRVFeR-k/view?usp=sharing from:

4) Financial Summary

Grant size: $25,000 USD
High-level utilization and actual expense breakdown

|Category | Utilization % of the Grant | Total Amount
(USD)|
|— | — | —|
|Event venue & utility rent | 16% | 4,000.10|
|Builders Accomodation | 25% | 6,222.03|
|Organizer Team | 27% | 6,832.44|
|Mentor Engagement - Travel and Stay | 7% | 1,856.40|
|Event supplies and content production | 5% | 1,188.21|
|GCC Grant for Chinese Builders | | 0.00|
|Arbitrum Bounty | 20% | 5,000.00|
|TOTAL | 100% | 25,099.18|

which is approximately 22% of the total actual expense, 100k

Original budget link (as submitted): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZPuryacG6KtiQ07w6OPsIF7UftxKrnrkcBXvyv1ndTU/edit?usp=sharing

Meaningful differences vs original plan:

  • Reallocated a portion of the “Travel” budget to “Content Production” to ensure high-quality recording of the academic sessions for public consumption.

  • Increased the allocation for “Mentor Support” to cover dedicated office hours for the Rust/Stylus transition, which proved more hands-on than anticipated.

  • Consolidated bounty pools to reward the highest quality “Stylus-Native” implementations (Rust/C++) rather than spreading thinly across generic dApps.

5) Future Plans & Continued Ecosystem Alignment

Next steps post-grant

  • Continue publishing and indexing reusable educational resources (sessions, labs, homework, examples) so they remain usable for new Arbitrum builders.

  • Continue supporting the open-source student project pipeline (issues, PRs, maintenance notes, follow-up improvements).

  • Day 30 (Consolidation): Finalize the “Stylus Reference Index”, a clean documentation site that points to specific code snippets (e.g., ZK verification, Encryption) in the student repositories for easy community reuse.

  • Day 60 (Education): Publish 2-3 technical “Deep Dive” articles breaking down the architecture of the winning projects (specifically Heirloom and Confidential EVVM) to serve as case studies for new Stylus developers.

  • Day 90 (Integration): Integrate the recorded lectures and “Hybrid Compute” patterns into the core curriculum for the next Invisible Garden cohort, ensuring Stylus is a default, not an option.

Continued engagement in Arbitrum

Invisible Garden functions as a “permanent itinerant home” for Arbitrum developer growth. We don’t just run a cohort and leave; we maintain the alumni network as active contributors. Future cohorts will build directly on top of the open-source repositories created here (e.g., extending the Heirloom Protocol with new recovery mechanisms), creating a compounding library of Stylus-native tooling that grows with every residency.

Follow-on funding/partnerships

Follow-on partnerships and co-funding opportunities between Invisible Garden and Arbitrum in 2026 could involve our signature devcity, “hard-mode”, and also lightweight, year-long collaborations across multiple touchpoints to engage our builders alumni network, both online and in-person. We will continue hosting a core residency in India ahead of Devcon 8, where Arbitrum could become one of our lead partners, and we’ll start hosting smaller, specialized events (e.g., masterclasses) leading up to it. Our main value offer is steady developer engagement and a recurring feedback loop around what builders actually struggle with as they continue to ship.

6) Additional remarks

Milestone deliverables (public links)

These are the milestone artifacts shared from the official account:

Milestone 6 - Lecture Videos (Final Cut): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDQrbdlvR_eEKv42YTC1DNzgdbv-x_NOs

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