Session is taking part in Octant's Epoch 13 privacy round

Session has been selected for Octant's Epoch 13 Privacy Round, a community funding round for projects that advance privacy on Ethereum and across the open internet.

This Octant funding round shares out a matching pool of up to 100 ETH, with community donations deciding where that goes. Donations open on 14 October 2026 and run for one week, closing on 21 October 2026. Funds will be directed towards Session's steward, the Session Technology Foundation.

Money raised during the round will go towards the implementation of Session Protocol v2, which will bring Perfect Forward Secrecy and post-quantum cryptography to Session, and to an independent security review.

This post explains what Octant is, what the round is for, why Session is taking part, and what you can do if you want to take part.

What is Octant? 

Octant is a funding program for open-source and public-goods projects, run by the Golem Foundation. The Golem Foundation's funds come from the yield on the Golem Foundation's staked ETH treasury. Since it started in 2023, Octant has distributed over 5,400 ETH to projects across 12 epochs.

In each round, a set of selected projects is listed, and anyone with an Ethereum wallet can back the ones they want to support. A shared matching pool, provided by the program, then adds to what each project raised.

What is Epoch 13 for?

Octant has made Epoch 13 a privacy round, with Session part of the cohort. This epoch funds projects in two categories:

• Ethereum: private transfers, shielded pools, wallet and RPC privacy, encrypted mempools and zero-knowledge tooling

• Open internet: secure messaging, metadata-protecting communication tools, private compute hardware and the privacy libraries other tools are built on

The donation window for Epoch 13 runs from October 14 to October 21, 2026.

Why Session is joining Epoch 13

Privacy has always been at the core of Session's mission — to let people send messages without giving away who they are talking to, or when.

The funding from participating in Epoch 13 will contribute to the implementation of upgrades to Session's cryptographic protocol. Session Protocol v2 adds two protections to Session: Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) and Post-quantum cryptography (PQC).

Aside from ensuring Session Protocol v2 can be implemented across iOS, Android, and Desktop, the round will also help fund an independent cryptographic review of the Protocol v2. In the spirit of openness and transparency, the findings of this review will be published. Session Protocol v2 does not yet have a release date.

You can read more about Protocol v2 in the announcement here and in the most recent development update.

How Octant’s matching works 

Epoch 13 uses something called quadratic funding. Under quadratic funding, a pool of funds provided by the program is split among the cohort. The proportion of this split is mainly decided by how many people back a project, not by how much funding they give.

A project supported by many small donors can get more from the matching pool than a project with one large donor, even if both raise the same total amount. Note that the matching pool does not require you to contribute additional funds or to contribute funds twice.

So for this round, the number of people taking part matters more than the size of each donation. A small donation can count for a lot.

It is worth noting that it is not guaranteed all 100 ETH will be distributed via matching; 100 ETH is the upper limit. The app shows an estimate of how much matching your donation will attract, and that estimate changes as other people vote until the round closes.

How to support Session in the round

You don't need to sign up or register until October 14. Once the round opens, you can use Octant's voting app to participate.

You’ll need:

• an Ethereum wallet that supports WalletConnect, such as MetaMask, Rabby or Rainbow

• some ETH, both for your donation and for a small network fee when you first sign up in the round

Once the round opens:

1. Go to epoch.octant.app and select Connect Wallet.

2. Choose Epoch 13 from Active Rounds.

3. Set Your Contribution, which is the total you want to commit for the whole round. You can only set this once, and you can't raise or lower it later. The app shows the minimum and maximum amounts.

4. Find Session in the project list and add it to your ballot. You can back other projects in the round too and split your contribution between them.

5. Select Review & Sign, run Simulate, wait for Looks good, then select Sign & submit.

Setting your contribution takes one transaction on Ethereum. After that, voting is free, and you can change how your contribution is split between projects as often as you like until the round closes.

Thank you to everyone in the Session community who has kept this work going thus far. The support the project has received from the community this year has kept the project online and helped protect a safe, private place for people to chat — Session. 

Stay safe and aware of potential scammers

It is important to know that votes in Octant are public. If you'd rather your donation wasn't tied to a wallet you use for other things, use a separate wallet. 

As always, be careful when connecting your wallet to unknown sites or clicking links from untrusted sources. If you receive an unsolicited DM, someone might be trying to scam you. You can rely on official channels from Session and Octant for information about the epoch.