Bitcoin is open-source and open-source funding is hard. The Bitcoin community needs to work together to make funding Bitcoin development better.
One week ago I announced the release of my Bitcoin Grants Tracker and posted a short thread on Twitter.
I did so out of personal interest in Bitcoin, its development process and how development is being funded.
I didn’t expect the tracker to attract much attention but wanted to share it with the Bitcoin community in case others were interested in this too.
The amount of feedback I’ve received ― on Twitter, via email and even by Marty on the Sat Standard ‒ makes it obvious that Bitcoiners are seeking more transparency and insights into the Bitcoin funding process.
What can we do?
There are many things that could be done but it is important to spend our time on things that can have an impact.
In my opinion, the following three things need to be focused on if we want Bitcoin to succeed in the long run:
- Better and easier ways to fund developers and projects
- More organizations and companies funding Bitcoin development
- More Bitcoin developers
These are broad goals and I’ll break them down into more granular goals and actionable tasks in upcoming posts.
For now I’ll add another table to the tracker, focusing on all the great Bitcoin companies employing developers to work on Bitcoin Core, Lightning etc. – Blockstream, Chaincode and Lightning Labs come to mind.
I also plan to write more about the funding process in general, dive into some statistics on grants distribution and discuss how interested developers can get their start into Bitcoin.
Education is key, and helping potential funders and developers navigate their way through this beautiful maze that is Bitcoin is something I’ll gladly try to do. My humble page might not be able do too much about it but I’ll try to move the needle a little bit.
If you have any other ideas of what can be done to move the needle, please reach out via DM and email. There are many Bitcoiners out there willing to help, we just need to reach out.
Onward and upwards!