'Hard Core Fund' Collects 50 BTC to Support Bitcoin Developers

According to venture capitalist Dovey Wan of Primitive Ventures, finding sustainable funding for bitcoin developers is the biggest challenge facing the ecosystem in 2019.

Wan partnered with Bitmain alum Pan Zhibiao to create the nonprofit Hard Core Fund in 2018, then started supporting Bitcoin Core contributors Luke Dashjr and Ben Woosley last fall.

Woosley told CoinDesk that he sends the fund co-founders an email every month detailing the engineering work he completed, including code review and pull requests on the Bitcoin Core GitHub page.

A fresh batch of donations means the fund is now open to applications from more developers.

"We collected 50 bitcoin," Wan told CoinDesk.

"Right now, you wouldn't believe it, there are less than 10 full-time bitcoin developers. We want to fund full-time independent bitcoin developers."

To be fair, it's hard to say how many people work full time on Bitcoin Core if you include independent research and open source, nonprofit projects like crypto wallets.

While Woosley expressed ample respect for the above-mentioned companies, he said this fund is the "Most independent" funding model for bitcoin development that he's seen so far.

Instead, the money is distributed based on evidence of past contributions to Bitcoin Core and continued work on any aspect of the project the developer chooses.

"There are so many companies and projects and individuals benefiting a lot from Bitcoin software. The easiest way to say thanks is to give some support to the talented developers behind the bitcoin network."