Jack Dorsey’s Fund Pledges $5 Million to Bitcoin Developers

Billionaire Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey plans to allocate more capital to the Bitcoin ecosystem after pledging $5 million to the network’s core developers through his grantmaking organization Start Small.

The firm will distribute the funds to the Bitcoin development non-profit, Brink, over the next five years in $1 million annual installments. 

• According to its website, Brink exists to “support the Bitcoin developer community through funding, education, and mentoring.” 
• “We are 100% funded by donations from individuals and organizations who wish to support the open-source Bitcoin network and protocol,” the site states.
• Unlike many blockchain projects, Bitcoin lacks any committed founder, foundation, or company with a financial stake in the protocol’s success. 
• As such, donations and charity are largely required to support the developers who maintain its codebase, who often rotate. 
• “Brink is very grateful for this extended pledge to support our Bitcoin developer funding efforts,” said Brink co-founder Mike Schmidt. “We can help make Bitcoin development a sustainable career for the talented developers that are building, securing, testing, and reviewing the Bitcoin Core codebase.”
• Last year, Jack Dorsey launched a legal defense fund to defend Bitcoin developers to fight back against lawsuits from self-proclaimed Bitcoin founder Craig Wright. 
• In 2021, he teamed with Jay-Z to launch a 500 BTC blind trust to assist Bitcoin development teams in Africa and India.  
• On Thursday, Dorsey’s payment company Block unveiled the beta for its self-custody Bitcoin wallet Bitkey, which will feature special integrations with Coinbase and CashApp. 

Bitcoin and nostr are the only two truly censorship resistant technologies at scale. https://t.co/0O1oihSRaz

— jack (@jack) June 16, 2023