Digital currency exchange Coinbase has awarded its first ever Bitcoin Core developer grants, and recipients are well-known.
João Barbosa and 0xB10C, a pseudonym developer alias, were chosen winners earlier this week. Although the funding amounts were not disclosed, Coinbase said the two developers will be “funded to work on Bitcoin for the whole of 2021” in amounts payable through BTC or USD.
As Coinbase says:
Both candidates showed a consistent track record of contributing to Bitcoin Core, and providing the Fund’s advisory board […] with a clear, actionable outline of the projects they plan to work on. “
Previously, Barbosa’s development was funded by crypto mining company Bitmain before their grants were suddenly sacked break along with his co-developer Jonas Schnelli.
Today, I lost my sponsorship.
After more than 3 years, Bitmain decided to stop financing Bitcoin Core developers (also Joao Barbosa / promag).
Thanks Bitmain for all the help (despite the disagreement we had)!
Please help me continue my work on Bitcoin Corehttps: //t.co/5FeGoB76j8
❤️
– Jonas Schnelli (@_jonasschnelli_) December 1, 2020
Barbosa’s development work focuses on enhancing the Bitcoin Core user experience on Android and iOS mobile devices. It plans to use the grant money to develop the Bitcoin Core GUI based on the Qt Quick framework.
Coinbase announced its first Crypto Community Fund in October as a way to sponsor the development of a codebase for Bitcoin Core. Depending on the success of the first grants, Coinbase plans to expand the program to other types of crypto projects in the future.
Bitcoin was launched in early 2009 with no fundraiser or developer grants. Early developers helped pave the way for new financial ecosystems to emerge. Now, over 8,100 cryptocurrencies are competing for adoption that spans multiple industries, use cases, and geographic locations.
João Barbosa did not immediately respond to a request for comment.