"Hard Core Fund" collects 50 BTC to support Bitcoin developers

Finding sustainable funding for Bitcoin developers is a challenge for the ecosystem in 2019. Venture capitalist Dovey Wan of Primitive Ventures helped gather 50 BTC. Wan partnered with Bitmain alum Pan Zhibiao to create the nonprofit Hard Core Fund in 2018, that has supported Bitcoin Core contributors Luke Dashjr and Ben Woosley. Woosley said 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. With that information, the fund sends him a small portion of his year-long bitcoin salary.



A fresh batch of donations means the fund is now open to applications from more independent full-time Bitcoin developers. 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. Prospective applicants can now send their biography information and GitHub profile to Wan’s Primitive Venture email. Entrepreneur Kevin Pan of Poolin from China’s crypto ecosystem, who helps manage the fund’s daily operations, said “We are looking for someone who’s got a deep understanding of Bitcoin’s architecture and its existing problems to solve…if he or she can train, coach, or facilitate other developers, propose new BIPs [protocol updates] and new directions for technical improvement, that’s even better.”