Bitcoin developer who lost Bitmain funding wins Coinbase’s first-ever developer grant

Published at: Dec. 24, 2020

Digital currency exchange Coinbase has awarded its first-ever Bitcoin Core developer grants, and a familiar name is among the recipients.

João Barbosa and 0xB10C, the alias of a pseudonymous developer, were selected winners earlier this week. Although the funding amounts weren’t revealed, Coinbase said both developers will “be funded to work on Bitcoin for all of 2021” in amounts payable via BTC or USD.

As Coinbase states:

Both candidates demonstrated a consistent history of contributing to Bitcoin Core, and provided the Fund’s advisory board [...] with a clear, actionable outline of the projects they intend to work on.”

Barbosa’s development work was previously funded by crypto mining firm Bitmain before his grants were abruptly cut along with fellow developer Jonas Schnelli.

Today, I lost my sponsorship.After more than 3 years, Bitmain decided to halt funding Bitcoin Core developers (also Joao Barbosa/promag).Thanks Bitmain for all the help (despite the disagreement we had)!Help me to continue my work on Bitcoin Corehttps://t.co/5FeGoB76j8❤️

— Jonas Schnelli (@_jonasschnelli_) December 1, 2020

Barbosa’s development work is centered on improving the Bitcoin Core user experience on Android and iOS mobile devices. He plans to use the grant money to develop a Bitcoin Core GUI based on the Qt Quick framework.

Coinbase first announced its Crypto Community Fund in October as a way to sponsor codebase development 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 without a fundraise or developer grants. Early developers helped pave the way for new monetary ecosystems to emerge. Now, there are over 8,100 cryptocurrencies vying for adoption spanning several industries, use cases, and geographical locations. 

João Barbosa did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tags
Bitcoin
Developers
Coinbase
Bitcoin Core
Coding
Related Posts
Bitcoin node count hits new all-time high
The number of Bitcoin nodes is at an all-time high, with 11,558 reachable nodes currently active, according to Bitnodes.io. Another Bitcoin network statistics tracker, coin.dance, calculates the total number of Bitcoin nodes at 11,613, which is just above the previous high of 11,250 set one year ago this month. The Bitcoin Core software update 0.21.0 was released for public download on Jan. 14 2021 and is currently the fourth most utilized version of the software among nodes There are currently 619 nodes running this version of the software, which represents about 5.5% of all nodes running some version of Bitcoin …
Decentralization / Jan. 20, 2021
Bitmain reportedly cuts off funding to Bitcoin Core developers
Bitmain, one of the world’s largest Bitcoin (BTC) miner producers, has reportedly halted its funding for some primary developers maintaining Bitcoin-related software. Jonas Schnelli, a major Bitcoin Core contributor and maintainer, claimed that Bitmain halted its support after funding his efforts for more than three years. In a Dec. 1 tweet, Schnelli said that he lost his sponsorship from Bitmain alongside Joao Barbosa, another Bitcoin Core contributor also known under the “Promag” nickname on GitHub. “Thanks Bitmain for all the help (despite the disagreement we had),” Schnelli tweeted, asking the crypto community to contribute to his further efforts on Bitcoin …
Bitcoin / Dec. 2, 2020
Coinbase, GDAX Exchange Platforms Introduce Full SegWit Support
Exchange and wallet service Coinbase and its professional trading platform Global Digital Asset Exchange GDAX both announced they had implemented Segregated Witness (SegWit) support for Bitcoin transactions in blog posts published Friday, Feb. 23. In their blog pos, GDAX characterizes SegWit technology as “a critical step forward in the development of Bitcoin” and promises support for SegWit transactions will be made available to 100% of their customers “over the coming days”. Coinbase also said they would be rolling out support for all customers over the next week. SegWit technology is designed to reduce transactions times and fees on the Bitcoin …
Bitcoin / Feb. 24, 2018
Bitcoin Core developer Samuel Dobson decides it is "Time to go"
Developer Samuel Dobson announced via a series of tweets on Thursday night that he is stepping down as a Bitcoin Core maintainer after 3 years. His reason being that he “can no longer dedicate the time required, as I approach the end of my PhD.” I am officially stepping down as a maintainer of Bitcoin Core. Serving as the wallet maintainer for the past three years has been an absolute privilege, and I want to thank my incredibly generous sponsor John Pfeffer (@jlppfeffer) for his support throughout. /1 — Samuel Dobson (@meshcollider) December 9, 2021 As a Bitcoin Core wallet …
Blockchain / Dec. 10, 2021
Web3 developer growth hits an all-time high as ecosystem matures
“Web3” may be one of the biggest buzzwords of 2022, but the idea of creating an entirely decentralized platform to host decentralized applications has long been a vision of the crypto community. While it’s notable that some blockchain companies began building out Web3 applications four or five years ago, the Web3 space has only started gaining traction recently. The recent growth of Web3 was highlighted in a new report from Electric Capital, a venture capital firm that has been investing in Web3 companies since 2018. The “Electric Capital 2021 Developer Report” analyzed data from nearly 500,000 code repositories and 160 …
Decentralization / Feb. 3, 2022