Nonprofit org ‘Brink’ secures $150,000 to support development of Bitcoin protocol
A new research and development center called Brink, will now seek to educate “next generation of Bitcoin developers.” The non-profit organization has been launched by former Chaincode Labs developer John Newbery, and Blockstream alumnus and Bitcoin Optech contributor Mike Schmidt.
According to its website, Brink’s Fellowship and Grant partners, such as The Human Rights Foundation, Square Crypto and Gemini, will provide funding for its fellows and grantees.
Your devs. Our devs. The devs we found in that cave. We’ll support any dev helping build a stronger bitcoin. https://t.co/h3ieNDJN1e
— Square Crypto (@sqcrypto) November 24, 2020
However, a recent announcement from the cryptocurrency exchange Kraken stated that it has agreed to donate $150,000 to Brink, with investors John Pfeffer, and Xapo CEO Wences Casares providing the organizational funding.
? Kraken is proud to be supporting great open-source #Bitcoin development.
That's why we're donating $150,000 to @bitcoinbrink, a new developer training center launching today.
Find out more ?https://t.co/rmghgjllHY pic.twitter.com/rD8rdkoLZ1
— Kraken Exchange (@krakenfx) November 24, 2020
Funds provided by Kraken will benefit the Brink mentorship program. Grants will be awarded by the Brink board, based on the individual’s contribution history and potential. The announcement further read that funds will be awarded at the discretion of Brink, free from influence of any corporate sponsors, including Kraken. The Brink team said in a tweet:
We’ll be giving grants to independent developers so that they can spend 100% of their time improving and strengthening Bitcoin.
Moreover Newbery said in a report that Brink’s unique model of funding, grant awards and focus on mentoring could further decentralize Bitcoin’s protocol development and strengthen the Bitcoin network and developer ecosystem. Additionally, Brink team believed that “one critical bug in the protocol or implementation has the potential to crash the entire Bitcoin economy.”
They further added that Bitcoin’s value rested on its security and stability and that “everything we build on top of Bitcoin depends on the base protocol” with reference implementation being “rock solid.”
Other than Newbery and Schmidt, the Brink team also includes Bitcoin expert David Harding, who joined as a founding member this year. Harding who co-wrote the Bitcoin.org developer documentation also wrote a series of Bitcoin developer tutorials.
