Chainfeeds Summary:
In October 2024, research firm 1A1z released an important report: "Building Bitcoin: Funding a $1.2 Trillion Dollar Project." This is currently the most comprehensive survey of the funding ecosystem for Bitcoin Core development.
Article source:
https://x.com/zzmjxy/status/1993763940749435144
Article Author:
Aaron Zhang
Opinion:
Aaron Zhang: In 2023, the total global funding for Bitcoin Core development was $8.4 million. For comparison: Polkadot, despite having only 1% of Bitcoin's market capitalization, spent roughly the same amount on protocol development; the Ethereum Foundation spent approximately $32 million on core development in 2023; and Meta, with a similar market capitalization, employed 20,000 engineers. Bitcoin? 41 active Core Devs and 5 Maintainers. Who is funding it? Currently, there are 13 active sponsoring organizations for Bitcoin Core development, divided into two categories: privately funded (5) and grant-dependent (8). Data is sourced from the 1A1z report, based on public financial disclosures, typical grant sizes, and employee numbers. Employment vs. Grants is a key distinction: only 6 organizations offer formal employment (stable salary, benefits, long-term contracts), while the rest operate on a grant model, essentially requiring an annual job application. One developer interviewed in the report stated: "It's like having to re-interview every year to keep your job." The most shocking finding in the report was that one person almost single-handedly supports half the ecosystem: Jack Dorsey's financial empire spans the entire ecosystem. OpenSats: 90.5% of its funding comes from Dorsey's #startsmall; Brink: 14.2% of donations come from Dorsey; Btrust: 100% funded by Dorsey and Jay-Z; Spiral: a subsidiary of Block, with Dorsey as a co-founder of Block; MIT DCI has also received donations from him. One person directly or indirectly influences the majority of funding for the Bitcoin Core development ecosystem—a situation the report authors call the Dorsey Problem. It's important to note that Dorsey rarely interferes with specific decisions after donating, and the independent operation of each organization is widely accepted. The problem isn't Dorsey himself, but the structural risk of single-point dependence—what would happen to the entire ecosystem if he changed his mind, shifted his focus, or encountered any problems? The problem is never about any one person, but about over-reliance on any single point—a universal risk in all engineering systems. Let's look at the power distribution among Maintainers: In Bitcoin Core, only Maintainers can merge code into the main branch. Currently, there are 5 Maintainers, 3 of whom are in Brink. This is what some interviewees refer to as the Brink Risk. Brink's contributions are undeniable; they have achieved significant results with a limited budget and have gained high recognition from the community. However, from a decentralized perspective, the ideal scenario is for the 5 Maintainers to come from 5 different organizations. Historically, over the past 10 years, there have been 13 Maintainers, 9 of whom (69%) came from only 4 organizations. Now let's look at the developer distribution: Of the 41 active Core Devs, 33 have publicly disclosed their geographical location. By number: 11 from the US, 7 from the UK, 2 each from the Netherlands and Switzerland, 1 each from India and Nigeria, and 0 from China; by commit contribution: 56% from Europe, 25% from the US, and less than 10% from Asia, Africa, and Australia combined. The geographical distribution of sponsoring organizations is also unbalanced: 6 are registered in the US (46%), Europe won't have its first sponsor until 2024 (2140), and Asia has no locally focused sponsoring organizations. My three layers of feeling are: First, awe—41 people, $8.4 million, no company, no foundation, no national treasury, maintaining a $2 trillion global financial infrastructure. This is a miracle of human self-organization and the strongest evidence of Bitcoin's antifragility. Second, concern—structural risks are real: a narrow talent pool (extremely high bus factor), excessive concentration of funds (Dorsey Problem), severe geographical imbalance, and a long-term lack of stable funding models. This isn't a risk of collapse tomorrow, but a risk of limited evolution over the next decade. Third, opportunity, especially for Asian developers: Asia accounts for 78% of the global population, has the largest Bitcoin user base, computing power centers, a complete industry chain, and a large engineering community, but in Bitcoin Core—the place that defines what Bitcoin is—Asia's contribution is almost zero. Of the 41 people, 1 is from India and 0 are from China. This means that the evolution, priorities, and technological trade-offs of the protocol have received almost no Asian perspective. Bitcoin protocol development is not a closed club; anyone can submit code, participate in reviews, and write BIPs. Chaincode, Brink, and OpenSats all have established training and funding pathways. One of the most important evolutions of the Bitcoin protocol layer in the next decade will be the rise of Asian developers, because of the huge gaps, the deep talent pool, and the sheer importance of this endeavor. The only question is: who will be among the first to enter this arena?
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