Funding Bitcoin Development with John Newbery

 
 
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“Having an organisation that exists to bring on new protocol developers and fund existing protocol developers brings much more benefit to Bitcoin than I could by writing code.”
— John Newbery

SHOW DESCRIPTION

Location: Remotely
Date: Monday 16th November
Company: Brink
Role: Founder

Bitcoin has a market capitalisation of over $300 billion, holding significant value for millions of investors. Yet we all rely on the developer community around the world to protect the network from bugs and attack. The importance of high-quality development and review is paramount to every bitcoiner. However, with no centralised developer fund or company, it can be challenging for developers to find funding.

While there are a handful of companies who actively support Bitcoin development such as Chaincode Labs, Blockstream, Square Crypto, among others, opportunities as a full-time Bitcoin developer are limited. 

Recently, companies in the space have started dedicating funds to developers, including Coinbase and Gemini, recognising that the foundations of their businesses rely on this work too.

John Newbery recently left Chaincode Labs to set up a Bitcoin research and development centre. With Brink, John aims to onboard and fund new Bitcoin developers.

In this interview, I talk to John Newbery to discuss his decision to leave Chaincode Labs, funding for open source Bitcoin development, starting Brink and what he is working on developing.

TIMESTAMPS

00:05:12: Introductions
00:07:34: Does Bitcoin have enough developers?
00:09:50: Bitcoin's unique open-source project structure
00:12:39: Introducing Brink
00:18:46: For those wishing to fund developers - how and where
00:23:03: Bitcoin Core 0.21.0 release
00:26:27: Schnorr and Taproot
00:30:44: How to activate changes on a decentralised system
00:33:52: Risks of new activations
00:36:08: Where will the developer funding come from?
00:40:40: Brink's funding model
00:43:53: Brink's targets for funding and grants
00:45:58: Brink's website and how to contribute
00:46:58: Bitcoin community in the UK
00:52:56: The work of a protocol developer
00:55:55: Future changes to Bitcoin protocol
00:57:52: Final comments

 

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SHOW NOTES

PodcastPeter McCormack