Maelstrom, the family office of former BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes, has awarded Jon Atack a one-year Bitcoin developer grant. He is the second recipient of Maelstrom’s grant program that supports open source Bitcoin developers.
Jon is an experienced contributor to Bitcoin Core, having started in 2019. You have recently been made the curator of Bitcoin Improvement Proposals (BIPs).
In a statement, Arthur Hayes said, “We hope this financial support allows Jon to focus on his work in Bitcoin without worrying about income.” He emphasized that the funding is non-binding, giving Atack the freedom to operate independently.
Bitcoin’s open-source codebase relies on volunteer developers, so grants help provide more contributors to work full-time. Supporters believe that having more well-funded developers benefits the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Jon said, “I am concerned about human freedom, separation of powers, individual empowerment, privacy and self-governance. Bitcoin and open source software play an important role in fighting these causes.”
He plans to spend a year reviewing proposals and changes to improve Bitcoin Core and BIPs. Jon said, “Bitcoin is not perfect. It needs more expansion, continuous monitoring, updates, bug fixes, updates, maintenance, and improved stability, functionality, privacy, scalability, documentation and user experience.”
Maelstrom aims to strengthen Bitcoin by using wireless grants to developers like Attack. Meanwhile, he is getting funding from another organization, OpenSats.