Brink, a non-profit dedicated to improving the Bitcoin protocol, now has 11 Bitcoin and Lightning developers supported by grants from the foundation, per a release sent to Bitcoin Magazine.
The newest addition to the list of developers, Micheal Ford (fanquake), is a Bitcoin Core maintainer. Tadge Dryja, author of the Lightning and Discrete Log Contracts whitepaper has also joined the list of Brink developers part-time.
Additionally, Vincenzo Palazzo and Larry Ruane are moving to full-time so they can focus their full attention on the Bitcoin ecosystem. Ruane commented on Brink approaching him for a grant and said:
“I’m a shy nerd. Yet Brink found me! This is a superpower – discovering quiet people who have something good to offer to Bitcoin.”
Moreover, Gloria Zhao has completed a fellowship with Brink and will begin mentoring less-experienced contributors. Furthermore, she will take over the Bitcoin Core PR Review Club which serves as a pipeline for new developers in the ecosystem.
“Being a maintainer means I’ll continue to focus primarily on the health of Bitcoin Core and help shoulder some of the responsibilities of the other maintainers, while working on package relay as one of multiple necessary upgrades for a functional transaction relay network,” said Zhao.
Brink supports the Bitcoin ecosystem in a plethora of ways. Recently, the organization funded the most recent Bitcoin Core Developer meeting in London this past March. In addition, grantees of the organization routinely present at conferences while also contributing to well-known publications.
Also, Brink published the Bitcoin Optech Newsletter, which recently celebrated its 200th issue and provides a synopsis of ongoing developmental conversation surrounding Bitcoin.
In fact, Bitcoin version 23.0, released in April, contained several contributions from Brink grantees including: P2P and network changes, fee estimation adjustments, tracepoints, improvements to the wallet and graphical user interface (GUI), and additional features.