{"id":19448,"date":"2019-09-03T18:16:31","date_gmt":"2019-09-03T18:16:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ci027cfe6fe00c2697"},"modified":"2025-01-27T21:26:57","modified_gmt":"2025-01-27T21:26:57","slug":"okcoin-pledges-1000-btc-to-devs-working-on-bitcoin-and-its-forks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/culture\/okcoin-pledges-1000-btc-to-devs-working-on-bitcoin-and-its-forks","title":{"rendered":"OKCoin Pledges 1,000 BTC to Devs Working on Bitcoin (and Its Forks)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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One of the world\u2019s leading cryptocurrency exchanges is pledging millions of dollars to support Bitcoin\u2019s independent developer community. But hold on to your gas mask, toxic maximalists, because it\u2019s spreading the wealth to Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV devs too. <\/p>\n

OKCoin announced its \u201cLet\u2019s Build Bitcoin Together!\u201d<\/a> campaign today, September 3, 2019, which promises that the exchange will donate 1,000 BTC (right now, that\u2019s worth anywhere between $9.5 and $10 million, depending on bitcoin\u2019s daily mood) to certain developers working on Bitcoin. Apparently, this \u201cBuild Bitcoin Together!\u201d kumbaya also includes Bitcoin\u2019s most notorious forks.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The] vote driven initiative \u2026 pledges to donate up to 1,000 BTC (approximately USD 9.5 million) to the developers of Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and Bitcoin Satoshi\u2019s Vision (BSV),\u201d according to a press release from OKCoin shared with Bitcoin Magazine<\/em>. <\/p>\n

OKCoin users can vote to fund Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash or Bitcoin SV, and the final tally will be divided among a handful of developers and organizations representing each project.<\/p>\n

Bitcoin FOSS Needs Funding<\/h2>\n

For developers working in free and open-source software (FOSS), funding is often paltry or nil \u2014 and Bitcoin is no exception. Most developers are volunteers who work on Bitcoin with no promise of compensation. Some who began working for free, like Peter Wuille and much of Blockstream\u2019s team, moved on to having their work bankrolled by Bitcoin companies. But many still work for next to nothing.<\/p>\n

\u201cFunding for FOSS devs is very important. But it is hard to find a good model that remains fair and sustainable,\u201d former Bitcoin Core contributor and Ciphrex CEO Eric Lombrozo told Bitcoin Magazine<\/em>.<\/p>\n

To this end, the developers or organizations that OKCoin has selected are independent and lack any central funding. For Bitcoin, this includes Luke Dashjr, Ben Woosley, Michael Ford (also known as fanquake), Sjors Provoost, Jonas Schnelli and Jimmy Song. <\/p>\n

Notably, no individual developers were chosen to represent Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV \u2014 only organizations. Potential beneficiaries for Bitcoin Cash include the teams behind its primary full node implementations (Bitcoin ABC, BCHD and Bitcoin Unlimited); while Jimmy Nguyen\u2019s Bitcoin Association and Ella Qiang\u2019s CambrianSV are vying for the Bitcoin SV allocation of the pledge.<\/p>\n

According to the press release, OKCoin chose these individuals or entities because they are \u201cverified individuals or organizations who fulfilled the specifications of the initiative.\u201d Chosen as they were by the exchange, OKCoin is leaving the actual funding allocation to the community. You can vote for which developer or organization you think best deserves the funding on OKCoin\u2019s website. Each vote equals 0.2 BTC in funding (\u201cor the BCH or BSV equivalent\u201d). <\/p>\n

A disclaimer at the bottom of an OKCoin press release states that it \u201cdoes not impose restrictions or monitoring of how the donations are spent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coinsplit Assets Included<\/h2>\n

The press release also says that the \u201ccampaign aims to bring together three well-known players in the Bitcoin community\u201d to \u201cnot put one project against the other\u201d and to \u201chighlight the shared history\u201d of the three coins. <\/p>\n

Well-known indeed, Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV have fomented much discussion and, at times, unrest within Bitcoin\u2019s mosaic community. As the network\u2019s first coinsplit<\/a>, Bitcoin Cash\u2019s creation in August 2017<\/a> stoked tension in an ongoing scaling discussion and continues to spark hot debates between its followers and the Bitcoin faithful. Bitcoin SV, which forked from Bitcoin Cash in November 2018, added a bit of absurdist fuel to the always-flickering fires of Bitcoin\u2019s fork wars. <\/p>\n

In its bid for inclusion and community reconciliation, OKCoin included the two forks even though their developer activity lags significantly behind Bitcoin\u2019s. This is ostensibly the reason for the vote, as the allocation of resources should mirror community support for the projects. <\/p>\n

But the vote will be conducted through OKCoin accounts, so this may exclude people who don\u2019t use the exchange. Moreover, OKCoin didn\u2019t elucidate how it plans to curb double or multi voting; OKCoin has KYC, but you could theoretically fabricate an account using someone else\u2019s identity. <\/p>\n

And questions still remain as to how OKCoin plans to distribute the donations. Per Lombrozo\u2019s comment that such FOSS funding campaigns struggle to remain \u201cfair and sustainable,\u201d distribution, voting collection and a centralized decision-making process by which developers are eligible for the reward all expose the weak points of such fundraising. <\/p>\n

At the time of publication, OKCoin had not responded to Bitcoin Magazine\u2019s <\/em>questions and request for direct comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cryptocurrency exchange OKCoin has pledged to donate up to 1,000 BTC to developers of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2566,"featured_media":10996,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[3298,3299,3297,1721],"class_list":["post-19448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-culture","tag-bcash","tag-bchsv","tag-eric-lombrozo","tag-okcoin"],"author_data":{"id":2566,"name":"Colin Harper","nicename":"colin-harper","avatar_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/MjEwMTYzMzc3Njg5ODYzNjQ2-96x96.webp"},"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/okcoin-pledges-1000-btc-to-bitcoin-devs.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2566"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}