Brink launches dedicated Bitcoin developer funding organization
Bitcoin developers John Newbery and Mike Schmidt launched Brink, an independent nonprofit focused on funding and training open-source Bitcoin protocol developers.
Brink announced a grant program for established contributors and a fellowship program for newer developers. The organization was designed to channel donations into protocol work without requiring developers to become employees of a sponsor.
Initial support came from several parts of the Bitcoin ecosystem, including the Human Rights Foundation, Square Crypto, Gemini and Kraken. That funding model sought to diversify who pays for maintenance and review of software that no single company owns.
Brink's launch was important because developer funding had become an infrastructure question in its own right. Bitcoin could remain open source while still creating institutions capable of sustaining full-time, long-horizon protocol work.
Brink was structured around grants, fellowships and long-term support for open-source contributors rather than around a commercial Bitcoin product. That funding model addressed a persistent asymmetry in Bitcoin: software securing a large monetary network depends on maintainers and reviewers whose work is public infrastructure but is not automatically financed by protocol revenue.