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5 Grants to Strengthen Bitcoin Development
OpenSats is pleased to announce a new round of grants supporting five individual contributors working on Bitcoin Core. This round focuses on improving the long-term maintainability, safety, and privacy of the project, from build system modernization and release testing coordination to peer-to-peer network security research.
Among them are three first-time grantees:
The remaining two are returning grantees:
These grants are sourced from our General Fund, which is supported by generous donors like you. If you would like to support free and open-source projects that help Bitcoin flourish, consider donating to the fund:
Let's explore our grantees' contributions in more detail to understand their purpose and how the grants will support their efforts.
@janb84
Janb84 is focused on release testing coordination, pull request review, and contributor-facing documentation. This includes maintaining Release Candidate Testing Guides, running dedicated feedback threads for testers, and facilitating group review and discussion through the PR Review Club. His approach to contributing reflects a view that the human and process side of open-source development is as important as the code itself.
With support from this grant, janb84 will continue expanding his work across Bitcoin Core, including in-depth pull request reviews, contributor documentation, and testing guides that make changes easier to evaluate and safer to release. He will also deepen his engagement with the codebase, working toward broader and more technical contributions over time.
Repository: bitcoin/bitcoin
PRs: created, reviewed
License: MIT
@naiyoma
Naiyoma is focused on P2P privacy and network security research. Her current work addresses a fingerprinting attack that allows outside observers to correlate a Bitcoin node's identity across multiple networks, such as clearnet and Tor, potentially exposing the real IP address of users who rely on privacy networks. Working alongside Daniela Brozzoni, Naiyoma researched and replicated the attack across the live network, published the findings in a Delving Bitcoin post, and opened a pull request to Bitcoin Core with a proposed mitigation. Alongside this, Naiyoma contributes test improvements, active pull request reviews across multiple areas of the codebase, and has two larger draft refactors in progress, dealing with P2P mempool handling and descriptor processing.
With support from this grant, Naiyoma will continue driving the fingerprinting mitigation through review and into Bitcoin Core. She will research and work to address additional fingerprinting vectors, including block index fingerprinting, and contribute to a documented inventory of known fingerprinting risks in the Bitcoin peer-to-peer layer. Further planned work includes researching a separate Address Manager for each network type and improvements to stale node eviction, alongside continued pull request reviews with a focus on P2P contributions and ongoing test improvements across the codebase.
Repository: bitcoin/bitcoin
PRs: created, reviewed
License: MIT
@purpleKarrot
PurpleKarrot is focused on improving the long-term maintainability, safety, and clarity of Bitcoin's codebase. His work centers on cleaning up the build system by replacing ad hoc scripts and undocumented conventions with declarative, reproducible CMake configurations, and on refactoring C++ components so they are easier to understand and work on in isolation. This includes enforcing clear ownership rules in the code and removing unsafe constructs. He also aims to define, document, and promote modern C++ coding guidelines within the Bitcoin community, drawing on his involvement with the ISO C++ Committee, and to develop the BtcK multi-language API so that different programming languages can talk to Bitcoin Core through consistent, idiomatic bindings. Alongside this, purpleKarrot prioritizes C++ education and mentorship by teaching fundamentals, sharing best practices, and helping new maintainers grow into long-term contributors.
With support from this grant, purpleKarrot will focus on milestones that support future architectural improvements. These include helping to prepare a stable C API for the Bitcoin Kernel library, making sure its SDK is deployed cleanly with the correct headers, library artifacts, and package configuration, and replacing a patchwork of platform-specific packaging scripts with a unified CPack definition. Because improving maintainability and educating future developers is an ongoing effort, progress will be iterative and aimed at the long-term sustainability of the Bitcoin Core project.
Repositories: purpleKarrot/btck; bitcoin/bitcoin
PRs: created, reviewed
Licenses: MIT
OpenSats remains committed to fostering a resilient Bitcoin ecosystem. These grants build on our existing support for Bitcoin development, complementing long-term funding for experienced contributors while bringing new talent into the fold.
Contributing to Bitcoin is demanding and often underappreciated work, and we are grateful to everyone who dedicates their time and skill to it.
For those looking to get involved, the PR Review Club offers a welcoming entry point to engage with the review process alongside other developers. The Summer of Bitcoin and Chaincode Labs BOSS Challenge are also worth exploring for hands-on experience.
We thank our donors who make these grants possible and invite others to join us in supporting Bitcoin's future. We encourage both new and experienced developers to apply for funding, and we welcome everyone to support our mission.