I have been very critical and sceptical of open source grants in the space for a long time. Pet projects with no users should not be funded, they distort the market and add tons of new "standards" with no use, no validation, no real world feedback. And I'm not even talking about the value of grants given with no risk and strings attached, to people who often don't have experience nor track record.
I'm with Nick on this one. Grants should be for things that are USED, infrastructure, libraries, etc, with ACTUAL EXISTING VALUE.
Sorry for everyone who feels hurt, I'm not responsible for your feelings.
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OpenSats not funding SeedSigner (apparently because of NVK, Mr ColdCard, not wanting them to) is a huge signal to me, in the wrong direction.
Of course grants distort the market, that is their purpose. People giving money have preferences, or at least grantees try to guess them and act accordingly, even subconsciously.
I really like this trend of people thinking more deeply about it. There is an important control given to the granters.
Philanthropy is tainted with money/power dynamics, even with good intents, which I don't assume.
Unfortunately the more funded bitcoin projects are in the spotlight, the less non-funded projects are.
There is also the possibility of hiring great talents uniquely to keep them busy so they cannot create a rival project.
If you don't like what your charity money is being spent on, spend your charity money on something else. If you don't like what Jack/Alex/Suhar's charity money is being spent on... write them a letter? Or just shut up - it's not your money.
Trolling aside, things that are used and have existing value only need grants if the users aren't taking care of their upstream. Which, let's be real, still happens. So the easiest change you can make to this is taking care of your upstream. If Kevin in his stack uses, say, BDK and actually makes money off that product, it would be good if Kevin can help BDK out with some sponsorship. That's the most direct line, no third party grants needed. In lieu of that[1] it is great for BDK's survival if HRF or Spiral or Opensats jumps in and gives it a lifeline, but this would be a market distortion on its own.
I wonder what @Car, as someone that frequently says "just watch what the startups are doing", thinks about this?
either because no one makes actual money, which honestly used to be the case for nearly everyone in Bitcoin in the early days but mining pools, custodial exchanges and scammers, or the common case outside of bitcoin where corporations are simply not going to subsidize FOSS projects: "thanks for the free shit you built during your nights off, asshole, now implement that feature request I posted". ↩
you know what distorts bitcoin?
indifference