Bitmain reportedly cuts off funding to Bitcoin Core developers

Bitmain, one of the world’s largest Bitcoin (BTC) miner producers, has reportedly halted its funding for some primary developers maintaining Bitcoin-related software.

Jonas Schnelli, a major Bitcoin Core contributor and maintainer, claimed that Bitmain halted its support after funding his efforts for more than three years.

In a Dec. 1 tweet, Schnelli said that he lost his sponsorship from Bitmain alongside Joao Barbosa, another Bitcoin Core contributor also known under the “promag” nickname on GitHub.

“Thanks Bitmain for all the help (despite the disagreement we had),” Schnelli tweeted, asking the crypto community to contribute to his further efforts on Bitcoin Core.

Bitmain did not respond to Cointelegraph's request for comment as of publishing time.

HEX founder Richard Heart subsequently commented that other companies would be willing to fund the Bitcoin Core project as Bitcoin hits new all-time highs.

Surely with #Bitcoin making new all time highs, some whale out there would like to fund its development.

— Richard Heart: HEX.com 40% APR. 263x in 301 days⬣ (@RichardHeartWin) December 1, 2020

Some Reddit users also suggested that Bitmain could have found better ways to spend their money than funding the Bitcoin Core project. “I consider it a miracle that they were still being funded by them,” one Redditor noted.

Bitcoin Core is a major open-source project maintaining and releasing Bitcoin client software. The project describes itself as a direct descendant of the original Bitcoin software client released by Satoshi Nakamoto after he published the Bitcoin whitepaper back in 2008.