We are thrilled to announce the launch of Vinteum, a non-profit Bitcoin research and development center dedicated to supporting Bitcoin developers in Brazil and the wider Latin America region. We will train and fund open source developers to work on Bitcoin and the Lightning Network. Our aim is to foster the next generation of Bitcoin builders.
Bitcoin is, of course, a lot of things: censorship-resistant money, a freedom tool, a long-term safe haven asset, and more. But it is, first and foremost, an open source software and a decentralized protocol with no owners and no leadership.
This means there is no official team and no built-in mechanism for funding Bitcoin developers. Bitcoin needs developers to keep scaling, maintain its security, improve its privacy, and increase its programmability. That's why we, as a community, need to create various ways to fund developers so they can work full-time on Bitcoin, the Lightning Network, or other important open source projects in the Bitcoin space.
During the first few years after Satoshi created Bitcoin, developers worked on it for free in their spare time. Nowadays, we have more full-time developers dedicated to Bitcoin, thanks to a decentralized effort from the community and businesses built on top of Bitcoin. In order to increase the value of their investments or protect the key properties mentioned above, bitcoin hodlers have shown a proclivity for giving back to the Bitcoin ecosystem.
The development funding space has matured a lot during the past few years. Exchanges like Okcoin, Bitmex, Gemini, and others give grants to open source developers. Moreover, companies employ developers to work in Bitcoin’s infrastructure, such as Lightning Labs, Blockstream, Acinq, and NYDIG. Lastly, there are contributions and grants from foundations like Brink, OpenSats, MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative, Spiral, ₿trust, and the Human Rights Foundation.
So why do we need another foundation?
On an episode of Stephan Livera’s podcast, Steve Lee or Spiral said this:
I think the right way for open source development funding and organization is a 10 by 10 model. 10 organizations of 10 people, where each organization is independent. Independent funding, independent leadership… other projects might have more of a 1 by 100 model, where it’s just a centralized entity that has a huge budget, and I think that’s the antithesis of Bitcoin and how it should be done.
We couldn’t agree more.
No single entity should fund Bitcoin development or decide who gets funded. And we believe organizations with different focus areas and specializations will pop up.
Vinteum will focus on building and growing the Bitcoin development ecosystem in Brazil and the wider Latin America region. We believe Bitcoin development needs diversity. We need input from devs around the globe if we are going to build global money.
We need talent. Bitcoin development funding has improved, but we still face lots of challenges, especially with regard to building a robust recruiting pipeline. That’s why it is important that we not only fund developers but also develop programs and educational efforts to teach developers about Bitcoin and onboard them into Bitcoin development.
We’ll certainly work with and borrow from the learnings from other programs that were started in the past two years, like Summer of Bitcoin, Qala, Torogoz, and Librería de Satoshi.
The first thing we’ll do is adapt Chaincode Labs Seminar’s curriculum and start cohorts in Portuguese so Brazilian developers can interact with each other and learn in groups. If you’re a developer interested in learning more about how Bitcoin and Lightning work, we’re now accepting applications.