Of the 11 financial institutions that issued spot Bitcoin ETFs in January 2024, only two, Bitwise and VanEck, have pledged to donate a portion of their profits to open source Bitcoin development.
Regardless of whether large holders are harassing ETF sponsors to fund core developments, the real question is: @BitwiseInvest and @vaneck_us like that? Bitcoin is an ongoing project and its core developers continue to be underfunded.
– Nick "rich" Carter (@nic__carter) April 10, 2024
Considering the logic behind Bitwise and VanEck’s decision to donate to developers who maintain and update the Bitcoin protocol, it is difficult to imagine why more spot Bitcoin ETF issuers did not follow suit.
“We use the language of ‘donation’ when supporting developers, but in reality we think it’s more of a self-investment to make the asset itself stronger,” Hong Kim, co-founder and CTO of Bitwise, wrote in an AMA thread. In Stacker News . “Many people think Bitcoin magically holds together, but that’s not true! If you manage a large pool of Bitcoin and get paid a fee for it, why wouldn’t you reinvest some of it into the underlying infrastructure?”
For this reason, Bitwise, which has launched a spot Bitcoin ETF under the name Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (ticker: BITB), is donating 10% of the ETF’s fee revenue to three non-profit organizations that fund Bitcoin core developers: OpenSats, Brink, and the Human. promised. Rights Foundation (HRF) — for 10 years.
“Brink, OpenSats, and HRF were the most established non-profits with a track record of funding Bitcoin developers,” Kim told Bitcoin Magazine. “We had proof of work, so to speak.”
VanEck, which has issued a spot Bitcoin ETF under the name VanEck Bitcoin Trust (ticker: HODL), is also seeing the value of supporting Bitcoin Core developers. So, we committed to donating 5% of our HODL profits to Brink and donated an initial $10,000 to the organization.
“We believe TradFi can benefit from the efforts of Bitcoin’s core contributors,” Matthew Sigel, head of digital asset research at VanEck, told Bitcoin Magazine.
“We benefit from the rising price of Bitcoin, so it makes sense to also give back to the efforts of the innovators who made the chain possible,” he added.
Considering that it makes sense for a spot Bitcoin ETF issuer to follow in the footsteps of Bitwise and VanEck by giving back to Bitcoin’s core developers (those who support and further provide the financial product’s underlying assets)?
The development of open source scaling solutions for Bitcoin and its protocol could benefit significantly from these major financial institutions contributing even a small portion of their spot Bitcoin ETF fee revenues.