Maelstrom — an investment fund managed by the family office of Arthur Hayes, focused on digital assets — is pleased to announce that Rkrux is the first recipient of the Maelstrom Bitcoin Grant Program to continue his research and development work.
Rkrux is new to Bitcoin Core, having started reviewing pull requests in March 2024 and completing the Chaincode Labs Bitcoin FOSS program earlier in the year. We hope this grant is just the beginning of a dedicated journey in Bitcoin.
Maelstrom believes that it is important to add more full-time engineers working on Bitcoin Core, to help make the project more proficient.
A larger number of full-time engineers, from a wider variety of backgrounds and geographies, that understand the complexities and intricacies in the codebase amplify the development process and make Bitcoin more resilient.
We look forward to Rkrux becoming one of the top contributors to the project, as the financial support will allow him to work full time on Bitcoin Core.
Arthur Hayes, Maelstrom’s Chief Investment Officer said,
“Maelstrom would like to congratulate Rkrux as the first Bitcoin developer program grantee. There have been many applications since we announced this effort. One of the goals of the grant program is to recognize and reward emerging talent that is contributing to the development of Bitcoin Core, and to help encourage more people to work on Bitcoin Core on a full-time basis.”
He added,
“As a relatively new developer on Bitcoin Core, Rkrux is a representation of that objective. We look forward to identifying more grant candidates that will be instrumental in strengthening the Bitcoin ecosystem.”
Meanwhile Rkrux, Maelstrom’s new grantee, underlined that this is his first ever grant to work on Bitcoin Core. Even though he is an experienced software engineer, he is relatively new to Bitcoin Core.
He elaborated,
“Quitting my job as a software developer and focusing on open-source Bitcoin development was a difficult decision for me. The financial support, in the form of this grant from Maelstrom has made this possible. I am excited to step into this role and eager to advance Bitcoin Core development.”
GitHub profile: https://github.com/rkrux
