Today, San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange OKCoin announced a $100,000 donation to open-source bitcoin payment processor project BTCPay Server.
The funding comes as part of the OKCoin Independent Developer Grant, which was launched last year. BTCPay Server’s product is free to use and its dependent on such contributions to continue operations.
“Supporting infrastructure projects is key to our mission at OKCoin [and] we believe that the most impactful way to do this is by backing independent open-source developers; the ground troops and projects dedicated to creating and improving the core infrastructure that the rest of us build on,” the exchange said in a statement shared with Bitcoin Magazine. “BTCPay Server … encourages adoption and greater use of Bitcoin by increasing its utility across global merchants, allowing businesses to transact in the cryptocurrency.”
This is the second donation in OKCoin’s grant program, with the first going to Bitcoin Core developer Fabian Jahr. It matches the largest-ever donation awarded to BTCPay Server, a $100,000 grant from Square Crypto.
“For us, it means recognition,” BTCPay Server contributor Pavlenex told Bitcoin Magazine of the donation. “It means we are doing something good when a corporate entity thinks we are worth receiving a big donation like this.”
He added that the donation will allow the BTCPay Server team to focus on its goal of driving adoption of its product and of Bitcoin around the world, ultimately becoming a set of technologies that others build upon.
“Basically, we’ll be able to focus more and produce even more features,” Pavlenex said. “Feature-wise, we want to use this grant to improve our API and user experience. Our main focus is allowing people to build stuff on top of BTCPay Server. In the future, BTCPay should become more of a tech stack than a payment server.”
These efforts toward adoption and creating a world in which the promise of cryptocurrency can be realized more widely are aligned with OKCoin’s vision for the grant program.
“The BTCPay project sustainably advances cryptocurrency adoption,” said OKCoin CEO Hong Fang, per the company statement. “Their efforts support our vision of a responsible financial ecosystem built upon digital assets. Our intention is that the grant helps accelerate the pace of Bitcoin development and highlights the significance of independent developers like BTCPay.”
Peter Chawaga
Peter Chawaga is a senior editor at Bitcoin Magazine. He HODLs BTC.
