The Unsolved Mystery of How to Fund Public Protocols

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The best way to fund open source projects remains a question, and one that - in the context of crypto protocols - has never had higher stakes. Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen live action experiments in a number of different approaches. </span></p> <p><a href= "https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/1222378556086308864"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Gitcoin grants</span></a> <span style="font-weight: 400;">used a quadratic funding program to match grants to technology builders and media creators in Ethereum </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">After months and months of concerted community debate and conversation, Zcash will implement a</span> <a href= "https://electriccoin.co/blog/dev-fund-poll-shows-consensus/"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> new Dev Fund</span></a> <span style="font-weight: 400;">of 20% of the block rewards after the Founders Reward runs out in November, splitting it between the Electric Coin Co (7%), Zcash Foundation (5%) and 3rd party developers (8%)</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">A consortium (cartel?) of the 4 largest BCH mining pools tried to insist upon a 12.5% block reward diversion to a new dev fund, with a threat to orphan blocks that didn’t comply. The plan ran into a barrier when Roger Ver’s bitcoin.com</span> <a href= "https://www.coindesk.com/roger-vers-mining-pool-pulls-support-for-bitcoin-cash-dev-fund-over-chain-split-threat"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">backed away</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Also in this episode, @nlw looks at the latest in CBDCs - including Japan’s</span> <a href= "https://www.coindesk.com/japan-must-be-ready-if-demand-for-digital-yen-soars-central-bank-official"> <span style="font-weight: 400;">continued hedging</span></a> <span style="font-weight: 400;">that they’re preparing for the possibility of needing to move quickly and Cambodia’s</span> <a href= "https://www.coindesk.com/cambodia-readies-a-blockchain-based-digital