When issuing coins becomes a production line, someone is paying Bitcoin developers.

Author: Cathy, Plain Blockchain

A few days ago, the Bitcoin Ecosystem Research and Consulting Team 1A1z published an in-depth report on the builders of Bitcoin Core.

The article appears to be just an ordinary interview with developers, but it uncovers a layer of reality in the crypto industry that is often overlooked: there is a group of people who stay away from traffic centers, do not talk about narratives, do not do marketing, and have long maintained the most fundamental and critical infrastructure at the bottom of this industry.

In the list of sponsors supporting Bitcoin Core, OK’s name is not prominently displayed. Because of their low profile, many people realize for the first time: in this industry, there are still major platforms investing resources in “public R&D,” which is difficult to see short-term returns but long-term determines the industry’s direction.

After the article was published, OK Star reposted and quoted a statement from within the team: “From the very beginning, we have insisted on contributing a modest amount of effort to the development of Bitcoin’s underlying layer. Over the past ten years, we have never hype or promote, because we firmly believe in the future of blockchain.”

Such expressions are not uncommon in the industry. But when this statement is placed in the context of Bitcoin Core, its meaning is different—it’s not a marketing slogan, but a value choice: whether or not to invest time, resources, and patience in places that no one is paying attention to.

01 Paying the wages for Bitcoin’s “Operating System”

To understand the significance of this, we need to go back to a core question: what exactly is Bitcoin Core?

Simply put, Bitcoin Core is the “operating system” of Bitcoin. It is the software that runs full nodes, enforces network rules, validates transactions, and is the foundation for maintaining Bitcoin’s security, network consistency, and resistance to censorship.

The widely referenced metrics like BTC price, block height, transaction confirmations, and network stability all depend on the correct operation of this codebase.

More importantly, Bitcoin Core has never been a commercial project since its inception. It has no CEO, no KPIs, no profit model, and no “return on investment cycle.” It relies on contributions from volunteers worldwide and long-term support from external sponsors.

Some developers focus on network performance optimization, some research rule validation and security, some work on privacy improvements and user experience, and others do work that ordinary users will never see in their lifetime, but the entire ecosystem depends on it.

Because Bitcoin Core has no profit model and no company backing it, it needs external funding support. The report from 1A1z shows that sponsors supporting Bitcoin Core include foundations, research institutions, infrastructure companies, and a few trading platforms. These funds are mainly used for node performance optimization, security research, network synchronization, privacy enhancement, code review, and other areas.

It can be said that without this ongoing support, Bitcoin Core would find it difficult to maintain stable development over more than a decade.

The report identifies 13 major sponsoring organizations: Blockstream, Chaincode Labs, MIT, Spiral (formerly Square Crypto), OK, Human Rights Foundation, Brink, Btrust, OpenSats, Vinteum, Maelstrom, B4OS, and 2140.

Image: Major sponsors of Bitcoin Core, source: 1A1z

The criteria for entering this core list are clear: long-term, stable, low-profile.

This is also why, although exchanges like Coinbase, Kraken, Gemini have historically had developer funding programs, they are not listed as core sponsors— the report points out that these projects are either inactive, infrequent, or no longer focused on Bitcoin development. In contrast, OK’s funding program, which started in 2019, has continued to this day and is the only exchange among the 13 core sponsors.

Take Marco Falke as an example. He was one of only six core maintainers worldwide authorized to approve or reject changes to Bitcoin’s underlying code (resigned in February 2023). His job is to rigorously review every proposal to the codebase to prevent malicious or flawed code from entering the Bitcoin protocol. This is a crucial task for the global crypto economy, but it is unpaid.

Since 2019, OK (and its predecessor Okcoin) has continuously provided funding to Falke, ensuring he can work full-time on this critical network security work. Besides Falke, OK also funds Bitcoin Core developer Amiti Uttarwar, Lightning Network developer Antoine Riard, and non-profit organizations like Brink and Vinteum.

As of now, OK’s funding for these projects has totaled nearly $2 million. In fact, even before 2019, Okcoin had established an open-source developer funding program.

It’s worth noting that this kind of investment was almost never publicly promoted for a long time. Only after the recent release of the 1A1z report did many realize that so many organizations and companies are silently supporting Bitcoin’s underlying infrastructure.

In this industry, most companies chase hot topics and create narratives. But these sponsors choose to pay for those “things that must be done but no one is obligated to do.”

02 Not just the bottom layer, but also the “last mile”

Support for the underlying protocol is just one aspect. More often overlooked are the foundational infrastructures that may not seem “glamorous” but determine whether users can truly use the system.

User-side entry barriers

Take OK Wallet as an example. It has become the starting point for many people entering Web3. Supporting hundreds of chains, multiple account modes, self-custody and MPC technology, ecosystem integration speed, compliant chain support—these sound more like “product details,” but fundamentally they are “user-side infrastructure.”

For an industry to move toward large-scale adoption, these details are actually what decide whether the last mile can be completed.

Ordinary users don’t care about your consensus algorithm or how advanced your Layer 2 technology is. They care about: can I use it easily? Will I lose my coins? Are the fees expensive?

CeDeFi’s design aims to solve these problems—combining the advantages of centralized and decentralized exchanges. Users can access over 100 decentralized liquidity pools without leaving the platform, and the system automatically finds the best prices. More importantly, no need to remember mnemonics (using Passkey authentication), no cross-chain bridges (direct routing within the platform)—solving the two biggest headaches for DeFi users: coin loss and hacking.

These features may seem unsexy, but for large-scale adoption, they are more important than the technology itself.

Long-termism in developer ecosystems

Besides the user side, OK has been continuously promoting the development of developer ecosystems, testnets, cross-chain infrastructure, hackathons, research collaborations, and auditing systems over the years.

These investments may be far from hot topics, but they are more critical for the healthy development of the industry.

Hackathons don’t directly bring users, testnets don’t generate transaction volume, and auditing systems don’t create buzz. But without these, the developer ecosystem cannot grow, security incidents will become frequent, and the trust foundation of the entire industry will be eroded.

To some extent, the driving force behind the crypto industry’s progress is not just the trading volume on leaderboards or new narratives every week, but the people writing code, running nodes, testing protocols, and funding infrastructure.

03 The value of long-termism

“Ten years of cultivation” sounds like marketing hype in the crypto industry. But looking at the numbers, some things are indeed happening.

Consider the industry landscape in 2025:

• Token count skyrocketed from hundreds of thousands in 2021 to tens of millions (over 50 million) in 2025
• Token issuance cycles compressed from two years to 3-6 months
• Less than 20% of the money spent by projects is truly on technology; the rest is spent on listing fees, market makers, KOLs, and media promotion (ICODA DeFi marketing budget guide)

In such an environment, investing resources in the “invisible” areas like underlying protocols, developer ecosystems, and user infrastructure is difficult: short-term no returns, but long-term crucial for survival.

This sustained investment will eventually translate into competitiveness:

Technical efficiency brings cost advantages. When your system is fast and low-cost enough, you naturally have room to offer better prices to users. This is not price wars, but a technological dividend.

User experience determines large-scale adoption. No mnemonic worries, no cross-chain hacking fears, system automatically finds the best prices—these solve real pain points. Doing these details well makes users willing to stay.

Infrastructure building determines future capacity. When by 2030 the RWA market truly reaches a scale of $600 billion (as forecasted by Boston Consulting Group), the infrastructure capable of supporting these asset flows will become the most scarce resource. Those who have laid out early will have the greatest first-mover advantage.

This is the value of long-termism: laying the foundation when others chase hot topics, and having built tall buildings by the time others wake up.

04 Summary

Industry hot topics have cycles, but Bitcoin’s development has no cycle.

Market noise can rise and fall, but underlying infrastructure needs to be built and maintained over ten or twenty years. Perhaps this is the industry’s most difficult but most important task.

In this sense, participants like OK are worth paying attention to not because of publicity, but because they choose to do some “things that must be done in the industry” but “no one is obligated to do.”

Builders may not need applause, but they deserve to be seen.

And where the crypto industry ultimately goes largely depends on these unseen choices.