Bitwise Backs Bitcoin Devs With Over $380K In Donations

When Bitwise Asset Management launched its Bitcoin ETF in January 2024, it made a promise: hand over 10% of gross profits every year to the people who keep Bitcoin running. Fourteen months later, that promise is still being kept — and the checks are getting bigger.

A Growing Commitment To Open-Source Work

The firm announced a $233,000 donation on March 4, directed at three organizations that fund BTC open-source developers: Brink, OpenSats, and the Human Rights Foundation’s Bitcoin Development Fund.

Combined with last year’s contribution, Bitwise has now put more than $380,000 into the hands of programmers who maintain and secure the world’s largest cryptocurrency network. None of that money came from marketing budgets or corporate goodwill gestures. It came straight from ETF profits.

The Bitcoin ETF at the center of this — ticker BITB — has pulled in over $2.5 billion in investor inflows since it launched. That growth is what drives the size of the annual donation.

As BITB grows, so does the contribution. Bitwise said as much when announcing this year’s gift, confirming that future donations will scale with the fund’s assets under management.

Bitcoin’s Invisible Workforce

Open-source developers rarely make headlines. They write code, review proposals, fix bugs, and argue over technical upgrades in public forums — mostly without pay.

The three nonprofits receiving Bitwise’s donation exist specifically to change that. Brink and OpenSats offer grants and fellowships to full-time contributors. The Human Rights Foundation’s Bitcoin Development Fund focuses on reaching developers in countries where financial freedom is most at risk.

For these organizations, corporate donations of this size are significant. The top crypto asset’s core development has no central authority and no company behind it writing paychecks. Funding comes from donors, and consistency matters.

Bitwise has extended the same model to Ethereum. Based on reports, the firm also donated a portion of profits from its spot Ethereum ETF — ETHW — to Ethereum open-source contributors last year.

The company manages over $15 billion in assets across more than 40 products, including ETFs tied to XRP, Solana, and Dogecoin.

The broader picture is a firm using its ETF business not just to profit from crypto, but to fund the work that keeps it functional.

Whether that becomes an industry standard remains to be seen. For now, Bitwise is one of the few doing it consistently — and putting the receipts on the table every year.

Featured image from Pexels, chart from TradingView