If bitcoin comes to rely too heavily on corporate grants/donations, you'll only get the tools that for-profit corporations want you to have. Keep bitcoin free -- build your own shit if you can, contribute to your favorite project, or donate *directly* to it (avoid pass-throughs).
Discussion
This was my first thought when I heard van eck was planning up all that money for devs... That it will attract selfish types to want to get their code included by any means necessary. Ie it could be problomatic
Yes, while that is true, I don't see a danger looming for this to happen. Bitcoin was attractive for a certain kind of people and it made many of those rich and they now support the projects in line with those ideals. Sure, others are joining, too and might have other values but even if the majority of developer financing was outright evil, it would not break Bitcoin. Bitcoin is not democratic. Others forked it before and it will happen again. Lets call out those who push in the wrong direction but not turn down financing for more brains to these really tough problems.
He who pays the bills makes the rules.
Yeah and some make good rules and some make bad rules. I am working on Bitcoin thanks to a grant and I'm hiring people to help me work on Bitcoin thanks to a grant and "the rules" are basically "keep doing what you've been doing".
The ETF commitments were towards for example nostr:npub10pensatlcfwktnvjjw2dtem38n6rvw8g6fv73h84cuacxn4c28eqyfn34f which probably gave nostr:npub1qny3tkh0acurzla8x3zy4nhrjz5zd8l9sy9jys09umwng00manysew95gx the insights that lead to the recent rants without naming specifics. Yes, OpenSats "makes the rules" but as long as "the community" considers OpenSats a good actor, ETFs can just donate to them to support Bitcoin in a good way. If we all get up in arms against OpenSats because they screwed up, things get more complicated. If ETFs decide to hire their own armies of devs to push their agendas, it gets more complicated and of course, pouring billions of $$ onto OpenSats raises the stakes and attracts more ambivalent administrators and devs but it's not inherently a bad thing. Problems users have will get resolved either by open source solutions or by closed source, corporate for profit solutions and I fear the latter will remain the norm unless we scale up the efforts for the former.