Brink, the nonprofit Bitcoin research and development firm, has emerged as the leading backer of Bitcoin developers and reviewers, according to a presentation by crypto research firm BitMex Research.

Brink has funded more active Bitcoin Core developers and reviewers – eight contributors with at least 10 commits – than any other organization in the past 12 months, BitMex said. On GitHub, commits are snapshots of changes and updates made by developers and are often used to gauge developer activity.

Brink has also funded seven of the top 30 Bitcoin Core reviewers over the same period. Reviewers are developers who review pull requests – proposed software updates waiting to get merged with the main Bitcoin Core project.

Organizations like Brink are critical to the Bitcoin ecosystem. The biggest cryptocurrency by market value is completely volunteer-driven, unlike crowdfunded projects such as Ethereum that receive support from foundations with full-time staff.

“Bitcoin did not have a crowdsale! The protocol should be neutral and there is a need to minimize potential conflicts of interest,” the presentation stated.

BitMex’s charts show an increasingly diverse Bitcoin funding landscape with research firms like Chaincode Labs and FinTech companies like Block (formerly Square) also making significant contributions to Bitcoin Core development.

Brink was founded in 2020 with the goal of supporting Bitcoin protocol development. The organization runs a year-long fellowship program as well as a developer grant program. Brink co-founder and Executive Director Mike Schmidt is also a key contributor to the popular Bitcoin Optech weekly newsletter.