Bitcoin Foundation Pledges to Focus Solely on Core Development

The Bitcoin Foundation has announced that it will seek to wind down its education, outreach and public policy initiatives as it turns its focus to core development.

The news coincides with the publication today of three surveys conducted by the Bitcoin Foundation suggesting that many community members, both inside and outside of the organization, want to see it adopt a stronger focus on core development.

The organisation wrote in its official blog posthttps://bitcoinfoundation.org/2014/11/everybody-pivots/:

"In the beginning, the foundation did it all — public policy, education and outreach, core development — primarily because there was no one else to do it. Thankfully we've come a long way since then and, as the ecosystem matures, just as with any startup, it's time to start shedding hats and specializing."

The organization said that it would take the results of the surveys to heart and begin shifting its focus toward core development, promising more funding and resources to this aim.

As part of a new push in this direction, the foundation also announced plans to launch educational seminars to get more developers working on core development.

The post explained:

“Some of the practical steps that are underway as we change course are: shedding anything that does not support core development, preparing to bring on at least one additional full-time developer for testing within the next several months, and launching at least four developer training and certification workshops around the world starting 2015.”

Key survey results

The three surveys focused on Bitcoin Foundation members, both business and individual, as well as the general public. A majority of the individual members surveyed reported that they were from Europe and the US, while the business survey – which featured 18 participants – drew mainly from US respondents.

Forty-four percent of the Bitcoin Foundation's individual members asserted that they want to see the trade organisation focus more on core development, according to the results, constituting 106 out of a total 230 respondents. Community members supported core development by wider margins, with 56% supporting training initiatives.

Fifty-two percent of individual members said that supporting the development of bitcoin’s open-source technology is, to them, the most important part of the organization's work. Similar findings were observed in the community and business member surveys, with 56% and 44% of respondents supporting core development, respectively.

Images via Bitcoin Foundation; Shutterstock