Mintlayer, a Bitcoin sidechain, has announced the commencement of a $4 million open-source development grants project and the beginning of the application process.
The establishment of the awards program is the “first big ecosystem initiative in Mintlayer’s long-term development.” It is intended solely for projects that will directly benefit the Mintlayer ecosystem, followed by the Bitcoin ecosystem.
“Bringing the most talented people, initiatives, and ideas into the Bitcoin ecosystem through the Mintlayer platform is one of our primary goals. According to Enrico Rubboli, co-founder and CEO of Mintlayer, “These subsidies ensure that when developers come up with a brilliant idea, there are resources to build it.”
Grants will be created from a pool of Mintlayer’s $ML tokens that have been set aside for initiatives that will contribute to the development of the ecosystem but will not generate their own revenue. This pool of tokens will be used to fund initiatives that have been approved.
Wallets, tools for the Lightning Network, block explorers, tools for analytics and development, tools for educational resources, and so on are some examples of projects that are invited to apply.
Projects that do not fit into these areas are strongly encouraged to participate in either the accelerator or the incubator programs offered by Mintlayer. (1)
Projects in the incubation program will receive technical assistance to bring their ideas to fruition.
The accelerator program is intended for projects either farther along in their development or using a different protocol.
The applicants will be expected to submit a comprehensive explanation of their project, as well as personal data and documentation that either confirms the applicant’s project as being feasible or demonstrates the applicant’s project as having progressed.
Funds will be provided based on how individual initiatives fit into Mintlayer’s roadmap.
The grant program that Mintlayer is offering is being introduced at a time when institutional participation is at a low. According to information provided by CoinShares, the digital asset market got a total investment of $433 million throughout the year 2022.
This figure represents the industry’s lowest level of investment since 2018 when it only received a total of $233 million.
This is a loss of 95% from the previous year’s total of $9.1 billion (2021) and a drop of 93% from the previous year’s total of $6.6 billion (2020).
Users are able to construct a decentralized environment on the Bitcoin blockchain with the help of the Mintlayer sidechain, which opens the door for decentralized applications (dApps), smart contracts, atomic swaps, and network-based tokens (NFTs).