Gemini’s Superlunar Expands Support for Bitcoin Developers With Sponsorships Across Four Continents

Since launching regulated and secure BTC trading in 2015, Gemini has been a passionate supporter of Bitcoin and the blockchain ecosystem. Importantly, we’ve provided grants and sponsorships through the Gemini Opportunity Fund to various groups supporting the Bitcoin Network, including Bitcoin Developers.

In May, we announced the launch of Superlunar, a multi-disciplinary web3 research and design studio. Overseeing the Gemini Opportunity Fund, Superlunar has continued to sponsor Bitcoin Developers, and has expanded sponsorships over the past months.

Superlunar now sponsors nine full-time Bitcoin Developers on year-long contracts across North America, Africa, Asia, and Europe, supporting the continued sustainability, scalability, and security of the Bitcoin Network. We are thrilled about the work they are doing, and are excited to highlight their projects in this blog!

Sponsoring the Future of Bitcoin

Dhruv Mehta — we’ve been sponsoring Dhruv’s work on Bitcoin Core since early 2021. His work focuses on the security of Bitcoin Network nodes, with a specific interest in BIP324, which proposes an updated P2P protocol for the Bitcoin Network. Read more about Dhruv’s journey here, and learn about his work on BIP324 here.

Jarol Rodriguez — like Dhruv, Jarol has been sponsored by the Gemini Opportunity Fund since early 2021. His focus has been on building out a more intuitive Bitcoin Core Graphical User Interface (GUI), which is based on the QT Modeling Language (QML). Read more about Jarol’s path to becoming a Bitcoin Core Dev here.

Amiti Uttarwar — Amiti was previously sponsored by Gemini Opportunity Fund and will resume her work with us this November. She plans to continue work on the P2P network, with a focus on security and privacy. She is also passionate about helping others with their Bitcoin journeys, especially bringing more diversity into the ecosystem.

Collin Rukundo — Collin has been focused on the usability of the Bitcoin Network, building the EttaWallet, which aims to improve accessibility and the user experience, particularly for users in Africa who are encountering Bitcoin for the first time and may be mobile-first users. As a Ugandan activist, Collin is also passionate about privacy and custody, ensuring that users keep their funds safe when interacting with the Bitcoin Network. Read more about Collin’s journey to becoming a Bitcoin Core Developer here, and learn about Qala here, a program of which he is an alumni.

Duncan Dean — with a focus on decentralization and resilience, Duncan has been working on enabling "asmap" in Bitcoin Core by default, ensuring the continued security of the Bitcoin Network by diversifying the peers with which Bitcoin miners share connections. He has also worked on the Lightning Developer Kit (LDK), building tools and libraries that facilitate the integration of Lightning into any Bitcoin wallet. Read more about Duncan’s experience and journey to becoming a Bitcoin Core Dev here.

Josie — Josie is currently curating data sets and assisting with data analysis for research related to the Bitcoin Mempool as well as diving into a statistical analysis of Bitcoin transactions and fees. He also plans to focus on Cross Input Signature Aggregation as a soft-fork for Bitcoin. Josie is passionate about mentorship and dedicating time to reviewing and testing open PRs in Core.

Ruben Somsen — working closely with other Bitcoin Developers, Ruben has honed his work on spacechains, which seek to improve the Bitcoin ecosystem by using a permissionless method to create trustless blockchains. Read more about Ruben’s experience becoming a Bitcoin Developer here.

Shashwat Vangani — an alumni of the Summer of Bitcoin initiative, Shashwat has a unique interest in the Bitcoin Core GUI and helping in its development. Recently, he implemented its onboarding view and is now focused on implementing a Bitcoin block clock for the new version of the GUI.

Stratospher — also an alumni of Summer of Bitcoin, Stratospher is focused on implementing the cryptography for BIP324’s integration testing framework, and has written illustrated blog posts about techniques to securely transmit public keys.

We are grateful for the work the Bitcoin Developers sponsored by Superlunar have accomplished, and we are dedicated to furthering our support for the Bitcoin community as we continue on our mission to unlock the next era of financial, creative, and personal freedom.

Onward and Upward!

Team Gemini