Ben Allen has been named the third recipient of the Maelstrom Bitcoin Developer Grant, the household workplace of Arthur Hayes introduced in a current press launch despatched to Bitcoin Journal. Over the subsequent 12 months, Allen will give attention to enhancing the Payjoin Dev Equipment mission, a privacy-focused Bitcoin transaction device designed to enhance consumer anonymity and community scalability.
Payjoin, first launched in 2019 by Nicolas Dorier in BIP 78, permits each the sender and receiver to contribute inputs to a single Bitcoin transaction. This disrupts widespread assumptions utilized by monetary surveillance companies, particularly the concept a number of transaction inputs should come from a single entity. By breaking this assumption, even restricted adoption of Payjoin can bolster privateness throughout the Bitcoin community.
“Maelstrom want to congratulate Ben Allen on this grant,” mentioned Arthur Hayes, Chief Funding Officer of Maelstrom. “The wonderful thing about Payjoin, is that if solely a small quantity of adoption is achieved, it breaks a key assumption utilized by monetary surveillance firms. The belief they’ve is that if a Bitcoin transaction has a number of inputs, all of the inputs should all belong to the identical entity. Subsequently, Payjoin adoption improves the privateness of even the individuals who don’t use it. We’re excited to assist Ben Allen’s work on open-source instruments and software program to extend Payjoin adoption.”
Allen, who will likely be working alongside Dan Gould, goals to broaden the implementation of Payjoin so it may be built-in into extra Bitcoin wallets. He acknowledged the technical complexities of the mission—together with the requirement for receivers to be on-line—however expressed optimism about overcoming these challenges.
“I’m deeply grateful to Arthur Hayes and Maelstrom for generously offering me with this grant to assist my work on the Payjoin Dev Equipment mission,” mentioned Allen. “With this funding, I can dedicate myself full-time to enhancing the Payjoin implementation, enhancing testing, and making certain that the dev equipment stays sturdy, well-documented, and maintainable for the long run.”
Allen additionally emphasised the broader mission of his work: “Bettering privateness for bitcoin is an space the place continued enchancment permits for a greater expertise by empowering customers to regulate their monetary knowledge and foster higher peace of thoughts when utilizing bitcoin each day. That is an thrilling alternative to contribute to Bitcoin’s privateness and scalability, and I’m wanting ahead to persevering with to collaborate with the neighborhood to make Payjoin extra broadly adopted.”
Maelstrom, which is concentrated on supporting digital asset infrastructure, is led by Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX. By way of grants like this one, the agency is investing within the foundational instruments that promote a extra personal, scalable, and decentralized Bitcoin ecosystem.
