Community Funding

Grin is an open source projects and relies on the community for donations.

Grin Genral Fund

Status: Always Open. Link

Past campaigns

You can view all of our past campaigns here.

Grin’s Community Funding Principles

Grin is currently being created by a group of developers dedicated to the realisation of a reliable and functional MimbleWimble blockchain. We are building it because we’re excited about MimbleWimble technology and the possibilities that it will one day offer.

Unlike the vast majority of blockchain projects, Grin’s development is not motivated by profit for either its developers or early adopters. As a measure of this, the project has pledged that:

• Grin will not engage in an ICO
• Grin’s launch will be pre-announced, open, and fair. There will be no pre-mining or any other funny business
• Grin will not channel a mandatory percentage of mining rewards back to the developers (although it reserves the right to include a mechanism for doing so voluntarily)
• Grin will not seek or accept any capital that comes with the expectation of future monetary return
• Grin will not seek or accept any capital that comes with the expectation of being able to unduly influence Grin’s decision-making process

Thus far, Grin’s development has been mostly a part-time effort, with volunteers contributing their code on an ad-hoc basis. This will continue in any event, but the reality is that a project of Grin’s scope would be greatly helped by having a source of funding. This would allow Grin to reach its potential more quickly, more reliably, with better supporting infrastructure, and with a far greater chance of success competing against (or co-existing with) well-funded blockchain projects.

To keep Grin open and free from controlling influences, the project will attempt to rely 100% on community donations for its funding needs. We ask any person, corporate entity or institution who sees potential in Grin/MimbleWimble technology to consider donating to the project, and we hope that the vibrant cryptocurrency community will help Grin in achieving its goal of providing a reliable, scalable and privacy-driven blockchain implementation that truly belongs to everyone.

Friends of Grin

We believe that any donors, large or small, should be given recognition for their contribution. Any individual donor who wishes to be listed on our Friends of Grin page will be listed, and any corporate or institutional Donors making a significant contribution to Grin’s development will have their logo displayed (if desired).

We are also happy to accept recurring sponsorships and acknowledge your support prominently on our Friends of Grin page. However, as per our pledges above, we cannot accept sponsorships or donations predicated on being able to unduly influence Grin’s direction.

Donation Format

As in all things Grin, we want to ensure that the funding process remains as transparent as all other aspects of the project. To this end, Grin will actively seek community funding via:

• A general fund, proceeds of which will be allocated by Grin’s technical council according to project need

• Specific funding campaigns on a need-by-need basis. Examples of a “Need” might be:

  • Allow developer Dobby to work full-time for 6 months
  • Hosting fees for X for the next year
  • Purchase test mining hardware

The general fund will be allocated by the Grin council as needs are identified, with all spending decisions posted and made public. Campaigns will specifically outline how campaign funds will be used, and the owner of the campaign will be responsible for updating the community on progress.

Since Grin doesn’t currently have a foundation, general donations will go into a 3 of 5 multisig wallet, while specific campaign funds will go directly into an account controlled by the person making the request, (which will be shown alongside the funding request). This is to minimize exposure to the project as a whole, and to ensure that the community has 100% visibility on who is responsible for which funds. This may change as Grin’s governance model evolves, but for now this arrangement remains the safest for the project.

In the event that a campaign doesn’t achieve its required funding, the funds will be redistributed into other campaigns that progress Grin’s development (hopefully allowing another campaign to reach its goals.)

In the event that campaign funds aren’t or can’t be used for their intended purpose (e.g. a developer who had been previously funded leaves the project for any reason,) the funds will be distributed amongst other outstanding funding requests.

Donors and sponsors should understand that the funds donated may not always go to the exact cause they’ve donated to due to eventualities such as the ones listed above, but they will always go towards the advancement of Grin.

Developer Funding Campaigns

Campaigns which go towards funding developer time will be subject to additional rules:

• Developer campaigns will target enough money to pay the equivalent of a daily rate+expenses over a certain time period.
• Developers are responsible for controlling their own campaign funds, and are personally accountable for them to the community.
• Campaign amounts will be listed as per their local fiat rates.
• Developers will provide weekly updates on progress via a method of their choosing (linked from the funding page).

Disclaimer

The Grin project is still very young and is still experimenting with the details of its funding model. Some or all of the details above, and even our overall approach may change as the project evolves, however we will always strive to ensure that our funding model reflects the principles of openness and fairness on which the project was founded.