BitMEX Owner Awards $50K Grant to Bitcoin Smart Contract Developer
Arthur Hayes, CEO of BitMEX, and Chase Lochmiller, general partner at Polychain Capital, speak at Consensus: Invest 2017. (Brady Dale/CoinDesk archives)
The parent of crypto derivatives exchange BitMEX has given $50,000 to the Bitcoin Core contributor who revealed last week he was working on a smart contract language for bitcoin.
- 100x Group announced Wednesday it had awarded a one-year grant to Jeremy Rubin, as part of its Open Source Developer Grant program.
- The Seychelles-based company, which recently changed its name from HDR Trading, has already given similar grants to fellow Bitcoin Core contributors Michael Ford, Amiti Uttarwar and Gleb Naumenko.
- A Bitcoin developer since 2011, Rubin said last week he was developing a new programming language, Sapio, for a full smart contract capability on the Bitcoin protocol.
- He has also established a new research organization, Judica, that plans to develop and release new software tools for Bitcoin.
- Per the announcement, 100x said the grant would make Judica financially sustainable and further fund research into Sapio.
- Established in 2014, BitMEX’s primary product is its bitcoin perpetual contract – trading volume stood at $800 million at press time, according to CoinGecko.
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