The Payjoin Foundation is announced at Bitcoin++ Riga
The newly launched non-profit is supporting open-source developers working on the Payjoin protocol
Payjoin contributors are launching a non-profit, the Payjoin Foundation, to support free-and-open-source development efforts for Payjoin and the broader bitcoin privacy ecosystem.
The non-profit is bootstrapping with a grant from Opensats – a well-known grants organization that funds open-source software development in bitcoin. This funding is directly supporting three developers to support the Payjoin project’s research and development efforts.
Dan Gould will lead the Payjoin Foundation with Armin Sabouri and Spacebear joining as officers. The non-profit also has an inaugural board featuring Satsie from the Bitcoin Dev Project, Justin of Localhost Research, and the Payjoin project lead, Dan Gould.
Putting tangible products into users’ hands takes time. Developers building these products need to be compensated, and funding organizations need an easy way to distribute their treasuries to worthy causes and builders. Still, most open-source software projects come with administrative overhead. Time spent on administrative tasks directly takes away from software development.
In a discussion with the Insider Edition, Payjoin contributors shared why a non-profit structure will simplify funding and R&D efforts, “Payjoin development has been supported by a number of individual contributors, all with their own funding sources. The non-profit structure removes the need for each contributor to go through their own administrative process of receiving a FOSS grant, and lets them solely focus on what’s most impactful; writing code. It additionally gives the project the ability to recruit more proactively in places where we need support.”
And while initial funding is focused on Payjoin, the entity’s broader mission is to improve bitcoin privacy and user experience. The Payjoin team added, “Privacy is the goal, and funding developers is the mechanism to reach that goal. Privacy software shouldn’t be cumbersome, difficult, and expensive to use. It should be cheaper, more convenient, and provide an improved user experience which incentivizes its usage, thus growing privacy as a byproduct.”
Payjoin is a natural fit for this mission. In Payjoin transactions, the transaction flow sees two (or more) participants batch their transactions together. Senders and receivers exchange PSBTs before broadcasting a transaction. When the transaction is broadcast, it contains inputs from both parties, so a third-party observer may not be able to discern the payer from the payee. While interactive, wallets are abstracting complexity away for users participating in Payjoin transactions.
Future Payjoin implementations will leverage a batching method that additionally provides fee-saving benefits. In the newly deployed Async Payjoin (v2), transactions can be more easily batched in a way where a payment can be “cut through” to multiple recipients. An example of this would be an exchange using a deposit to directly fund withdrawals in the same transaction without ever taking the funds into their wallet.
In this example, the exchange has ample liquidity to facilitate these withdrawals in individual payments. But, with Payjoin, they can take a UTXO they received as a deposit and use it to fund withdrawals. This transaction batching sees the exchange save money on fees as they don’t have to process each withdrawal with their own individual transactions And, all users within the transaction receive privacy benefits as onchain heuristics can not discern who was the payer, or the receivers, between the participants in the transaction. Future versions of the protocol will enable multiple depositors to participate in a Payjoin transaction. These development efforts are directly supported by the newly created Payjoin Foundation.
Privacy doesn’t need to be at odds with user experience. It also doesn’t need to incur more cost onto users. Payjoin’s efforts to bring efficient, batched payments to bitcoin will support users in participating in collaborative transactions that reduce costs. Better privacy is a byproduct that further adds to an improved user experience.
In a chaotic week for bitcoin privacy, the Payjoin Foundation announcement is a bright spot. It’s encouraging to see more developers receive funding to advance Payjoin development and build the tools that deliver improved products for bitcoin users. Kudos to the organizations supporting the Payjoin Foundation and to those who have backed Payjoin contributors in the past.
Only sustainable and committed development will push bitcoin privacy forward. And, the Payjoin Foundation will be a driving force for years to come.