A senior Linux developer responsible for maintaining Bitcoin’s primary random number generator, linux-rng, has earned one of the most prestigious grants available to developers. OpenSats, a non-profit public charity founded in early 2021 that has given away over $10 million, granted Jason Donenfeld long-term funding.
Distinct from its short-term or project grants, OpenSats allocates funds on a long-term basis to some of Bitcoin’s most active developers. In May, Jack Dorsey replenished the philanthropy with an additional $21 million, more than doubling OpenSats’ capacity to give.
Donenfeld joins other senior Bitcoin developers as a OpenSats Long-Term Support Grantee, including Marco Falke, René Pickhardt, and Sjors Provoost. Most long-term grantees at OpenSats contribute as developers to code review of Bitcoin’s repository and maintenance of its technologies.
Donenfeld is the creator of WireGuard, a VPN. He is also the primary author and maintainer of linux-rng, a library that is used within Bitcoin’s code to generate cryptographically secure random numbers.
Specifically, linux-rng collects entropy from distinct components of computers, hashes those entropic data sources, and then uses those hashes to seed and re-seed random number generators within kernel processes. Maintaining this cryptographic function is a key part of Bitcoin’s security, especially when generating public/private keypairs.
Protos reached out to Donenfeld for comment and did not receive an immediate response prior to publication.
