We're thrilled to announce that the BTCPay Server Foundation has received a grant of 150,000 USD (received and held in Bitcoin) from Kraken (opens new window). This is the biggest donation we've received so far.
Founded in 2011 by Jesse Powell, Kraken is one of the world’s largest, oldest and most reputable bitcoin exchanges. Based in San Francisco with offices around the world, their core mission is to accelerate the adoption of cryptocurrency so that anybody can achieve financial freedom and inclusion.
For us, the collaboration with Kraken happened organically. We've been fans of the company's ethos for a long time. The way Kraken operates, is something we find relatable to our open-source culture. When the BTCPay Server Foundation was formed (opens new window), we had discussed internally that Kraken was a good example of a company we'd like to be supported by and affiliated with.
We were over the moon, when an email from Jesse Powell (opens new window) arrived in our inbox. In that email, besides a concise "we'd like to support you guys," Jesse mentioned that they've launched BTCPay Server integration on Cryptowatch (opens new window), their premium trading terminal that provides real-time cryptocurrency market data. That put a big grin on our faces. Not only did they want to support our work but they're using the software we've been building for the past two and a half years. However, we weren't surprised.
The reason we expected this, is due to our community. Since the launch of the BTCPay Server Foundation, we've been receiving constant "WEN KRAKEN" messages via DM's and in our community chat (opens new window). The passion that people put into the communities of both Kraken and ours to make this happen, is truly incredible.
To all of you "wenkrakeners" - thank you!
Our focus this year is to make BTCPay Server easier to use by ironing out the interface but also adding a better workflow especially in the initial setup which includes installation, creating your first account and store, and configuring your wallet. We're confident that we can tremendously improve that part of the user's workflow in the next few months to come.
At the same time, another goal is greater flexibility for developers. We want to offer a Swiss-knife type of stack that can help anybody in building a Bitcoin business with ease and versatility on top of BTCPay Server.
Making BTCPay Server intuitive for small mom-and-pop stores but also a headless beast for developers, is not an easy task. Thanks to this grant, we're able to focus the efforts of our contributors towards that goal but also extend the scope to improving integration tools with e-commerce platforms and exchanges. We know that when it comes to plugins and integrations, we can do much better. We've decided to, not only increase the amount of plugins, but also completely overhaul our existing plugins once our new API (opens new window) is ready. In addition, we're working hard to release the beta version of our exchange integration plugin BTC Transmuter (opens new window) within the year, enabling evil scientist level automated workflows in the Bitcoin ecosystem.
To our community, thanks for always leading the way for us. Because of you, we're able to wake up and code with passion - every single day.
We're honoured to welcome Kraken as our biggest supporter yet. Welcome to the BTCPay Server family, let's continue to build great things together!
This Friday, June 26th, at 13:00 UTC Kraken's Lead Bitcoin Strategist Pierre Rochard will host a free webinar highlighting the benefits of Bitcoin payments and how you can accept them via BTCPay Server. Pierre will be joined by our Nicolas Dorier and Artur Sapek, founder of Cryptowatch.