UPDATE:
We’ve heard from Peter on Twitter, and have learned a few things:
- Teams funded by the Ethereum Foundation (EF) have, in the past, lost their EF funding by accepting external funding. The Geth team is worried that by accepting funding from the community, they’ll lose their EF funding too (Tweet).
- The Geth team doesn’t have a formal entity or an accounting function to be able to accept funding (Tweet).
- The Geth development team is 7 people large (Tweet).
For both reasons (1) and (2), it is worth the Uniswap community voting on this temperature check to help instill confidence in Geth team members that getting significant funding from the community is indeed a viable option. It’s possible for the Geth team to set up a legal entity and hire the right people to handle the team’s accounting and payroll matters.
At the same time, some in the community have been expressing concern over two things: (a) Why is the EF holding teams hostage to in-house funding (strong language, feel free to correct)? (b) Why is the EF not increasing funding towards Geth development? The answer to (b) is likely because the EF is planning ahead for the long-term, and increasing funding significantly may not be a viable option (although I’m not aware of the EF’s financial situation). This makes it still more important for us to express our support.