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The Digital Currency Initiative (DCI) at the MIT Media Lab is launching a multi-year effort dedicated to Bitcoin research and development. The program received $4 million in funding from prominent backers such as Meltem Demirors of CoinShares, Jack Dorsey of Twitter, and Michael Saylor of MicroStrategy, as well as corporate entities such as Fidelity Digital Assets. It has made the long-term viability of the Bitcoin protocol a priority.
The Bitcoin Software and Security Effort will devote resources to Bitcoin Core development over the next four years, the underlying codebase of the near-trillion-dollar network. Long-standing questions about Bitcoin's core characteristics, such as the network's stability after the 21 million BTC (+3.29 percent ) mining subsidy runs out, will be investigated by MIT researchers.
Bitcoin has proven to be remarkably resilient over the course of its 12-year existence. Only twice in its history has the decentralized network gone down, the most recent time in 2013. A core group of maintainers fixes bugs, distributes updates, and oversees the protocol in general. The majority of this work is funded through patronage, with corporations supporting developers' efforts, or as a labor of love.
The Media Lab's mandate includes assisting in the stewardship of this unofficial development process, in order to "reduce bottlenecks in the development ecosystem that may lead to centralization."
“As the use of Bitcoin grows and becomes more deeply ingrained in our societies, the network's security must also grow and strengthen. “However, there is no single Bitcoin protector or guardian to take on this formidable task as a common good,” the group wrote in a statement.
Since at least 2015, the DCI has been a proponent of bitcoin development.
Despite falling short of its $8 million funding goal, the Media Lab's effort has been praised by the Bitcoin community.
Source: Bityard (https://support.bityard.com/hc/en-us/articles/900005667243-Blockchain-News-The-MIT-Digital-Currency-Initiative-has-raised-4-million-to-help-harden-Bitcoin-)