Nazia Saeed
Bitcoin developer Ben Allen has been awarded a $100,000 grant from investment firm Maelstrom to further develop Payjoin, a privacy-enhancing transaction method that also promises improvements in Bitcoin’s scalability. The announcement, shared on May 20, outlines Maelstrom’s commitment to funding Allen’s full-time work on the Payjoin development kit, which he is building in collaboration with fellow developer Dan Gould.
Payjoin, originally introduced by Nicolas Dorier in 2019 under Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) 78, allows both the sender and the receiver to contribute inputs to a Bitcoin transaction. This mechanism disrupts conventional assumptions about transaction structures and improves privacy by making it more difficult for observers to determine ownership of inputs. It also enables better consolidation of outputs, which contributes to Bitcoin’s overall scalability.
In a statement accompanying the announcement, Maelstrom emphasized that its approach to funding is intentionally hands-off, granting Allen the flexibility to prioritize development goals without strict milestones. The grant will be distributed in Bitcoin over the course of one year. “We believe grantees may work better with freedom to work on what they wish, rather than being tightly controlled by those who provide the funding,” a Maelstrom representative told Cointelegraph.
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Allen’s immediate goal is to improve Payjoin implementation and make it easier for wallet developers to integrate the feature. With the grant, he will now be able to dedicate himself full time to the project. He acknowledged the challenges associated with Payjoin, particularly the need for the receiving party to be online and the increased complexity in transaction communication. Nevertheless, he believes that removing technical friction for users is key to encouraging broader adoption.
Arthur Hayes, Maelstrom’s Chief Investment Officer and co-founder of the BitMEX crypto exchange, underscored the broader significance of the initiative. “Improving financial privacy in Bitcoin is extremely important,” he said. “The great thing about Payjoin is that if only a small amount of adoption is achieved, it breaks a key assumption used by financial surveillance companies—that when a transaction has multiple inputs, they all belong to the same entity.”
Hayes also pointed out that even Bitcoin users who don’t actively use Payjoin benefit from its adoption, as it increases ambiguity across the network and weakens surveillance heuristics. Allen echoed this sentiment, stating that privacy strengthens the user experience and empowers individuals to take better control of their financial data.
Allen said he is focused on creating benchmarks to assist developers in integrating Payjoin into various wallet software and is expanding test coverage to ensure the system behaves consistently. He emphasized that simplifying the technical experience and reducing user-side complexity will be crucial in driving adoption.
According to Maelstrom, a major indicator of Payjoin’s success would be its integration into leading open-source Bitcoin wallets. In particular, if the Bitcoin Core wallet ever adopts it, that would be a huge signal of success, a company spokesperson said. The firm is actively seeking to fund more developers working on privacy-focused Bitcoin initiatives and encourages candidates with a proven track record to apply.
