Why Leading Crypto Devs Don't Work In Silicon Valley

The trouble is many developers see larger industry startups like Coinbase, which made more than $1 billion in revenue last year, as a prime example of the "Big tech companies" that Romero positioned as antagonists.

Instead, Coinbase executives would be directing the work, potentially requiring the developers work on cryptocurrencies that might run afoul of their own personal tastes.

Still, Lallo detailed some of the exchange's work in reaching out to the open-source developer community that has attempted to shift that perception.

In Rubin's view, lucrative blockchain companies could easily donate a few million dollars each in grants and sponsorships for open-source developers.

It's the same argument open-source developers have made regarding a whole slew of integral internet protocols that have allowed companies like Google, Facebook and Uber to grow into multi-billion-dollar companies.

Blockstream, which funds the work of several developers who solely work on the bitcoin protocol, goes a step further by offering employees individual patent rights for technologies they contribute to, in addition to roughly 20 percent paid leave to work on side projects.

Still, many leading blockchain companies struggle to retain talent.

According to Bosworth, the missions of large tech companies, and now large crypto companies, run counter to the ideals of the developers who started developing the protocols to begin with.

The community has rallied around several initiatives that fund developer work without strings attached.

Several developers CoinDesk spoke to mentioned Chain Code Labs, which sponsors a handful of Bitcoin Core developers at a financial loss through the money the founders, Alex Morcos and Suhas Daftuar made from a previous Wall Street venture.