&gt; researchers work on open source projects for free.<p>There is 6B$ in Bitcoin wealth floating around, surely there are means for funding a few salaries. And that&#x27;s what is going to happen in the future. Funding will take place through on-blockchain methods, some Cryptocurrency projects do this already. Money and opensource is now tightly connected, but Bitcoiners generally haven&#x27;t figured this out yet. For more innovative ways checkout Ethereum, Bitshares, Nxt, etc.