what if an open sourced project ran completely on donations from the community
You mean like Wikipedia? They collect
millions of dollars through their fundraising rounds.
I see no reason to limit fundraising to Bitcoin only though.
Would you donate if you believed in it and felt it was needed in the crypto space?
I don't "feel" the need for 99% of "developments" in crypto, the majority of "developments" is just money grabbing ICOs and forks nowadays. If only donating could make them disappear
