Can letsencrypt continue to operate without funding from OTF?

After reading this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/03/20/trump-ends-internet-access-china-iran-otf/

I saw that OTF sponsored letsencrypt generously. can letsencrypt continue to operate without funding from OTF ?

I'm thinking about the infrastructure costs.

Become a Sponsor - Internet Security Research Group (for sponsorship level costs)
I'm sure they will still float without fund from OTF

TIL ISRG added diamond tier for sponsorship

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Hard to really say how much of their funding currently comes from that one source.

But it doesn't seem to be a huge amount

https://www.opentech.fund/projects-we-support/supported-projects/increasing-internet-security-through-shorter-lived-tls-certificates/

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"Only" 22 % of the funding comes from diamond and platinum sponsors, according to https://www.abetterinternet.org/documents/2024-ISRG-Annual-Report.pdf (page 42). And OTF is just one of the diamond sponsors. I wouldn't think this impacted Let's Encrypt in a disastrous way.

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wait: ISRG sponsorship page says it needs $500k per year to be diamond tier: how they got one with 800k over two years?

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For platinum there's also a reduced amount for multiple years, perhaps they also got a discount :wink:

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@Osiris can we get the stats from letsencrypt telemetrics how many US IPs use out of those 500 Million certificates ? I will give concrete data points to argue with the funding agencies ?

I don't know as I'm not a Let's Encrypt staff member, just a volunteer on this Community.

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@josh Maybe you are the right person to ask ? If you can get the anonymized number of issued certs for ARIN region, then we can argue with policy makers ?

You might be better off contacting Let's Encrypt directly via email.

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There might be some related data in Mozilla telemetry. I'm not sure what this probe tells us, tho.

Have fun?

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For what it is worth, various outlets are reporting that the OTF's funding is no longer terminated.

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