I am not volunteering because while being fluent in C, I am not very knowledgeable in the realm of crypto. I'd be stupid to do otherwise. I can still point out that there is a big need for such a project.

This is a piece of software that is so core to our computer ecosystem that I am sure plenty of companies would contribute financially and with developer time. Heck, if this couldn't get enough funding for at least 5 fulltime devs plus external audits then we're in a sad state of an ecosystem. IMHO this actually should receive public funding. It would be more useful than many other things that get public funds.