Would it be possible to make something like gitea that's federated on the issues level? I feel like that'd be really useful.
The work that was done was from unpaid volunteer Gitea contributors.
Given this track record I would be very surprised if the same people are willing to work on federation. It does not make lots of money. It brings freedom to the users. Not profitable and no user-lock in: that's not what the VC will expect of them