Don’t know what the exact cause was/is for this big surge - but I am glad to see it. No matter what personal problems people may have with the main devs, they are doing great work on the platform.
Also of interest, since this is a good place to plug things, other threadiverse things:
And I couldn’t find a way to donate to mbin, in lieu of that:
https://docs.joinmbin.org/contributing/
EDIT: The creator of mbin gave a link in the comments: https://melroy.org/donate.html
Ive referenced it in other posts, follow the link in OP to the begging thread and scroll to the comments, I’m sure you’ll find what you’re looking for if the comments weren’t removed