HRF’s Bitcoin Development Fund Announces 1.3 Billion Satoshis (13 BTC) Support for 22 Freedom Tech Projects Worldwide
The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) is pleased to announce 1.3 billion satoshis in grants from its Bitcoin Development Fund (BDF). This round of grants supports projects advancing open-source software development, censorship-resistant communications, mining decentralization, and financial privacy for the more than 5.9 billion people living under authoritarian regimes. Grantee projects will improve the underlying Bitcoin protocol, pilot Bitcoin-based payments for dissident support, and provide grassroots Bitcoin education across Asia, Africa, and Latin America. These efforts strengthen the global freedom technology ecosystem, helping human rights defenders, journalists, nonprofits, and everyday citizens connect, organize, and achieve financial freedom in the face of repression.
@HRF’s grantees for the fourth quarter of 2025 include:
Stratum V2 (Stratum Reference Implementation)
Much of Bitcoin mining still relies on outdated communications protocols that prevent individual miners from choosing the transactions they mine. This leaves block construction in the hands of mining pools, exposing the network to censorship risks. Stratum V2 solves this fault by enabling home miners to build their own block templates. HRF funding will support software developer @npub1vy80...d324's full-time work improving Stratum V2 through performance testing, integration work, and code maintenance, helping individuals regain autonomy within existing pool structures.
Braidpool
Traditional Bitcoin mining pools rely on a centralized structure where the operator controls reward payouts and transaction selection, creating censorship risks. Braidpool addresses this structural centralization by introducing a peer-to-peer, open-source mining pool design where participants collaboratively construct blocks and coordinate rewards without relying on a central operator. With HRF support, software developer @Zaid will contribute to advancing a new, more democratic mining model that strengthens decentralization and transparency.
Open Money, Closed Access: Building Financial Freedom (OMCA)
In conflict-affected and connectivity-constrained environments, communities are often cut off from formal banking services and safe ways to store or transfer value. OMCA addresses these challenges through Bitcoin-based tools designed for low-cost, private transactions and offline-first use. The program supports the development of local financial infrastructure and resilient communications technologies suited to high-risk contexts. HRF’s support enables individuals to save and transact more securely and discreetly during periods of instability.
Learning Bitcoin from the Command Line
As Bitcoin evolves, open-source developers need up-to-date resources that teach them how the system actually works. Learning Bitcoin from the Command Line by BlockchainCommons teaches prospective developers how Bitcoin works through a hands-on curriculum and across multiple languages. HRF’s funding will allow the project to update its curriculum to match the latest changes to Bitcoin’s software, helping grow the global pool of contributors who keep Bitcoin accessible and resilient.
Voices Uncensored: A Bitcoin-Based Platform for Human Rights Defenders in Azerbaijan
In Azerbaijan, the state routinely targets activists and journalists with surveillance, bank freezes, and blocked donations. Voices Uncensored is a Bitcoin-based platform for human rights defenders led by former political prisoner Elchin Mammad. It pairs uncensorable donations and payments with Azerbaijani-language training and educational resources. HRF’s support will equip Azerbaijan’s human rights defenders with the financial independence, privacy, and resilience needed to continue their work under a repressive regime.
Bitcoin Famba
In Mozambique, citizens face chronic inflation, growing debt, and heavy restrictions on their financial autonomy. @Bitcoin Famba, based in Maputo-Matola, provides accessible Bitcoin education and fosters local circular economies. HRF funding will help dissidents and everyday people access permissionless and censorship-resistant money to achieve financial independence in a repressive political and economic environment.
Bitcoin Indonesia & Bitcoin House Bali
Indonesians face growing financial surveillance, inflation, and censorship. @Bitcoin Indonesia 🇮🇩, Indonesia’s pioneering Bitcoin gathering, along with its Bitcoin education center, Bitcoin House Bali, offers training on using Bitcoin to protect incomes, preserve financial autonomy, and navigate restrictive banking systems. HRF’s funding will expand its workshops, meetups, and media outreach to make Bitcoin a practical tool for financial freedom across the country.
The Bitcoin Learning Center
Across Southeast Asia, millions of people face financial surveillance, exclusion from traditional banking systems, and currency instability. The Bitcoin Learning Center, a physical Bitcoin education hub in Chiang Mai, Thailand, brings students from Thailand, Burma, Laos, and Southern China to learn how to counter this financial repression through Bitcoin. HRF support will expand the center’s educational outreach to ensure more people living under authoritarian regimes gain access to open and decentralized financial tools.
Devgitotox
Bitcoin’s reliability and security depend on a robust codebase. @devgitotox is a Tanzanian Bitcoin Core developer contributing to Bitcoin’s primary software implementation. Her work focuses on improving wallet upgrades, fixing issues with how transactions are created and shared, ensuring nodes connect reliably to the network, and building software testing tools. HRF’s support of Devgitotox helps strengthen the Bitcoin codebase while empowering more women to contribute to Bitcoin Core.
Stratospher
Bitcoin’s peer-to-peer network can be vulnerable to surveillance and disruption if weaknesses in transaction relay, validation logic, or cryptographic components are not addressed. @stratospher,
a Bitcoin Core developer from South Asia, strengthens the protocol by improving how nodes (computers running the Bitcoin software) share and spread information, improving validation and cryptographic systems, and enhancing code quality through reviews and testing. With HRF funding, her contributions will help ensure that Bitcoin remains a robust tool for financial freedom.
Sovereign Engineering
Authoritarian regimes actively suppress financial freedom, leaving human rights defenders in need of open and censorship-resistant financial technologies. @Sovereign Engineering is a long-term development program that supports freedom technologists building on Bitcoin, Nostr, and ecash. Already, the program has catalyzed projects like Blossom, which stores data on public servers in a decentralized manner, and npub.cash, a Nostr-native Lightning address for anyone. With this funding, the program will continue to innovate on freedom technologies that protect civil liberties under repression.
OpenSats Initiative, Inc.
Open and transparent funding is key to sustaining many of the freedom technologies human rights defenders rely on today. @npub10pen...n34f is a public nonprofit organization that supports the projects and the individuals building freedom tech by distributing financial support across the ecosystem. With this grant, OpenSats can fortify its operations and continue channeling resources to the builders who keep freedom tech open, secure, and accessible for people living under tyranny.
Africa Free Routing Lightning Developer Bootcamp
Bitcoin adoption is rising across Africa, but access to quality education and development training is often limited or unaffordable. @Africa Free Routing’s Lightning Developer Bootcamps address these mismatches by providing structured programs that combine theory, hands-on workshops, and mentorship to software developers. These same developers can then contribute to the Lightning Network and build censorship-resistant financial tools. With HRF funding, the program will expand to ten bootcamps across Ethiopia, Uganda, Burkina Faso, and beyond to foster a continent-wide network of freedom tech contributors.
Programming Lightning
In many repressive environments, the Lightning Network ecosystem suffers from a shortage of skilled developers, leaving censorship-resistant payment tools underbuilt and unevenly maintained where they are needed most. Programming Lightning is an open-source course that will offer self-paced, multi-language learning with hands-on programming exercises. The curriculum will teach anyone to build on Lightning. This grant will help scale a global community of builders to sustain an open payment infrastructure that activists can use to sustain their work under repression.
Zapstore
Authoritarian regimes can censor freedom-tech apps on centralized app stores to control information and limit tools for communication and organizing. @Zapstore is an app store built on Nostr, a protocol for decentralized communication. On Zapstore, apps can be independently uploaded and verified by users, without being blocked or removed by dictators. HRF’s support will ensure that dissidents, journalists, and civil society around the world have access to freedom tech without gatekeepers.
Validating Lightning Signer
Most computers running the Lightning Network software today store private keys on the node itself. This creates an online setup where a breach can allow attackers to drain a user’s bitcoin. Validating Lightning Signer (VLS) solves this by separating key management from the node and validating every transaction before signing, enabling true self-custody and resistance to breaches. With HRF support, VLS will lower the barrier for people to safely control and use their own money on the Lightning Network, even in places where financial and digital rights are under threat.
Vexl
Dissidents acquiring bitcoin often need to do so privately to protect their identity, donor networks, and personal safety. Yet centralized exchanges often collect vast troves of personal information and monitor user activity. To address this, @vexl 😎, an open-source mobile app, allows peer-to-peer bitcoin trading without collecting personal data. With HRF’s support, Vexl can provide human rights defenders and civil society in authoritarian contexts a means to acquire Bitcoin without surveillance and absent gatekeepers.
Dhananjay Purohit
Dictators frequently restrict the finances of online platforms and independent media to silence dissent. To overcome this, open source developer @Dhananjay Purohit built ngx_l402, a web server module that enables websites and applications to accept bitcoin payments directly for web or API access. With HRF’s grant, Purohit’s work can help embed bitcoin payments into the internet infrastructure layer, keeping the web open, uncensorable, and resistant to centralized financial control.
BTCPay Server
Under dictatorships, traditional nonprofit fundraising channels can be censored, surveilled, frozen, or cut off without warning. @BTCPay Server uses the permissionless foundations of Bitcoin to work around this. Using this open-source and self-hosted software, NGOs and dissidents can freely accept Bitcoin and Lightning payments directly into their self-custodial wallets. HRF’s renewed support will ensure censorship-resistant crowdfunding in even the most repressive environments.
Bitika
In Kenya, obtaining bitcoin can be challenging. @Bitika addresses this by allowing users to buy bitcoin directly into their Lightning wallets through M-Pesa (the country’s most widely used financial infrastructure). This makes self-custodial Bitcoin use simple and accessible. This grant will help Bitika improve Kenyans' financial independence by expanding access to censorship-resistant money in an increasingly surveilled payments landscape.
Threads of Freedom: A Bitcoin Graphic Novel and Learning App
Young people, especially women and girls, who live under repressive regimes often lack access to financial education. Threads of Freedom, created by Afghan tech pioneer and founder of the Digital Citizen Fund, Roya Mahboob, provides a culturally-rooted graphic novel and learning app that explains how Bitcoin works and why it matters under tyranny. With HRF support, Threads of Freedom will expand access to education that helps people protect themselves and remain financially autonomous under repression.
About BDF
BDF supports individuals and projects that make Bitcoin and related freedom technologies more powerful tools for human rights defenders operating in challenging political and financial environments. Since launching in 2020, BDF has granted $10.8 million in BTC to 341 projects across 65 countries worldwide.
Learn more about BDF on our website.
HRF is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Donations are tax-deductible to the fullest extent allowable by law. Gifts can be made at HRF.org/DevFund, and proposals for support can be submitted to 
Follow @HRF on Nostr for more updates on this project and all of our other programs designed to promote freedom and human rights around the world.
Bitcoin Magazine
Human Rights Foundation Gives 1.3B Satoshis To 22 Projects
The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) gave 1.3 billion satoshis in new grants from its Bitcoin Development Fund last quarter.
HRF Bitcoin Development Fund Grant Application Form | monday.com forms
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Over the years from my time @CcHUB, I’ve listened to thousands of pitches, and I’ve developed a kind of sixth sense for sniffing out what’s truly original versus what’s just a repackaged version of an existing idea.
So, how do I separate the game-changers from the "me-too" projects? Here’s what goes through my mind (sometimes subconsciously) when evaluating a pitch:
1. The Person Behind the Idea
Who’s driving this? What’s their story, their values, their integrity? A founder’s authenticity and commitment often determine whether a project will succeed or flop. I pay attention not just to what’s said, but also to what’s not said—the nuances matter.
2. The "Why" Behind the Project
Why did the founder choose this problem? The more personal the connection to the issue, the more convinced I am that they’ll stick with it when things get tough. Passion rooted in lived experience beats a generic "I saw a gap in the market" or “It came to me in the shower” every time.
3. The Solution (and Whether It Actually Solves the Problem)
This might sound obvious, but so many solutions are built before the problem is fully understood. I look for ideas that directly address a well-researched, validated need—and a clear theory of change that explains how the solution tackles the problem. No hand-waving, just logic.
4. Progress Made So Far
What have you done with little or no funding? If my grant is the only thing standing between your idea and oblivion, that’s a red flag. I love seeing scrappy, resourceful founders who’ve already made headway—it tells me they’re in it for the long haul.
5. The Right Founder for the Right Audience
Do you really know the people you’re serving? And are you the best person to serve them? If your answer is "this project is for everyone," I’m probably not interested. Impact is about depth, not breadth.
6. A Vision for Success (and Obsolescence)
How will the world be different if you succeed? And—just as important—what’s your plan to not be needed forever? The best solutions aim to solve a problem so thoroughly that they eventually work themselves out of a job.
Of course, these aren’t hard-and-fast rules, and sometimes great projects slip through the cracks. But with limited time and funding, I’d rather bet on ideas that check these boxes—because they’re the ones most likely to create real, lasting change.
What do you think? What’s your approach to spotting original (and fundable) ideas?
About 2.5 years ago, I embarked on a transformative journey into the world of Bitcoin, and it all started with a simple conversation.
The Spark: A Recommendation Request
I was asked to recommend someone to run operations for Qala, a new program designed to train African software engineers for careers in Bitcoin development.
Up until that moment, I only knew of Bitcoin as a digital currency and investment asset but had no idea about the technology or the community of developers behind it.
The recommendation request triggered my curiosity. After all, how could I recommend someone for something I didn’t fully understand?
Little did I know that this would be the beginning of an exciting journey down the Bitcoin rabbit hole.
A New Realization
I began by downloading The Bitcoin Standard and diving into a few blogs.
The more I read, the more I realized just how vast and revolutionary the Bitcoin ecosystem really was.
It is not just a digital asset; it is an alternative to our broken global monetary system, a system I believed is responsible for many of the challenges facing my beloved Africa.
Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto's peer-to-peer electronic cash system, offers a way out. But for Africa to benefit, we have to engage this new technology as producers, not just consumers—unlike how we have engaged previous waves of technology.
Qala was aiming to equip Africans with the skills to become value creators in the Bitcoin space, but it needed the right leadership and guidance.
Perfect Alignment: My Background in Learning and Development
Having recently stepped away from day-to-day operations at CcHub, I had completed a research-based Master’s in Learning Science at the Paris University School of Interdisciplinary Research. My research & thesis focused on what motivates young adults in Africa to engage in informal learning.
This new Bitcoin program aligned perfectly with my interests in African development, capacity building and education. It wasn’t just a good fit; it felt like a calling.
Taking the Leap
So, instead of recommending someone else for the job, I offered myself… and I got it!
To be continued…
