NEW YORK, NEW YORK (Dec. 19, 2023) — The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) is pleased to announce its Q4 Bitcoin Development Fund. HRF’s 18 grants focus on global education, Bitcoin Core, mining decentralization, and allowing developers in closed societies to participate and present at industry conferences. Areas of focus include Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East.
Grants include:
–Mostro, a decentralized peer-to-peer Bitcoin exchange built by Venezuelan developer Francisco Calderón on top of Nostr. Mostro aims to establish an open protocol and specialize for developers in authoritarian regimes. Funding will support Mostro’s progress in helping users in restrictive financial environments buy and sell bitcoin in a censorship-resistant way.
–Mi Primer Bitcoin, a nonprofit organization providing open-source Bitcoin education in Central America. Their Bitcoin Diploma is already in use in countries such as El Salvador, South Africa, Portugal, Honduras, Cuba, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Uruguay. HRF funding will specifically support international expansion and translation of these materials to closed societies.
–Arabic Hodl, which is making Bitcoin more accessible to more than 400 million Arabic-speaking people worldwide. Funds will support the creation of how-to guides, privacy and self-custody tutorials, educational podcasts, and foundational books on the principles of Bitcoin in Arabic, as well as best practices and how to get started with using and contributing to the network.
–Netblocks to support their efforts to monitor and report Internet restrictions and shutdowns globally. The critical impact of shutdowns on human rights activists, journalists, and the general public’s right to freedom of expression, access to information, and political participation requires continuous monitoring. Funding will also support coverage of emerging threats to Internet connectivity, particularly those impacting the Bitcoin network.
–Lorban for his work on Stratum V2, an upgrade on the current protocol Bitcoin miners use to communicate with pools. Stratum V2 enables mining pool users to select transactions for proposed blocks, instead of relying on templates from pools, increasing Bitcoin’s censorship resistance by reducing the problematic power of pools. Lorban will use HRF funding to improve the Stratum V2 Reference Implementation (SRI) and its testing tool, the Message Generator (MG).
–John Carlson for his ongoing contributions to updating and improving the Bitcoin Core App project, permitting users to run Bitcoin on their phones. Through this work, John hopes to lower technical barriers, making self-custody and self-verification of Bitcoin transactions more accessible to a broader audience. Funding will also support his efforts to broaden compatibility with Android phones and tablets.
–Area Bitcoin to expand its free Bitcoin educational content across multiple languages. Area Bitcoin, founded by Carol Souza and Kaka Furlan, is a prominent Bitcoin educational resource based in Brazil, primarily operating in Portuguese, with over 300,000 followers. Funding will support developing and translating videos and articles into Spanish and English to help target a wider audience in Latin America.
–Berta Valle for Bitcoin educational work in Nicaragua, focusing on the human rights defender community. She will use funds to establish an interactive online Bitcoin training program for Nicaraguan dissidents and civil society leaders and help them become more resilient and robust in their efforts to resist the Ortega regime.
–Bitshala, an education initiative led by Indian Bitcoiners that provides guidance and resources to developers entering the Bitcoin space. Bitshala will use funding to create a repository of tutorials and technical presentations, organize study groups, hold PR reviews, and nurture a vibrant Bitcoin community in India.
–Hack.BS, a nonprofit association based in Italy. Funding will be used to open a cypherpunk hackerspace, acting as a collaborative co-working center by day and an active events space, hosting meetups, workshops, and hackathons by night. Funds will also be used to help internationalize the center and bring in global expertise in the areas of financial freedom and the defense of privacy.
–Bitcoin Deepa, also known as the Pearl of Satoshi, to expand the Sri Lankan Bitcoin community. Funds will support monthly Bitcoin meetups in cities like Colombo, Galle, Kandy, and Ella; assist merchants in adopting self-custodial Bitcoin acceptance methods; introducing BoltCard-based Lightning solutions; and enhancing education through translations. Funds will also support the launch of a Sinhalese-language podcast, “Bitcoin Katha.”
–Exonumia, a nonprofit translating Bitcoin educational content into native African languages such as Shona, Malagasy, Amharic, Kiswahili, and Lingala. Funding will support Exonumia’s efforts to translate additional content into more languages, raise awareness of Bitcoin, and grow financial-freedom-oriented communities.
–L0la L33tz for her efforts in creating a Bitcoin privacy guide for beginners, with a special focus on activists, dissidents, and NGOs operating in hostile environments. The guide will help newcomers learn about privacy risks, assess personal threat vectors, learn privacy-preserving techniques, and understand Bitcoin’s technology to make careful and informed decisions around privacy.
–Groundswell, a project founded by Hadiya Masieh that supports free Bitcoin education to diaspora and exile communities in the United Kingdom, particularly refugees from the Middle East. Funds will be used to host workshops, create training materials, set up wallets, onboard refugees with their first satoshis, and educate refugees on how to send bitcoin to their families back home.
–Kulpreet Singh for his work on Braidpool, a proposed peer-to-peer mining pool designed to enhance Bitcoin’s censorship resistance. Braidpool empowers miners to build their blocks, reducing the influence of pool operators to delay or prevent payouts. Funds will enable Kulpreet’s continued development of Braidpool to increase Bitcoin’s censorship resistance and further decentralization.
–SeedSigner, a DIY bitcoin signing device that anyone, anywhere can build on their own. Funds will facilitate the final stages of MicroPython research and development, eliminate Raspberry Pi dependencies, and enable operations on affordable microcontrollers to make Bitcoin self-custody even more affordable for the masses.
–bitcoin++, a developer-focused conference series around the world. With a focus on long-form lectures and workshops, developers will dive deep into the cutting edge of Bitcoin technology. Funding will cover educational efforts, general conference expenses, as well as travel expenses for developers from authoritarian countries.
–Bitcoin Atlantis, a Bitcoin conference taking place March 1 to 3 in Madeira, Portugal. HRF funding will help human rights defenders, civil society leaders, and educators working in dictatorships to attend the event, share their experiences, and gain new contacts and resources.
HRF is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Donations are tax-deductible to the fullest extent allowed by law. Gifts can be made at HRF.org/DevFund, and proposals for support can be submitted to bdf@hrf.org.
Follow @HRF on Twitter for more updates on this project and all of our other programs designed to promote freedom and human rights around the world.