today is Human Rights Foundation (HRF) announced its latest tour Bitcoin Development Fund grants in Oslo Freedom Forumaccording to a press release sent to Bitcoin Magazine.
The 10 bitcoins, currently worth $704,740 at the time of writing, are being given away across 13 different projects around the world. The funds will be used to promote education for people living under authoritarian regimes, privacy, accelerated network development, decentralized communications, and provide nonprofits and human rights groups with easier access to financial freedom tools, according to the statement.
HRF's main focus areas in this round of grants are countries and regions in Latin America, the Middle East, Asia and Africa.
The announcement comes just a few months after HRF's latest round of grants in March, which donated $500,000 to 14 bitcoin projects around the world. While the Human Rights Fund did not disclose exactly how much money each project receives, the following 13 projects are beneficiaries of today's round of grants with a total value of 10 BTC:
- Robosats, a Tor-only, KYC-free platform that enables the peer-to-peer exchange of Bitcoin for national currencies over the Lightning Network. As an open source project that prioritizes privacy, Robosats is an important platform for individuals living under authoritarian regimes. The funding will support its continued development (including Android app development), strengthen the RoboSats node, and enhance its social media presence.
- Plant them The Internship Program is a popular Bitcoin educational initiative from India that provides mentorship, resources, and opportunities to aspiring Bitcoin developers. Amidst increasing financial repression in India, the development of Bitcoin is crucial to helping citizens remain financially free. The program enables students to contribute to vital free and open source Bitcoin projects such as Bitcoin Core, Select Coins, and more. The funding will support these training courses and will help Bitshala establish a community and hacker hub in Bangalore inspired by Bitcoin Park and Chaincode Labs.
- Building Bridges to Bitcoin (BBB), is an educational initiative in the MENA region by Ideas out of bounds (dad). By providing educational materials in Arabic, the project empowers local youth to fight tyranny with Bitcoin, secure their financial independence, protect their human rights, and transform their region. Funding will support the translation and dissemination of educational resources and administration costs.
- flash, a Nostr-powered Lightning wallet designed to connect island economies in the Caribbean to Bitcoin. Founded by Dread, Flash aims to provide this historically underbanked and politically repressed region with access to global online markets and physical bitcoin on and off ramps. The funding will support Flash development, educational materials, onboarding of local businesses, and a Caribbean-wide adoption campaign.
- Bitcoin SeoulThe Bitcoin Conference in Seoul, Korea, is dedicated to expanding the understanding and adoption of Bitcoin. The event will bring together industry experts, local policymakers, diverse speakers, and attendees to explore Bitcoin from both general and technical perspectives. The funding will support open source initiatives as well as help create spaces for North Korean defectors to meet with Bitcoin developers to collaborate on human rights work in North Korea.
- Margot Baez Research examining the relationship between Bitcoin mining, human rights, and sovereignty. Her study will explore how Bitcoin mining can reduce corruption and waste in energy systems, and extend energy and electricity to people who lack it, given that without electrical energy, people cannot easily achieve civil liberties. It will also examine how some trends in Bitcoin mining could decentralize the network overall, making the software a more censorship-resistant tool for the world's most vulnerable populations. This funding will assist Margot's graduate research.
- Lightning signature validation (VLS), an open source project that enhances the security of the Lightning Network by separating private keys from the Lightning Node. VLS adds an extra layer of protection for Bitcoin users and reduces barriers to running a Lightning node. This enables more users to assert their financial independence. The allocated funding will be used to hire a full-time Rust developer to fix bugs and process feature requests.
- OpenSats, a 501(c)(3) public charities fund free and open source projects, education, and research. Since most OpenSats donations go 100% directly to open source contributors, this funding will support OpenSats' core operational expenses, and allow them to scale their operations and grow their team.
- Nucleusa non-profit Bitcoin educational platform in Kenya that he founded Felix Mukongo. The East Africa Initiative aims to increase financial freedom for Kenyans and others in the broader Great Lakes region through education, entertainment and engaging content. Funding will support in-person meetings, course creation, stipends, and remuneration for students upon course completion.
- Terry Yu, a software engineer working on three Nostr-related projects: Nostr SDK, to help developers create Nostr-based apps for Apple devices; Comingle, a conferencing app; And We giveA decentralized social platform. The grant will support Terry's continued development of these projects, helping to advance freedom of expression and censorship-resistant communications for people around the world.
- Paulo Sacramento, a designer and researcher focused on Bitcoin. He studies successful adoptions Pix digital payment system in Brazil To draw lessons for broader Bitcoin adoption, especially for unbanked and underserved communities. There are big lessons here when it comes to citizens choosing between central bank digital currency (CBDC)-like platforms and open source options like Bitcoin. The grant will help provide support for research endeavors undertaken over the past two years.
- Blockchain Commonsa non-profit organization that supports the continued development of Frost, a next-generation security protocol to improve the resiliency and security of private keys. This is a fundamental building block for allowing users to control their identities and Bitcoin in a self-sovereign way. For example, FROST can help make “multi-signature” solutions (which appeal to human rights activists) more flexible and robust. The funding will support the organization of two FROST roundtables among members of the FROST ecosystem.
- Bitcoin summer, a global training program that enables university students to contribute to the development and design of open source Bitcoin. Students gain valuable experience and potential career opportunities while earning Bitcoin salaries. This grant will support student salaries, mentor compensation, and program operations. This program attracts thousands of applications from over 50 countries each year, and helps promising individuals from around the world, especially from authoritarian regimes, find roles in the Bitcoin community.
The Human Rights Foundation is a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that works to promote and protect human rights globally, with a focus on closed societies. The human rights organization continues to raise support for Bitcoin Development FundInterested donors can find more information on how to donate Bitcoin here. Applications for grant support can be submitted by HRF here.
