Today the Human Rights Foundation (HRF) announced its most recent round of bitcoin development fund subsidies in the Oslo Freedom Forumaccording to a press release sent to bitcoin magazine.
10 bitcoins, currently worth $704,740 at the time of writing, are being awarded through 13 different projects around the world. The funds will be used to promote education for people living under authoritarian regimes, privacy and the development of the Lightning Network, decentralized communications, and provide nonprofits and human rights groups with easier avenues to access the tools of financial freedom, according to the statement.
HRF's main areas of focus with this round of grants are countries and regions in Latin America, the Middle East, Asia and Africa.
This announcement comes just a few months after HRF's last round of grants in March, where it donated $500,000 to 14 bitcoin projects around the world. While the HRF did not reveal exactly how much money each project receives, the following 13 projects are the recipients of today's round of grants worth 10 btc in total:
- RoboSats, a Tor-exclusive, KYC-free platform that allows peer-to-peer exchange of bitcoin for national currencies via the Lightning Network. As an open source, privacy-first project, Robosats is an important platform for people living under authoritarian regimes. The funding will support its continued development (including Android app development), enhance the RoboSats node, and boost its social media presence.
- Plant them Internship Program, a grassroots bitcoin educational initiative from India that offers mentorship, resources, and opportunities to aspiring bitcoin developers. Amid India's increasing financial repression, the development of bitcoin is crucial to helping citizens remain financially free. The program allows students to contribute to vital free and open source bitcoin projects such as bitcoin Core, coin selection, and more. The funding will support these internships and help Bitshala establish a hacker space and community center in Bengaluru inspired by bitcoin Park and Chaincode Labs.
- Building Bridges to bitcoin (BBB), an educational initiative in the Middle East and North Africa region of Ideas beyond borders (IBB). By providing educational materials in Arabic, the project empowers local youth to combat tyranny with bitcoin, ensure their financial autonomy, protect their human rights, and transform their region. The funding will support translation, publication of educational resources and management costs.
- Flash, a Nostr-enabled Lightning wallet designed to connect Caribbean island economies with 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 funds will support the development of Flash, educational materials, the incorporation of local businesses and a Caribbean-wide adoption campaign.
- bitcoin Seoul, a bitcoin conference in Seoul, Korea, dedicated to expanding the understanding and adoption of bitcoin. The event will bring together industry experts, local policymakers, various speakers and attendees to explore bitcoin from general and technical perspectives. The funding will support open source initiatives and help create spaces for North Korean defectors to meet with bitcoin developers to collaborate on human rights work in North Korea.
- x.com/jyn_urso”>Margot Paez's research examining the relationship between bitcoin mining, human rights and sovereignty. Their study will explore how bitcoin mining can reduce corruption and waste in energy systems, and expand energy and electricity for people who lack it, since without electricity, people cannot easily exercise their civil liberties. . It will also examine how certain trends in bitcoin mining may lead to an overall decentralization of the network, making the software a more censorship-resistant tool for the world's most vulnerable populations. This funding will support Margot's graduate research.
- tech/”>Lightning Signer Validation (VLS), an open source project that improves the security of the Lightning Network by separating the private keys of a Lightning node. VLS adds an extra layer of protection for bitcoin users and reduces the barriers to running a Lightning node. This allows more users to enforce their own financial autonomy. The allocated funds will be used to hire a full-time Rust developer to fix bugs and address feature requests.
- OpenSats, a 501(c)(3) public charity that funds free and open source projects, education and research. Since the majority of OpenSats donations go directly and 100% to open source contributors, this funding will support OpenSats' core operating expenses and allow them to scale their operations and grow their team.
- twitter.com/thecore21m”>The nucleusa non-profit bitcoin educational platform in Kenya founded by twitter.com/MukunguFelix”>Felix Mukungu. The East Africa initiative aims to increase financial freedom for Kenyans and others in the Great Lakes region through education, entertainment and engaging content. The funding will support in-person meetings, course creation, salaries, and rewards for students upon course completion.
- twitter.com/terryyiu”>Terry Yu, a software engineer working on three Nostr-related projects: Nostr SDK, which helps developers create Nostr-based apps for Apple devices; Comingle, a conferencing app; and We give, a decentralized social platform. The grant will support Terry's continued development of these projects, helping to strengthen free speech and censorship-resistant communications for people around the world.
- Pablo Sacramento, a researcher and UX designer focused on bitcoin. He is studying the successful adoption of bitcoin-community/”>Brazil's Pix digital payment system draw lessons for broader bitcoin adoption, especially for unbanked and disadvantaged communities. There are big lessons here when it comes to citizens' choice between CBDC-like platforms and open source options like bitcoin. The grant will help support research efforts conducted 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 resilience and security of private keys. This is a critical element in allowing users to control their identities and bitcoin in a self-sovereign manner. For example, FROST can help make “multi-sig” solutions (that appeal to human rights activists) much more flexible and robust. The funding will support the organization of two FROST roundtables between members of the FROST ecosystem.
- bitcoin Summer, a global internship program that allows university students to contribute to the open source development and design of bitcoin. Students gain valuable experience and potential career opportunities while earning bitcoin stipends. This grant will support student stipends, mentor compensation, and program operations. This program attracts thousands of applications from over 50 countries each year and helps promising people from all over, especially from authoritarian regimes, find roles in the bitcoin community.
HRF is a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that promotes and protects human rights globally, with a focus on closed societies. HRF continues to rally support for the bitcoin development fundand interested donors can find more information on how to donate bitcoins here. HRF grant applications can be submitted here.
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