The Human Rights Basis (HRF) has introduced 1.3 billion satoshis in new grants from its Bitcoin Growth Fund, backing 22 tasks worldwide aimed toward strengthening monetary freedom and censorship resistance underneath authoritarian regimes.
The funding spherical, disclosed right now completely to Bitcoin Journal, will assist open-source Bitcoin improvement, decentralized mining infrastructure, privacy-preserving monetary instruments, and grassroots schooling initiatives throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
HRF stated the tasks are designed to enhance the Bitcoin protocol itself whereas increasing entry to permissionless cash for dissidents, journalists, nonprofits, and peculiar residents dealing with political repression.
The complete record of recipients is as follows for the fourth quarter of 2025.
Bitcoin Decentralization
Stratum V2 (Stratum Reference Implementation)
A lot of Bitcoin mining nonetheless depends on outdated communications protocols that forestall particular person miners from selecting the transactions they mine. This leaves block building within the fingers of mining swimming pools, exposing the community to censorship dangers. Stratum V2 solves this fault by enabling house miners to construct their very own block templates. HRF funding will assist software program developer bit-aloo’s full-time work enhancing Stratum V2 by means of efficiency testing, integration work, and code upkeep, serving to people regain autonomy inside present pool constructions.
Braidpool
Conventional Bitcoin mining swimming pools depend on a centralized construction the place the operator controls reward payouts and transaction choice, creating censorship dangers. Braidpool addresses this structural centralization by introducing a peer-to-peer, open-source mining pool design the place contributors collaboratively assemble blocks and coordinate rewards with out counting on a central operator. With HRF assist, software program developer Mohd Zaid will advance a brand new, extra democratic mining mannequin that strengthens decentralization and transparency.
Bitcoin Training
Open Cash, Closed Entry: Constructing Monetary Freedom (OMCA)
In conflict-affected and connectivity-constrained environments, communities are sometimes lower off from formal banking companies and protected methods to retailer or switch worth. OMCA addresses these challenges by means of Bitcoin-based instruments designed for low-cost, personal transactions and offline-first use. This system helps the event of native monetary infrastructure and resilient communications applied sciences suited to high-risk contexts. HRF’s assist allows people to save lots of and transact extra securely and discreetly during times of instability.
Studying Bitcoin from the Command Line
As Bitcoin evolves, open-source builders want up-to-date sources that train them how the system truly works. Studying Bitcoin from the Command Line teaches potential builders how Bitcoin works by means of a hands-on curriculum and throughout a number of languages. HRF’s funding will enable the challenge to replace its curriculum to match the most recent modifications to Bitcoin’s software program, serving to develop the worldwide pool of contributors who maintain Bitcoin accessible and resilient.
Voices Uncensored: A Bitcoin-Primarily based Platform for Human Rights Defenders in Azerbaijan
In Azerbaijan, the state routinely targets activists and journalists with surveillance, financial institution 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 funds with Azerbaijani-language coaching and academic sources. HRF’s assist will equip Azerbaijan’s human rights defenders with the monetary independence, privateness, and resilience wanted to proceed their work underneath a repressive regime.
Bitcoin Famba
In Mozambique, residents face persistent inflation, rising debt, and heavy restrictions on their monetary autonomy. Bitcoin Famba, primarily based in Maputo-Matola, gives accessible Bitcoin schooling and fosters native round economies. HRF funding will assist dissidents and on a regular basis individuals entry permissionless and censorship-resistant cash to realize monetary independence in a repressive political and financial surroundings.
Bitcoin Indonesia & Bitcoin Home Bali
Indonesians face rising monetary surveillance, inflation, and censorship. Bitcoin Indonesia, Indonesia’s pioneering Bitcoin gathering, together with its Bitcoin schooling middle, Bitcoin Home Bali, gives coaching on utilizing Bitcoin to guard incomes, protect monetary autonomy, and navigate restrictive banking programs. HRF’s funding will broaden its workshops, meetups, and media outreach to make Bitcoin a sensible instrument for monetary freedom throughout the nation.
The Bitcoin Studying Heart
Throughout Southeast Asia, hundreds of thousands of individuals face monetary surveillance, exclusion from conventional banking programs, and forex instability. The Bitcoin Studying Heart, a bodily Bitcoin schooling hub in Chiang Mai, Thailand, brings college students from Thailand, Burma, Laos, and Southern China to discover ways to counter this monetary repression by means of Bitcoin. HRF assist will broaden the middle’s instructional outreach to make sure extra individuals dwelling underneath authoritarian regimes achieve entry to open and decentralized monetary instruments.
Bitcoin Growth
Devgitotox
Bitcoin’s reliability and safety rely upon a sturdy codebase. Devgitotox is a Tanzanian Bitcoin Core developer contributing to Bitcoin’s major software program implementation. Her work focuses on enhancing pockets upgrades, fixing points with how transactions are created and shared, making certain nodes join reliably to the community, and constructing software program testing instruments. HRF’s assist of Devgitotox helps strengthen the Bitcoin codebase whereas empowering extra ladies to contribute to Bitcoin Core.
Stratospher
Bitcoin’s peer-to-peer community might be weak to surveillance and disruption if weaknesses in transaction relay, validation logic, or cryptographic parts are usually not addressed. Stratospher, a Bitcoin Core developer from South Asia, strengthens the protocol by enhancing how nodes (computer systems operating the Bitcoin software program) share and unfold info, enhancing validation and cryptographic programs, and enhancing code high quality by means of opinions and testing. With HRF funding, her contributions will assist make sure that Bitcoin stays a sturdy instrument for monetary freedom.
Sovereign Engineering
Authoritarian regimes actively suppress monetary freedom, leaving human rights defenders in want of open and censorship-resistant monetary applied sciences. Sovereign Engineering is a long-term improvement program that helps freedom technologists constructing on Bitcoin, Nostr, and ecash. Already, this system has catalyzed tasks like Blossom, which shops information on public servers in a decentralized method, and npub.money, a Nostr-native Lightning handle for anybody. With this funding, this system will proceed to innovate on freedom applied sciences that defend civil liberties underneath repression.
OpenSats Initiative, Inc.
Open and clear funding is essential to sustaining lots of the freedom applied sciences human rights defenders depend on right now. OpenSats is a public nonprofit group that helps the tasks and the people constructing freedom tech by distributing monetary assist throughout the ecosystem. With this grant, OpenSats can fortify its operations and proceed channeling sources to the builders who maintain freedom tech open, safe, and accessible for individuals dwelling underneath tyranny.
Lightning Growth
Africa Free Routing Lightning Developer Bootcamp
Bitcoin adoption is rising throughout Africa, however entry to high quality schooling and improvement coaching is commonly restricted or unaffordable. Africa Free Routing’s Lightning Developer Bootcamps handle these mismatches by offering structured applications that mix principle, hands-on workshops, and mentorship to software program builders. These similar builders can then contribute to the Lightning Community and construct censorship-resistant monetary instruments. With HRF funding, this system will broaden to 10 bootcamps throughout Ethiopia, Uganda, Burkina Faso, and past to foster a continent-wide community of freedom tech contributors.
Programming Lightning
In lots of repressive environments, the Lightning Community ecosystem suffers from a scarcity of expert builders, leaving censorship-resistant cost instruments underbuilt and inconsistently maintained the place they’re wanted most. Programming Lightning is an open-source course that can provide self-paced, multi-language studying with hands-on programming workout routines. The curriculum will train anybody to construct on Lightning. This grant will assist scale a worldwide neighborhood of builders to maintain an open cost infrastructure that activists can use to maintain their work underneath repression.
Freedom Tech
Zapstore
Authoritarian regimes can censor freedom-tech apps on centralized app shops to manage info and restrict instruments for communication and organizing. Zapstore is an app retailer constructed on Nostr, a protocol for decentralized communication. On Zapstore, apps might be independently uploaded and verified by customers, with out being blocked or eliminated by dictators. HRF’s assist will make sure that dissidents, journalists, and civil society around the globe have entry to freedom tech with out gatekeepers.
Validating Lightning Signer
Most computer systems operating the Lightning Community software program right now retailer personal keys on the node itself. This creates an internet setup the place a breach can enable attackers to empty a consumer’s bitcoin. Validating Lightning Signer (VLS) solves this by separating key administration from the node and validating each transaction earlier than signing, enabling true self-custody and resistance to breaches. With HRF assist, VLS will decrease the barrier for individuals to soundly management and use their very own cash on the Lightning Community, even in locations the place monetary and digital rights are underneath risk.
Vexl
Dissidents buying bitcoin typically want to take action privately to guard their identification, donor networks, and private security. But centralized exchanges typically acquire huge troves of private info and monitor consumer exercise. To deal with this, Vexl, an open-source cellular app, permits peer-to-peer bitcoin buying and selling with out gathering private information. With HRF’s assist, Vexl can present human rights defenders and civil society in authoritarian contexts a method to amass Bitcoin with out surveillance and absent gatekeepers.
Dhananjay Purohit
Dictators regularly prohibit the funds of on-line platforms and impartial media to silence dissent. To beat this, open supply developer Dhananjay Purohit constructed ngx_l402, an online server module that allows web sites and purposes to just accept bitcoin funds immediately for internet or API entry. With HRF’s grant, Purohit’s work may help embed bitcoin funds into the web infrastructure layer, protecting the online open, uncensorable, and proof against centralized monetary management.
BTCPay Server
Beneath dictatorships, conventional nonprofit fundraising channels might be censored, surveilled, frozen, or lower off with out warning. BTCPay Server makes use of the permissionless foundations of Bitcoin to work round this. Utilizing this open-source and self-hosted software program, NGOs and dissidents can freely settle for Bitcoin and Lightning funds immediately into their self-custodial wallets. HRF’s renewed assist will guarantee censorship-resistant crowdfunding in even probably the most repressive environments.
Bitika
In Kenya, acquiring bitcoin might be difficult. Bitika addresses this by permitting customers to purchase bitcoin immediately into their Lightning wallets by means of M-Pesa (the nation’s most generally used monetary infrastructure). This makes self-custodial Bitcoin use easy and accessible. This grant will assist Bitika enhance Kenyans’ monetary independence by increasing entry to censorship-resistant cash in an more and more surveilled funds panorama.
Threads of Freedom: A Bitcoin Graphic Novel and Studying App
Younger individuals, particularly ladies and ladies, who stay underneath repressive regimes typically lack entry to monetary schooling. Threads of Freedom, created by Afghan tech pioneer and founding father of the Digital Citizen Fund, Roya Mahboob, gives a culturally-rooted graphic novel and studying app that explains how Bitcoin works and why it issues underneath tyranny. With HRF assist, Threads of Freedom will broaden entry to schooling that helps individuals defend themselves and stay financially autonomous underneath repression.