As part of its Bitcoin Development Fund, the Human Rights Foundation has announced grants to eight projects promoting Bitcoin. The funded projects are based in different countries and range in scope from strengthening resistance to Bitcoin censorship to money transfers but also popularizing Nakamoto’s invention.
Human Rights Foundation, a fund that puts Bitcoin to work for human rights
The Human Rights Foundation is one of the first human rights organizations to believe in Bitcoin’s ability to support efforts to build a world of justice, dignity and freedom for all.
In 2020, the Human Rights Foundation launched the Bitcoin Development Fund to support software developers who are making the Bitcoin network more private, decentralized and resilient so that it can better serve as a financial tool for human rights activists, civil society organizations and journalists around the world.
Every six months, about ten of the projects and actors promoting Bitcoin are funded through this fund. The Human Rights Foundation has already donated more than $1.5 million in Bitcoin over the past two years to support the development of Bitcoin around the world.
The 8 recipients of the Bitcoin Development Fund
A new round of funding for projects under the Bitcoin Development Fund was announced on September 6, 2022 by Alex Gladstein, chief strategy officer at the Human Rights Foundation.
In total, no less than $325,000 in Bitcoin will be donated to eight Bitcoin projects based in several countries around the world, according to Alex Gladstein.
The first grant recipient is BTCPayServer, a free, open source, self-hosted Bitcoin payment processor. This project received the largest grant, the equivalent of US$100,000 in bitcoin.
The grant should allow BTCPayServer to continue to improve its open-source payment processor to allow, according to Alex Gladstein, “dissidents and journalists to accept funds securely from anywhere and anyone on earth,” Alex writes.
Two other projects received $50,000 in funding. The first is the work of developer Jon Atck, who is reviewing the code of the Bitcoin Core reference software to fix bugs. Fedimint, a payment solution that aims to bring communities together around a confidential financial application also received a $50,000 donation.
Finally, five other projects and personalities were funded with $25,000. They are RoboSats, an open source peer-to-peer exchange that allows people to buy and sell bitcoin anonymously via the Lightning Network; Leight Cuen, who is working on a guide to receiving bitcoin donations for nonprofits; Novaya Gazeta, a media outlet banned in Russia; Keith Mukay, the developer of SeedSigner; and Vinteum org, a new Bitcoin research and development center based in Brazil.
A new round of project funding is planned for the end of this year. Those interested in submitting their projects for funding can already contact the organization via devfund@hrf.org. The HRF development fund is also open for contributions. All in all, we can only encourage and promote the initiative that is cointributing to the adoption of Bitcoin worldwide.
I dream of a world where every citizen has total control over themselves, including their finances. I believe that Bitcoin is one of the tools that will achieve this revolution. Since 2019, I am learning about this cryptocurrency and spreading the word around.
