The Human Rights Basis has introduced help for extra initiatives across the globe, this time giving over 500 million satoshis — value $396,854 at right this moment’s costs — in grants to 16 initiatives primarily based in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Coming from the HRF’s Bitcoin Improvement Fund, the grants will assist initiatives that wish to strengthen the Bitcoin protocol, increase sensible Bitcoin entry and facilitate safe messaging and group infrastructure for dissidents, amongst different issues, in accordance with the NGO.
The grants are the second spherical of funding to come back in 2026, after the NGO introduced it had supported 26 initiatives in April. HRF mentioned the funding works to bolster Bitcoin’s function as a software for monetary freedom, enabling journalists, nonprofit organizations, and activists to extra securely talk, arrange, and obtain help globally by means of Bitcoin.
Bitcoin Funds
BitSpenda
Throughout Africa, cross-border cash transfers are sometimes gradual, pricey and depend on intermediaries. BitSpenda, a cell money-to-bitcoin bridge, provides a non-custodial, account-free software that lets folks in Nigeria, Kenya, Cameroon, Uganda, and Ghana ship bitcoin from a Lightning pockets on to a cell cash account, the place it’s acquired in native forex. With HRF’s help, BitSpenda plans to increase its fee instruments to make cross-border funds sooner, cheaper, and extra accessible within the area.
Mission Island Resilience
In components of the Caribbean, energy outages and authoritarian repression can reduce folks off from each communication and entry to cash. Mission Island Resilience builds on Flash, a Bitcoin and Lightning pockets created by Jamaican developer Dread. After Hurricane Melissa devastated Jamaica in late 2025, the app raised and distributed greater than $10,000 in bitcoin inside 72 hours. Now, the undertaking plans so as to add offline funds to Flash utilizing Bluetooth, near-field communication (NFC), and ecash, making a mannequin for a way Bitcoin can proceed working in adversarial situations. HRF’s grant will help this subsequent part, serving to construct sensible Bitcoin infrastructure that can be utilized throughout protests and web shutdowns.
Bitzed
In Zambia, cell cash is usually used, however shopping for bitcoin nonetheless often requires banks or centralized exchanges that preserve id data and management people’ belongings. Bitzed, created by Bitcoin educator Humphrey, is an account-free platform that connects cell cash networks on to Bitcoin in Zambia. Customers should purchase bitcoin utilizing current cell cash accounts and obtain it straight to their very own Lightning pockets. HRF’s funding will assist increase this self-custodial path into Bitcoin for Zambians excluded from conventional banking and topic to monetary repression.
Bitcoin Improvement
Libbitcoinkernel
Many Bitcoin functions should rebuild the protocol’s most advanced safety guidelines from scratch, which will increase the danger of catastrophic errors. Libbitcoinkernel is a software program undertaking pulling the core safety and transaction guidelines immediately from Bitcoin’s authentic code and turning them into reusable software program modules. This may enable freedom tech builders to construct safer and unbiased wallets, providers, and infrastructure with out having to duplicate Bitcoin’s important code. Help from HRF will assist developer yuvicc proceed this foundational work, strengthening the foundations of Bitcoin instruments on which individuals below monetary repression rely.
A Node in Each Pockets: Utreexo Pockets Integrations
Most Bitcoin wallets nonetheless depend on centralized servers to entry steadiness and transaction historical past, compromising person privateness. Floresta is a light-weight model of a Bitcoin node that embeds immediately into pockets apps, lowering the storage wanted to confirm Bitcoin transactions, so wallets can then examine information domestically and privately. This grant will help developer Luis Schwab in making certain that wallets reduce out the middlemen and interface immediately with the Bitcoin community.
BDK-Dart
In lots of authoritarian nations, cell wallets are essentially the most sensible strategy to entry Bitcoin. However constructing apps that give customers full management of their funds with out counting on a government stays a problem. BDK-Dart is a toolkit that provides builders pre-built Bitcoin wallet-building blocks for Flutter, a well-liked framework to construct apps for any gadget. The toolkit permits builders to extra simply construct safe, custodial Bitcoin wallets utilizing a single, shared codebase throughout platforms. Supported by HRF, software program developer John Osezele will make a serious launch of this software program and a reference pockets, reducing boundaries for builders to construct self-custodial Bitcoin apps worldwide.
WalletScrutiny
Most Bitcoin customers haven’t any strategy to examine whether or not a pockets app truly matches the open-source code it claims to run. WalletScrutiny is a undertaking that audits Bitcoin wallets for transparency and verifies that the distributed software program matches its supply code. Funding will help expanded assessment of pockets dependencies and third-party frameworks, serving to activists, journalists, and changemakers select reliable Bitcoin functions in authoritarian contexts. HRF has supported WalletScrutiny earlier than, and this grant continues that work because the latest Coldcard hack underscores the significance that the software program working on a Bitcoin pockets is definitely the software program customers anticipate.
Nostr
Vector Privateness: Privateness by Precept
In high-risk environments, personal messaging requires extra than simply encryption; it additionally means avoiding account creation, metadata trails, and censorship. Vector is an open-source messenger constructed on Nostr (a decentralized communications protocol) that’s permissionless and makes use of end-to-end encryption. HRF’s grant will assist Vector launch on iOS and desktop, launch encrypted voice and video calls, and supply journalists, activists, and whistleblowers with a steady, censorship-resistant software to speak and coordinate with out worry of being tracked or silenced by dictators.
Flotilla Chat
Civil society teams and communities usually depend on centralized communications platforms that may delete boards, take away customers, or shut down networks with little warning. Flotilla Chat, constructed by the Nostr consumer Coracle, is a Discord-style platform constructed on Nostr that separates a person’s id from the internet hosting supplier. On Flotilla, organizers management their very own infrastructure. In the meantime, members preserve moveable identities throughout the community, lowering censorship dangers. HRF’s funding will assist develop options comparable to role-based entry management, voice chat, and Bitcoin-native funding instruments to make on-line meeting extra resilient below autocratic regimes.
OpenAlert: Decentralized Important Alerts for Nostr
Important emergency alerts usually depend upon centralized push notification providers — comparable to these run by Apple or Google — which might be simply blocked, monitored, or fail throughout a disaster. OpenAlert, created by software program builders Fernando Diego Pergolini and Jorge Carlos Franco, is another notification platform to ship pressing alerts. Its major layer makes use of the decentralized Nostr community to concern alerts by way of nameless textual content and audio messages, with end-to-end encryption and programmed self-destruction, defending person id from censorship and repression. HRF’s help will cowl {hardware} and personnel prices to develop a software that helps human rights defenders obtain pressing alerts about what’s going on round them.
0xchat
Activists and journalists want personal, dependable communication instruments, however many current apps nonetheless expose customers to surveillance and censorship. 0xchat, created by software program developer water783, is a messaging app constructed on Nostr that gives totally encrypted chat, file switch, voice, and video calls. It options an integration with Tor, a expertise that masks web site visitors to guard a person’s bodily location and id. 0xchat additionally features a built-in Cashu pockets for personal Bitcoin funds. HRF’s help will assist advance this communication software so folks can coordinate extra safely with out counting on platforms susceptible to authoritarian intervention.
Bitcoin Mining
256 Basis
Bitcoin mining {hardware} continues to be dominated by just a few producers utilizing proprietary expertise, which might restrict participation and the way in which the community is secured. The 256 Foundation is a nonprofit working to interrupt this oligopoly by open-sourcing each a part of a Bitcoin miner: from the {hardware} to the software program that runs them. Making mining instruments extra accessible and clear reduces the community’s reliance on centralized producers. Backing from HRF will strengthen community decentralization whereas additionally supporting one of the vital personal methods to amass bitcoin below a dictatorship.
Bitcoin Training
My First Bitcoin
Monetary training is usually formed by state establishments, leaving little room to query how financial methods work, not to mention to discover alternate options. My First Bitcoin is an academic initiative offering free, open-source academic assets by means of a worldwide training node community: a gaggle of unbiased educators energetic in additional than 40 nations, together with India, Uganda, and Indonesia. HRF’s help will assist develop the educators educated by means of their Educator Coaching Program, from roughly 60 to 120, with a deal with communities dwelling below authoritarian rule attaining monetary freedom.
Agora: Bitcoin Lightning Activation & Civic Infrastructure Pilot
In Venezuela, activists, unbiased journalists, and civic organizers face blocked platforms, surveillance, and problem receiving worldwide help. Agora is a decentralized activist platform constructed on Nostr and Bitcoin that helps coordination, censorship-resistant communication, and peer-to-peer monetary help for communities below authoritarianism. Agora features a non-custodial Bitcoin fundraising part that permits folks anyplace on the planet to help people and causes immediately, with contributions despatched on to recipients’ wallets. Developed partly by means of an HRF-supported hackathon, this grant will help Agora’s 9-month pilot deployment in Venezuela, demonstrating how Freedom Tech features as sensible civic infrastructure in an authoritarian setting.
HODL: Palms On Design Lab
Many Bitcoin instruments stay exhausting to make use of as a result of their interfaces don’t clearly information customers by means of the important steps of self-custody, privateness, and safety. HODL: Hands On Design Lab is an training initiative that runs structured cohorts for early-career designers in India. HODL prepares them to contribute to apps, initiatives, and instruments throughout the Bitcoin ecosystem. This may assist shut a usability hole in Bitcoin by coaching UI and UX designers to immediately enhance how folks work together with it in follow. Funding will help personnel and three cohorts over 12 months to assist make Bitcoin simpler for everybody to make use of.
Hack4Freedom
Girls in Africa and Latin America usually face exclusion from the training and technical coaching wanted to contribute to freedom tech. Hack4Freedom, created by Evento founder Brianna Honkawa d’Estries, is a two-week developer training program that trains ladies in Africa and Brazil to construct on Bitcoin and different open-source freedom tech initiatives. With cohorts in cities comparable to Lagos, Nairobi, and São Paulo, HRF’s grant will cowl occasion and journey prices, creating new alternatives for ladies to take part in growing instruments for monetary and digital freedom.
