Human Rights Foundation supports projects worldwide with Bitcoin
The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) has allocated 10 Bitcoin, equivalent to approximately $704,740, to support 13 different projects around the world. These grants are intended to promote education, improve data privacy, advance the development of the Lightning Network (a payment network built on top of Bitcoin), and facilitate the use of decentralized communication. The projects, primarily based in Latin America, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, aim to increase financial independence and support human rights in regions influenced by authoritarian regimes.
Supported projects and their objectives
Among the main projects funded is RoboSats. This development offers a Tor-only, KYC-free platform (KYC stands for "Know Your Customer" and refers to legal requirements to identify customers) for Bitcoin exchange, increasing accessibility for those under restrictive regimes. In India, the Bitshala Internship Program aims to foster Bitcoin development skills among students facing financial repression. The initiative in the Middle East, Building Bridges to Bitcoin, focuses on providing educational resources in Arabic to empower local youth against tyranny using Bitcoin.
The Caribbean benefits from Project Flash, which is developing a Lightning and Nostr-enabled wallet (a digital wallet) to connect their island economies to global markets and increase financial inclusion in the region. Other notable grants were awarded to the Bitcoin Seoul conference, which aims to increase understanding and adoption of Bitcoin, and Margot Paez's research on the impact of Bitcoin mining (the process of validating transactions on the Bitcoin network) on human rights. Validating Lightning Signer, which aims to improve security on the Lightning Network, also receives funding.
OpenSats also receives support for operational expenses for contributions to open source projects (projects whose source code is publicly available and usable). In Kenya, The Core is supported to improve financial education and inclusion. Grants also support individual developers and researchers working on projects that enable secure, decentralized social platforms and improve the usability and security of Bitcoin through innovative protocols such as FROST (Flexible Round-Optimized Schnorr Threshold Signatures, a cryptographic scheme).
Summer of Bitcoin program and global participation
Of particular note is the Summer of Bitcoin program, which supports university students worldwide, particularly from authoritarian regimes, to get involved in open source Bitcoin development and design, helping to secure positions within the Bitcoin community. The HRF's ongoing efforts to mobilize support for its Bitcoin Development Fund underscore the importance of these projects in advancing human rights and financial autonomy worldwide.
The Bitcoin miner for your desk
