In the latest round of grants from its Bitcoin Development Fund, the Human Rights Foundation (HRF) will reward a total of 5 BTC.
HRF has awarded more than $1.2 million in grants to more than 30 developers and educators around the world over the past two years. Proposals for support can be submitted via email, and donations can be made on the organization’s website.
Bitcoin-related initiatives in software and community development, design, translation, and censorship control are the focus of the Q2 2022 round.
The largest donation
100 million satoshis, or 1 bitcoin, will go to the African Bitcoin Conference. This will be used to fund Bitcoin developers and educators from across Africa, who will present new ideas, hold networking events and engage in open discourse with local businesses.
The event, which is being planned by a team led by Togolese human rights advocate Farida Nabourema and Senegalese Lightning engineer Fodé Diop, will be the first major Bitcoin conference to be held in Africa since 2019, according to HRF.
Half a bitcoin for additional projects
While a single project will receive a full bitcoin, several others will receive a donation of 50 million satoshis. A Telegram peer-to-peer (P2P) bot that allows users to trade BTC through the Lightning Network, lnp2pbot, will receive 50 million satoshis from Venezuelan Bitcoin developer Francisco Calderon.
In another Lightning-related grant, Rene Pickhardt will receive the same amount for his open source work on Bitcoin’s second-layer scaling network.
Pickhardt has made a significant contribution to Lightning through education, research, and security bug identification, and the grant will allow him to continue his work in this field.
Ruben Somsen and Dhruv Mehta will receive half a Bitcoin each for their development on spacechains, a Bitcoin sidechain in which anyone can compete to incorporate a hash of the most recent block of a state chain into a Bitcoin transaction.
Somsen and Mehta’s work lays the groundwork for a permissionless architecture that allows anyone to build their own spacechain.
The round will also include media money in addition to developers.
HRF will collaborate with Paxful to give half a Bitcoin to three media outlets around the world to help them cover the adoption of Bitcoin and “cryptocurrencies,” the rise of central bank digital currency (CBDC), and the government’s persecution of dissidents through the financial system.
Cuba’s El Toque, South Africa’s The Daily Maverick, and Myanmar’s Democratic Voice of Burma are among the recipients. Netblocks is the latest recipient of 0.5 BTC.
The HRF said it would fund a global internet monitor to investigate the impact of government limitations on the Bitcoin protocol and other methods that make the digital currency more accessible.
The funding will allow Netblocks to continue working at the intersection of digital rights, cybersecurity, and internet governance, as well as take the first steps toward expanding its public interest research and reporting to include emerging threats to connectivity affecting the global Bitcoin network.
25 million satoshis for the rest
Paulo Sacramento will receive a quarter of a bitcoin to work on the Bitcoin Design Guide, a project aimed at improving the usability and accessibility of non-custodial Bitcoin applications.
According to HRF, Sacramento will update the “Knowing Your Users” page of the guide with data from previous user experience (UX) research, as well as establish, define, and structure an action plan on what and how can improve the UX of Bitcoin applications.
Finally, Bitcoin Pakistan will receive 0.25 BTC to help expand the availability of Bitcoin information and resources in Urdu, one of the 20 most widely spoken languages in the world by more than 60 million people.
