FUNDING | Africa’s B-Trust Allocates $1 Million+ in Grants to Strengthen Global South’s Bitcoin Developer Ecosystem

B-Trust, the non-profit organization dedicated to decentralizing Bitcoin development and empowering open-source developers, has unveiled the first round of its 2025 Event and Developer Education Grants, totaling over $1 million in funding. This initiative is a cornerstone in Btrust’s long-term strategy to build a resilient, inclusive, and skilled Bitcoin developer community across the Global South.

Grant Focus Areas: Education & Community

The grants are strategically divided between two key impact areas:

• Developer Education Programs – Designed to expand access to Bitcoin education and cultivate new contributors to Bitcoin Core and related open-source projects.
• Events & Conferences – Aimed at building regional communities, enhancing collaboration, and increasing public discourse around Bitcoin technologies and values.

Developer Education Grants: Nurturing Open-Source Talent

Btrust selected four developer education programs, each with a proven or promising track record of onboarding developers into the Bitcoin ecosystem:

1.) Summer of Bitcoin

A globally recognized remote internship program for university students that provides mentorship and hands-on experience with Bitcoin open-source projects.

• Global Reach: Over 40,000 applicants from 74 countries since launch.
• Proven Impact: 218 interns have contributed to more than 60 Bitcoin open-source repositories.
• Curriculum: Begins with a 4-week bootcamp covering Bitcoin fundamentals, followed by structured mentorship from experienced developers.
• 2025 Cohort: Runs from May to August 2025, and includes collaboration with key Bitcoin projects and maintainers.

2.) Vinteum (Brazil)

A nonprofit Bitcoin research and development center working to create the next generation of contributors from Latin America.

• Programs Offered:
  • Quarterly Bitcoin seminars for early learners.
  • A 12-week Dev Launchpad introducing development basics.
  • A 6-month Fellowship Program to mentor advanced contributors.
• Mission Alignment: Vinteum directly supports Btrust’s goal of empowering the Global South through regionally anchored, open-source development.

3.) Developer Education Program Long-Term Support (LTS)

Btrust’s new LTS funding category provides multi-year stability to proven programs with aligned missions. The first recipients are:

• Bitshala (India): A grassroots collective offering structured, in-depth Bitcoin developer education and peer support.
• Librería de Satoshi’s B4OS (Latin America): A Spanish-language educational platform focused on Bitcoin and free/open-source software training.

This LTS funding allows recipients to scale sustainably, plan ahead, and commit long-term to training new developers without constant fundraising pressure.

Events & Conference Grants: Building Regional Communities

In addition to education, Btrust awarded six community-focused grants for organizing high-impact gatherings in Bitcoin ecosystems:

1.) Event Grants (2 recipients)

These are for community meetups, hackathons, and developer-focused workshops, particularly those that catalyze local engagement and collaboration in underrepresented regions.

2.) Conference Grants (4 recipients)

These support larger conferences that offer diverse programming, training sessions, and speaking opportunities — with a goal of fostering both technical growth and cultural exchange.

Details of the specific recipients were not disclosed in the initial announcement, but the focus remains consistent: empowering Bitcoin communities across Africa, Latin America, Asia, and other parts of the Global South.

Vision: Decentralizing Bitcoin Development

This $1 million+ grant round is part of Btrust’s broader mission to decentralize Bitcoin’s development by:

• Reducing geographic and economic barriers to entry for developers.
• Supporting programs that combine technical education with open-source values.
• Ensuring that Bitcoin’s future is shaped by a diverse global contributor base.

By investing in both early-stage developers and community infrastructure, Btrust aims to create an ecosystem where contributors from emerging markets can thrive, collaborate, and lead within Bitcoin’s open-source future.

The 2025 grants program is a significant signal of intent from Btrust: Bitcoin’s future must be inclusive, decentralized, and community-driven. These grants not only address talent gaps in the Global South, but also lay the foundation for long-term infrastructure that empowers regional leaders in Bitcoin development.

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