Announcing Q3, 2025 Btrust Developer Grant Recipients
Africa, October 14, 2025 — We’re excited to recognize six outstanding Bitcoin open-source developers awarded Btrust grants, including four starter grant recipients and two open-source cohort members.
The four starter grant recipients are all graduates of the 2025 Btrust Builders pathways. The program offers structured tracks that cover everything from Bitcoin fundamentals to advanced hands-on open-source contributions, preparing participants for long-term careers in Bitcoin development.
In addition, one engineer has progressed from a starter grant into the long-term open-source cohort, and another has received a renewal of his long-term grant, enabling both to continue and expand their contributions to Bitcoin open-source projects.
Starter Grants
The Btrust Starter Grant provides funding for software engineers ready to contribute full-time to open-source Bitcoin development. It allows recipients to explore areas of interest, identify a focus for long-term contributions, and engage deeply with the global Bitcoin developer community with relevant support via mentorship and without financial constraints.
Starter Grant Recipients
Rita Anene
Rita is a software developer based in Nigeria, and an alumna of the 2025 BOSS cohort. With three years of experience and a background in building financial and logistics applications, she redirected her focus to Bitcoin in 2025. Her contributions span projects like Warnet, a Bitcoin Testnet simulation tool, and LDK Node, a Lightning Network implementation.
With support from the starter grant, Rita will dedicate herself to strengthening transaction lifecycle management, payment tracking, and storage optimization in LDK Node, while also enhancing Warnet with dynamic plugin configuration.
Her planned work directly tackles long-standing issues such as resolving stuck RBF (Replace-By-Fee) transactions, enabling clearer Invoice/Offer states, and improving user fee control. Rita is also an active voice in the Lagos BitDevs community, co-hosting events and mentoring newcomers.
Ojok Emmanuel Nsubuga
Ojok is a software engineer based in Uganda. Professionally, he has led engineering at Ridelink, while advancing his Bitcoin journey through the Btrust Builders open-source bootcamp and command line pathway.
He has contributed extensively to BlueWallet, fixing long-standing bugs, refactoring the codebase, enabling fee customization, and mentoring new contributors through reviews.
Through the starter grant, Ojok will focus full-time on modernizing BlueWallet; migrating the project from JavaScript to TypeScript, strengthening reproducible builds for F-Droid distribution, and reducing dependency vulnerabilities. He will also enhance BlueWallet’s Silent Payments library, aligning it with Bitcoin Improvement Proposals (BIPs) and preparing it for wider adoption by the ecosystem. His contributions will strengthen both Bitcoin privacy and the quality of a widely used self-custodial wallet.
Abiodun Awoyemi
Based in Lagos, Nigeria, Abiodun is a versatile software engineer with deep expertise in Rust, TypeScript, Solidity, and zero-knowledge proofs. A graduate of the Btrust Builders pathways, his open-source contributions already span the BitcoinDevKit and Rust Bitcoin ecosystems. His prior work includes implementing anti-fee-sniping mechanisms, introducing robust locktime validation types, and hardening GitHub Actions security workflows.
With the starter grant, Abiodun will drive six critical improvements across Bitcoin Dev Kit, including flexible RBF transaction construction, enhanced cross-wallet interoperability, caching improvements, streamlined public key derivation APIs, and more secure signing workflows. Alongside technical contributions, he will also produce tutorials, blog posts, and video materials bridging complex Bitcoin concepts for new developers.
Chukwudi “Chuks” Agbakuru
Chuks is a Nigerian software engineer with over eight years of experience, ranging from enterprise integrations to independent development. A consistent contributor to LDK, LDK-Node, and SimLN, he has authored features, conducted non-trivial reviews, and played a pivotal role in advancing testing frameworks. Outside open-source, he is also building PeepsWire, a video-calling application powered by Lightning micro-payments.
Through the starter grant, Chuks will dedicate himself to finalizing BIP 353 (Human-Readable Names) support in LDK Node, bringing a major usability improvement to Lightning infrastructure. He will also extend SimLN with support for LDK Node and develop new advanced simulation features. His active presence at BitDevs Lagos and commitment to mentoring new contributors underscore his role in strengthening the wider Bitcoin developer ecosystem.
Long Term Grants
The Btrust Open-Source Cohort offers long-term support to established Bitcoin open-source contributors, promoting a collaborative environment for sustained development. Members receive funding paid monthly in Bitcoin, mentorship, and peer support to deepen their work on critical Bitcoin open-source projects.
The cohort model aims to build a resilient, inclusive developer ecosystem, enabling contributors from the Global South to make meaningful, lasting impacts on Bitcoin's open-source ecosystem.
Long Term Grant Recipients
Itoro Ukpong
With seven years of professional software development experience, Itoro has become deeply engaged in the Bitcoin ecosystem over the past year. During his starter grant, he contributed significantly to BDK-FFI with 16 merged PRs, 30 PR reviews, and improvements to the devkit wallet sample app. His consistent contributions led to him being recognized as a maintainer and granted merge access on BDK-FFI, as well as secondary maintainer status on bdk-jvm.
With this long term grant, Itoro will continue to lead and enhance the API surface of the BDK-FFI layer as part of the major migration to version 3.0. His focus includes deepening the Partially Signed Bitcoin Transactions (PSBT) functionality, building a robust testing suite with regtest integrations, advancing Miniscript descriptor support, and maintaining developer-facing libraries and sample wallets like devkit wallet (Android) and Godzilla (desktop). He also plans to author the Android section of the Book of BDK, sharing best practices for secure and performant Bitcoin wallet development.
Itoro’s sustained leadership across BDK-FFI and bdk-jvm ensures developers worldwide gain reliable, cross-platform libraries for building Bitcoin applications, advancing both ecosystem usability and adoption.
Oghenovo “Novo” Usiwoma
Novo is a full-time Bitcoin Core open-source developer dedicated to advancing privacy and performance. His contributions include implementing Silent Payments, optimizing batch verification of Schnorr signatures, and enhancing libmultiprocess within Bitcoin Core.
A talented engineer based in Nigeria and a graduate of the 2023 Btrust Builders cohort, Novo has been actively contributing to Bitcoin Core and other Bitcoin projects since completing the program. His recent work under the first year of the Btrust Open-Source Cohort focused on deepening Bitcoin Core’s Silent Payments functionality.
With this long-term grant renewal, Novo will continue driving key privacy-preserving features and performance improvements at the protocol level, strengthening Bitcoin’s usability, security, and resilience for users worldwide.
Btrust Builders Alumni
This batch is especially meaningful as all six grant recipients are alumni of the Btrust Builders program. The structured learning tracks they completed offered a foundation in Bitcoin fundamentals, practical experience, and mentorship while contributing to open-source projects.
Their progression from Builders graduates to funded grantees highlights the program’s mission to cultivate high-potential developers in the Global South and prepare them for long-term, sustainable careers in Bitcoin open source.
Interested in following a similar path as our Q3 recipients? Apply to join the waitlist for upcoming Btrust Builders cohorts and be part of the next generation of Bitcoin open-source developers.
Applications for Btrust Developer Grants
Btrust developer grant applications are open year-round, with new recipients announced quarterly. If you’re a developer passionate about contributing to Bitcoin open-source development, we encourage you to apply.
Learn more about our grant programs and apply through our website.
Stay updated on our initiatives and future opportunities by following us on X, Nostr, and LinkedIn.
About Us
Btrust is a non-profit organization with a dedicated mission to decentralize the development of Bitcoin Open-Source Software. Our focus is on fostering developer talent in the Global South and supporting the free and open-source Bitcoin ecosystem.
