Announcing the First Round of 2026 Bitcoin Developer Education Grant Recipients

At Btrust, we believe Bitcoin education is essential for a thriving open-source ecosystem.

Bitcoin open-source development grows when curious developers are given access to good learning materials, strong mentorship, projects, and the time and support to keep improving.

Btrust education grants exist to support programs that train developers, make Bitcoin knowledge more accessible, and create clear pathways into Bitcoin free and open-source software.

Through these grants, we continue to support initiatives that reduce barriers to learning and help more people in Africa, Latin America, India, and the broader Global Majority engage with Bitcoin development.

For this round, Btrust awarded $904,000 across five education programs:

• Hack4Freedom
• Summer of Bitcoin
• Bitshala
• Vinteum
• Librería de Satoshi & B4OS

These programs are different in structure, region, and audience, but they share one goal: helping more developers move from learning about Bitcoin to contributing to Bitcoin open-source projects.

Importance of Developer Education Programs

Bitcoin needs more contributors from more places. Many talented developers in the Global Majority want to work on Bitcoin but face barriers: limited local technical communities, fewer mentors, fewer opportunities to work on real open-source projects, and less access to funding that allows them to go deep.

Education programs help solve this. They create the first steps into the ecosystem. They teach technical foundations, expose developers to tools and repositories, connect them with mentors, and help them build proof of work.

The strongest programs do not stop at teaching. They create pipelines. They help learners become contributors. They help contributors become grantees, maintainers, educators, and full-time open-source developers.

That is the kind of long-term ecosystem we want to support.

Education Grant Recipients

Hack4Freedom 2026

Hack4Freedom is a female-focused Bitcoin hackathon and developer education program designed for software developers and aspiring engineers in the Global Majority.

The program started in Kaduna, Nigeria, last year, where it created a dedicated space for women developers to learn, build, and contribute to open-source Bitcoin and freedom tech projects. That first cohort showed what becomes possible when women are given the tools, mentorship, and confidence to move from learning into building.

The 2026 expansion will bring Hack4Freedom to different Global Majority cities, starting with Lagos. The edition brought together 38 women and produced 13 repo-backed open-source projects. Read more about the Lagos edition here.

Each two-week hackathon will combine expert-led workshops, mentorship, and project-based learning focused on Bitcoin, Lightning, Nostr, and eCash.

Hack4Freedom is important because it directly addresses one of the biggest gaps in the Bitcoin ecosystem: the underrepresentation of women builders, especially from regions where financial exclusion is most deeply felt. The program does not only teach participants about bitcoin. It helps them build real tools for real local problems, publish their work in the open, and begin seeing themselves as contributors to the broader Bitcoin FOSS ecosystem.

Summer of Bitcoin

Summer of Bitcoin is a global online education program that introduces university students to Bitcoin open-source development and design.

Since 2021, the program has received more than 40,000 applications from 74 countries. It has onboarded 280+ developers, with alumni now contributing to or working at bitcoin organizations and projects such as Alby, Fedi, Galoy, Vinteum, Blockstream, Zeus, BDK, and others.

The 2025 edition received 5,036 applications from 71 countries in just 15 days. From this pool, 68 interns from 9 countries were selected to work with 32 Bitcoin organizations. During the project period, interns contributed to more than 86 GitHub and GitLab repositories and submitted 413 pull requests.

The program begins with a structured Bitcoin learning bootcamp, followed by a mentored internship where students work directly on real Bitcoin open-source projects. Participants learn Bitcoin fundamentals, developer tooling, open-source workflows, and practical software engineering through direct contribution.

Summer of Bitcoin continues to be one of the largest and most consistent pipelines bringing young, globally distributed talent into Bitcoin FOSS. Its reach across India, Nigeria, Brazil, Egypt, and other Global Majority regions makes it a strong fit for Btrust’s mission of decentralizing Bitcoin development.

Bitshala

Bitshala is a Bitcoin developer education community in India focused on helping developers learn, collaborate, and contribute to Bitcoin open-source projects.

In 2025, Bitshala continued to grow as one of the most active Bitcoin technical education initiatives in India and Southeast Asia. Its work included study cohorts, weekly clubs, fellowships, starter grants, meetups, builder retreats, public conferences, and community support through Bitspace Bangalore.

Bitshala continues scaling its cohorts, fellowships, grants, meetups, and community support. Its goals include awarding more developer, design, and education fellowships; supporting starter and full-time grants; organizing more meetups; and expanding Bitspace as a hub for Bitcoin builders.

This year, Btrust approved Bitshala for long-term support. This is important because strong developer education programs need stability. Instead of spending energy every year on fundraising and reapplying, Bitshala can plan longer-term, support contributors more consistently, and focus on building India’s Bitcoin open-source developer pipeline.

Vinteum

Vinteum is a Bitcoin research and development center focused on growing open-source developer talent in Brazil and Latin America.

Its work combines education, mentorship, grants, research, and community infrastructure. Vinteum supports developers through programs such as the Bitcoin Dev Launchpad, fellowships, long-term grants, Mastering Bitcoin and Mastering Lightning seminars, technical workshops, BitDevs meetups, and Casa21, its physical Bitcoin developer hub.

Vinteum alumni are now contributing to or working with projects and organizations such as BTCPay Server, Floresta, BDK, Bitcoinfuzz, Boltz, Stratum V2, and others. The program also supports Brazil-originated open-source Bitcoin projects, including Floresta, bitcoinfuzz, and Krux.

Vinteum’s model is especially valuable because it does not rely on a single program. It creates a full ecosystem around developers: structured onboarding, technical community, physical collaboration space, fellowships, and long-term grants. This helps turn early interest into sustained contribution.

Librería de Satoshi & B4OS

Librería de Satoshi and Bitcoin for Open Source, also known as B4OS, form an integrated Spanish-speaking Bitcoin education ecosystem.

Librería de Satoshi provides foundational Bitcoin technical education, while B4OS supports more advanced developers as they move toward open-source contribution, mentorship, portfolio building, and full-time Bitcoin work.

Together, they have built one of the strongest Spanish-speaking Bitcoin developer pipelines in Latin America.

B4OS has also produced strong individual outcomes. Alumni and participants have gone on to contribute to Bitcoin Core, Mostro, BDK, SimLN, LNDK, SeedSigner, Silent Payments, and other Bitcoin-related projects. Some have received grants from organizations such as Spiral, HRF, BDK Foundation, and others, while others have moved into full-time Bitcoin roles.

The program’s model is to introduce learners to Bitcoin, help them build technical depth, move top participants into advanced open-source training, and support the strongest contributors as they transition into grants, jobs, or long-term FOSS work.

Btrust also approved Librería de Satoshi & B4OS for long-term support because the program has already shown that it can produce real contributors. With more stable funding, the team can focus less on yearly fundraising and more on scaling the pipeline, improving the platform, supporting contributors, and strengthening Spanish-speaking Bitcoin education across Latin America.

Education Grant Applications

Education grant applications are open all year round to programs that train developers and make Bitcoin technical education more accessible, especially across Africa and the Global Majority.

We support initiatives focused on Bitcoin open-source development, developer education, mentorship, and pathways that help software developers move from learning into meaningful contribution.

Programs interested in applying can find the full eligibility criteria, qualification requirements, application guidance, and submission details on the website.

Learn more and apply here.

About Btrust

Btrust is a non-profit organization with a mission to decentralize the development of Bitcoin open-source software. We focus on supporting developer talent from the Global Majority and strengthening the free and open-source Bitcoin ecosystem.

Through grants, education, mentorship, and community support, Btrust helps developers contribute to the tools, infrastructure, and applications that make bitcoin more resilient, accessible, and decentralized.