Introducing the First Batch of 2026 Btrust Event Grants
For many developers, the first step into Bitcoin is not a grant, a fellowship, or a full-time open-source role. It is a local meetup, workshop, hackathon, conference talk, or technical session where they see that Bitcoin is not only something to use, but something they can build on and contribute to.
Events help attract developer talent. They create entry points for people who are curious about Bitcoin. They give new builders access to mentors, peers, tools, and real technical conversations. They also give existing contributors a platform to share their work, find collaborators, and connect with people from different regions and communities.
Under our event grants, we support a broad spectrum of initiatives, from technical bootcamps and hands-on workshops to large-scale convenings. These gatherings help introduce new developers to Bitcoin and expand opportunities for deeper collaboration across ecosystems throughout the year and into the future.
For this first batch of 2026 event grants, we are supporting eight events:
- Adopting Bitcoin Cape Town 2026
- Africa Free Routing Lightning Developer Bootcamps
- Bitcoin++ Nairobi 2026
- Code & Chain Senegal
- The Genesis Workshop
- Dakar Bitcoin Days IV
- DevFest Kaduna 2026
- Bitcoin++ Seoul 2026
Event Grant Recipients
Adopting Bitcoin Cape Town 2026
Adopting Bitcoin Cape Town is South Africa’s leading bitcoin-only event focused on real-world adoption, circular economies, self-sovereignty, and grassroots bitcoin use in Southern Africa.
We’ve supported Adopting Bitcoin Cape Town since its inception, and in 2026 supported the event as the Honey Badger sponsor. The 2026 edition took place on January 30–31 in Cape Town. It brought together bitcoin builders, educators, developers, circular economy organizers, and adoption-focused communities from South Africa, the wider African continent, and abroad.
The event continued to serve as a regional meeting point for practical bitcoin adoption. It also created space for workshops, technical conversations, and community-led discussions around how bitcoin is being used in real life across Southern Africa.
The 2026 event also helped connect broader ecosystem activity, including bitcoin circular economy conversations, Lightning developer education, and satellite events focused on adoption.
For us, Adopting Bitcoin Cape Town remains important because it brings together the people building, teaching, using, and experimenting with bitcoin on the ground. It gives African builders a stage and helps connect local adoption work to the wider bitcoin ecosystem.
Africa Free Routing Lightning Developer Bootcamps
Africa Free Routing runs hands-on Bitcoin Lightning Developer Bootcamps across Africa. Each bootcamp is a five-day technical program where developers learn Bitcoin and Lightning fundamentals, understand channels and routing, work with Lightning infrastructure, and build Lightning-enabled applications.
We supported Africa Free Routing’s previous bootcamp series, which trained over 250 developers across eight bootcamps, seven cities, and six countries. More than 30 projects were built during the hackathon sessions, with some continuing beyond the program as active tools and businesses.
In 2026, Africa Free Routing expanded the program to reach more developers across the continent, with a goal of training over 300 new developers.
This program is important because it is deeply practical. Developers do not only learn what Lightning is. They build with it, test it, and leave with the confidence to continue working on Bitcoin and Lightning projects.
Bitcoin++ Nairobi & Seoul 2026
Bitcoin++ is the world’s leading Bitcoin developer conference series. It brings together developers, researchers, protocol engineers, educators, and open-source contributors for deeply technical events focused on specific areas of Bitcoin development.
In 2026, we are supporting bitcoin++ Nairobi and bitcoin++ Seoul.
Bitcoin++ Nairobi took place from June 17–19. It was the first bitcoin++ conference in Africa and the first-ever open source edition. For three days, developers, researchers, educators, and builders explored Bitcoin, Lightning, privacy, mining, open-source development, developer tooling, financial infrastructure, and the future of building on Bitcoin.
The event also hosted a hackathon, bringing together builders from Africa and around the world to work in public on practical Bitcoin software. The hackathon had 90 participants, 37 submitted projects, and nearly 10 million sats in prizes across the main competition and sponsor tracks.
Bitcoin++ Nairobi was especially important because it gave African developers an international stage. They were able to present their work, meet contributors from around the world, and connect with the broader Bitcoin developer ecosystem.
We are also supporting bitcoin++ Seoul, which will focus on privacy, one of bitcoin’s most important technical and social challenges. Privacy touches wallet design, transaction construction, surveillance resistance, self-custody, network behavior, and user safety.
Together, the Nairobi and Seoul editions create focused technical spaces where developers can go deep, share work, meet collaborators, and find pathways into long-term open-source contributions.
For us, supporting bitcoin++ helps connect developers from Africa and the Global Majority to global technical conversations, while also giving builders from these regions more visibility within the wider Bitcoin open-source ecosystem.
The Genesis Workshop
The Genesis Workshop is a hands-on technical workshop organized by OSGuild in collaboration with BitDevs Mauritius.
The workshop will take place in Mauritius, on July 25th and 26th, with Bitcoin open-source developers as guest facilitators.
The goal of the workshop is to help them make their first meaningful steps toward Bitcoin open-source contribution.
Participants will learn about Bitcoin development pathways, open-source contribution standards, project workflows, and how to engage with real projects. They will also be introduced to OSGuild’s contributor onboarding system, which supports mentorship, project coordination, and contribution tracking after the workshop.
The Genesis Workshop builds on the existing work of BitDevs Mauritius, which has organized recurring Bitcoin-focused technical meetups. This workshop turns that community momentum into a more structured contributor pipeline.
Code & Chain Senegal
Code & Chain is a developer-focused event series led by the Bitnob Developers Network. Its goal is to equip African developers with the skills and tools to build on Bitcoin infrastructure.
Over the past three years, the Bitnob Developers Network has hosted events across Africa, training developers through hands-on workshops, live coding sessions, hackathons, and technical talks. The network reports having trained 5,026 developers across seven African countries: Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, Benin Republic, Burundi, and Togo.
Btrust previously supported the Lagos edition, and we are excited to support the Senegal edition as the program continues expanding developer access to Bitcoin infrastructure across Africa.
Code & Chain helps developers move from learning to building by introducing them to practical tools for remittances, merchant payments, cross-border financial applications, developer SDKs, and open-source utilities.
DevFest Kaduna 2026
DevFest Kaduna is one of Northern Nigeria’s leading developer gatherings. For the 2026 edition, the organizers are introducing a bitcoin-only developer track focused on open-source Bitcoin development.
This track will take place ahead of DevFest Kaduna and will introduce developers to Bitcoin protocol fundamentals, Lightning development, running Bitcoin nodes, and contributing to open-source Bitcoin repositories.
By adding a bitcoin-only track to an established developer conference, the organizers can reach engineers who may not yet be part of the bitcoin ecosystem but already have the technical skills to contribute.
Dakar Bitcoin Days IV
Dakar Bitcoin Days is Senegal’s first bitcoin-only forum and one of the gatherings in French-speaking Africa.
Btrust supported Dakar Bitcoin Days last year and is returning to support the fourth edition, planned for November 6 & 7, in Dakar, Senegal.
The event brings together developers, students, entrepreneurs, educators, and bitcoin advocates for talks, technical demos, discussions, and hackathon activity. The upcoming edition will focus on building a roadmap toward a new decentralized payment system in Africa.
Dakar Bitcoin Days plays a key role in expanding bitcoin education and technical engagement in French-speaking Africa. It helps shift the conversation away from scams and speculation toward education, practical use-cases, and open-source contribution.
Connecting Events to Developer Pathways
Our work focuses on decentralizing Bitcoin development, especially across Africa and the Global Majority. To do this well, the ecosystem needs more than one pathway. Some developers need long-term education programs. Some need fellowships or grants. Some need direct mentorship. But before all of that, many developers need a first point of contact.
Events create that first contact. They help developers discover that Bitcoin is an active technical ecosystem with real open-source projects, real engineering problems, and real opportunities to contribute. They also create the social layer that open-source needs: trust, relationships, peer learning, and community memory. Each event in this batch plays a different role.
Events can help a developer:
- Understand bitcoin beyond price and speculation
- Meet active contributors and maintainers
- Learn how to run nodes, build with Lightning, or use Bitcoin developer tools
- Make a first open-source contribution
- Join a local technical community
- Find a mentor, project, grant, or fellowship pathway
- Present their own work to a wider audience
This is especially important in regions where Bitcoin talent exists but access to global networks is limited.
Event Grant Applications
Btrust event grants are open to events, conferences, bootcamps, workshops, hackathons, and technical gatherings that help grow the Bitcoin open-source ecosystem, especially across Africa and the Global Majority.
We support events that are developer-focused, bitcoin-aligned, and designed to create meaningful pathways into Bitcoin education, open-source contribution, technical collaboration, or community building.
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 Us
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.
