HRF’s grantees for the third quarter of 2025 include:
Nymius
Bitcoin’s transparent ledger is essential to its design, but it also exposes dissidents to surveillance from authoritarian states seeking to monitor transactions and networks. Silent Payments enables individuals to receive Bitcoin through unique, one-time addresses derived from a static public key, but its effectiveness depends on wallet adoption. Nymius, a Bitcoin Dev Kit (BDK) contributor, will integrate Silent Payments into the BDK. With this grant, dozens of wallets and applications built with the BDK will be able to offer users greater financial privacy.
Daniela Brozzoni
Bitcoin nodes (computers running the Bitcoin software) reveal user metadata when connecting with one another. This opens the door for regimes or hackers to track or isolate activists and dissidents running Bitcoin nodes. Daniela Brozzoni is a Bitcoin Core developer who has been researching this vulnerability and publishing mitigation proposals to counter the tactics. With this grant, she will gather community feedback and implement fixes to make the network safer.
Build on Bitcoin (BOB) Buidlers Residency
Every day, users often find freedom technologies difficult to use, which limits their accessibility and impact. BOB Buidlers Residency in Bangkok has supported three cohorts of free and open-source developers to advance Bitcoin’s privacy, decentralization, and mining. With HRF’s funding, a fourth cohort of four developers will improve usability across Bitcoin, Lightning, nostr, and ecash, making freedom tech more accessible to those who need it most.
2140 Foundation
Bitcoin developers, especially those in autocratic countries, often struggle with burnout, isolation, and a lack of incentives to complete long-term projects. The 2140 Foundation, founded by open-source developers Josie Baker and Ruben Somsen, is a co-working space in Amsterdam that provides mentorship, collaboration, and employment to global contributors advancing Bitcoin’s long-term security, resilience, and scalability. With HRF funding, the foundation will support the work of developers from authoritarian states to strengthen Bitcoin as a human rights tool.
Cashu for Community Sovereignty
In many parts of Latin America, governments restrict financial flows by blocking payments, freezing accounts, and, at times, disrupting internet access. Cashu for Community Sovereignty, founded by Forte11, addresses this with ecash, which enables quick and private payments that even work offline. The initiative will train 10 communities in authoritarian environments to deploy Cashu mints and Lightning Network nodes. With this funding, communities facing repression will develop a stronger infrastructure for financial freedom.
Bhartiya Bitcoin
As India advances a central bank digital currency (CBDC) and financially represses political opposition, Bitcoin offers a path to financial freedom. However, education is often inaccessible to non-English speakers. Bhartiya Bitcoin produces free, culturally relevant Bitcoin content in Hindi, Marwari, Sindhi, and Assamese. With HRF support, Bhartiya Bitcoin will expand into Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, and Malayalam to make Bitcoin more accessible to the more than 1.4 billion people living under increasingly autocratic rule in India.
Bitcoin Education for Lebanon’s Liberty & Empowerment (BELLE)
In Lebanon, a collapsing currency, banking restrictions, and asset confiscations have stripped people of financial stability. The Lebanese Institute for Market Studies is launching BELLE, a project to teach political activists and youth to use Bitcoin to preserve their purchasing power. With HRF support, BELLE will provide Arabic-language workshops, educational videos, and media outreach to strengthen individuals’ ability to resist financial repression and secure their financial futures.
Bitcoin Arusha
Tanzania’s government restricts the use of foreign currency and limits dissidents’ banking access, while the local currency depreciates, leaving many citizens trapped in a cycle of poverty. To alleviate this, Bitcoin Arusha provides culturally rooted, Swahili-language Bitcoin education in northern Tanzania through music, dance, and events. HRF support will strengthen Bitcoin Arusha’s resilience and empower communities through economic opportunities.
Bitcoin for Fairness
Human rights defenders and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) often lack the knowledge to use Bitcoin to bypass repressive financial restrictions. Bitcoin for Fairness (BFF) is an educational initiative that disseminates Bitcoin knowledge to the global majority. In 2026, BFF will focus its initiatives in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Zambia – countries scarred by currency crises and periods of one-party rule – and deliver workshops, micro-seed funding, mentorship, and educator training. With HRF funding, BFF will empower activists and civic organizations in Southern Africa with censorship-resistant, permissionless financial tools.
Bitcoin for Exiles
Burma’s military dictatorship uses financial repression, exile, and imprisonment to crush and retaliate against peaceful resistance. Bitcoin for Exiles is an initiative that will pilot a Bitcoin-based financial autonomy program tailored to the needs of Burma’s democratic resistance. The initiative will provide training in local languages, privacy-focused toolkits, and in-person and online workshops. With HRF support, this much-needed project will equip local and exiled dissidents with the tools to survive, organize, and resist the military junta’s financial repression.
Pluto Mining
Today, most Bitcoin mining hardware relies on closed-source software that can expose user data and create dependence on third parties. Pluto Mining is the first open-source mining fleet management platform that gives miners control over their operations without third-party dependence. With HRF support, Pluto will empower individuals in repressive environments to mine Bitcoin privately, independently, and securely, further decentralizing the Bitcoin network.
Alberto Gangarossa
Today, most Bitcoin mining hardware relies on closed-source software that can expose user data and create dependence on third parties. Pluto, built by developer Alberto “Derek” Gangarossa, is the first open-source mining fleet management platform that gives miners control over their operations without third-party dependence. With HRF support, Pluto will empower individuals in repressive environments to mine Bitcoin privately, independently, and securely, further decentralizing the Bitcoin network.
WantClue
Bitcoin mining is dominated by industrial operations that use proprietary hardware and software. Over time, this could put Bitcoin’s decentralization and accessibility at risk. Bitaxe counters this trend by providing an affordable and open-source miner for individuals. WantClue maintains the Bitaxe firmware and produces educational content that makes mining more accessible to dissidents and individuals in closed societies. With HRF support, WantClue will strengthen mining decentralization and expand access to self-sovereign financial infrastructure for those under repression.
Peter Tyonum
Developers in adverse political and economic environments need accessible and secure wallet software infrastructure to build freedom tools. Developer Peter Tyonum contributes to the BDK, which abstracts wallet software into usable plug-and-play components and makes it easier for developers to create censorship-resistant tools. With this grant, Tyonum will continue to help developers worldwide create accessible, permissionless Bitcoin applications.
BitScript
An inclusive developer base is essential to Bitcoin’s long-term decentralization. BitScript, a free, open-source Bitcoin developer education program, trains developers in authoritarian and inflationary environments across Latin America and Africa to build protocol-level freedom technologies. Global development helps ensure that Bitcoin serves as a lifeline for people facing repression. HRF’s grant will help BitScript democratize protocol knowledge to ensure the network reflects global needs.
Code Orange Dev School
Many regions lack the technical education to build, maintain, and use Bitcoin. To address this, the Code Orange Dev School in Indonesia teaches developers and individuals across Asia to contribute to open-source Bitcoin projects, run nodes, and use privacy-enhancing tools like ecash, fedimint, and nostr. HRF’s support will help equip communities with tools to resist authoritarianism.
Demo Lab
As authoritarian governments in Latin America tighten their grip on financial and political power, there is an urgent need for civic and financial education. Demo Lab’s Freedom Academy introduces Bitcoin as a tool for financial independence and teaches practical skills for saving and transacting securely. Through this grant, the Freedom Academy will prepare the next generation of Latin Americans to defend democracy and achieve economic sovereignty.
Nostr under Autocracy
In Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro’s brutal dictatorship restricts traditional communication channels, prevents journalists from exposing the regime’s brutality, and financially suppresses civil society. Nostr under Autocracy, led by democracy activist Jesús González, will train Venezuelan activists and human rights defenders to use the open-source nostr protocol for private, censorship-resistant communication and payments. With HRF support, this project will help Venezuelan dissidents speak freely online and build movements to resist Maduro’s digital and financial repression.
KernelKind
Dictators restrict communication, manipulate online content, and restrict dissidents’ financial access to silence dissent. Notedeck is a Nostr browser created by Damus that makes it easier to build censorship-resistant apps with integrated Bitcoin payments. Its first app, Columns, introduces modular feeds and a marketplace for user-controlled algorithms, while Dmail will enable private, decentralized messaging with email interoperability. With this grant, Notedeck will continue to merge censorship-resistant communication with financial freedom and foster an ecosystem of apps for dissident communications and transactions.
Eric Holguin
Many people living under authoritarian regimes face censorship, Internet shutdowns, and frozen bank accounts that cut them off from communication and commerce. Nostr developer Eric Holguin is working to build censorship-resistant apps with integrated Bitcoin payments by contributing to Damus and Nostr projects that empower individuals to communicate and transact without centralized control. With this grant, he will continue expanding free speech and financial freedom tools for people resisting repression worldwide.
Craig Warmke and Troy Cross
As authoritarian regimes expand financial surveillance and roll out central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), many people remain dangerously unaware of their risks to individual liberties. Transactional Freedom, a forthcoming book co-written by philosophers Craig Warmke and Troy Cross, makes the moral and legal case for recognizing a universal and constitutional right to transact. With HRF support, Warmke and Cross will examine financial repression in authoritarian regimes and its impact on human rights, activism, and financial freedom.
