Over the past few years, BitDevs communities across Africa have been building technical spaces rooted in learning, openness, and collaboration. Today, we’re sharing the guide that brings those lessons together.
The BitDevs Playbook v0.1.0 is the first public release of a practical, open‑source guide for building and sustaining Bitcoin‑only technical communities across the Global South.
Grounded in real experience from BitDevs communities across Africa, it explains what BitDevs is, why the model works, and how to start, run, and sustain high‑quality technical meetups with shared standards around learning, privacy, neutrality, and non‑commercial focus.
In the accompanying blog, we reflect on why BitDevs matters, how the model creates space for open discussion and open‑source contribution, and how communities across Africa have grown beyond monthly meetups into hubs of ongoing learning and collaboration: https://blog.btrust.tech/introducing-the-bitdevs-playbook/
Many of these communities, supported by organizations like Btrust and Bitcoin Zambia, have helped members access advanced programs such as Chaincode Labs’ BOSS program and the Btrust Builders pathways.
Some members have gone on to start careers in Bitcoin open‑source development, supported by organizations like Btrust and the Human Rights Foundation (HRF), while others have gone on to build products and projects of their own.
The Playbook is fully open‑source and community‑driven. It covers the full lifecycle of a BitDevs location, from assessing local interest and hosting a first meetup, to maintaining quality, handling challenges, and even responsibly pausing or closing a location when needed.
It’s designed for organizers, sponsors, contributors, and anyone who cares about building credible, technically grounded Bitcoin communities.
Huge thanks to @stephtitcombe for authoring the playbook, and @its__ank__ , Simon from BitDevsNBO, and @tobe_chileta for shaping this first release with their experience and feedback.
📘 Explore the Playbook to learn how to use it and contribute your insights here: /btrustteam/the-bitdevs-playbook
In our latest Btrust grantee spotlight, we feature @camillarhi_ , a developer who went from night-time coder to full-time Bitcoin open-source contributor.
Rita’s story captures the reality for many African developers: balancing a 9-to-5 job while pursuing their passion for open-source development.
Through dedication, late nights, and perseverance, she found her way into the ₿OSS program and eventually to her first open-source contributions.
Thanks to the Btrust developer grant, Rita is now able to focus full-time on Bitcoin open-source development, contributing to projects like LDK Node, deepening her technical expertise, and empowering others to do the same.
Her journey reminds us that with the right support, mentorship, and funding, builders across Africa can play a central role in shaping a more open and decentralized financial system.
Read the full story on our blog to discover how Rita turned persistence into purpose, and how Btrust Grants are helping African developers build the future of Bitcoin: https://blog.btrust.tech/from-night-time-coder-to-full-time-bitcoin-builder-my-journey-through-btrust-and-the-boss-program/
Learn more about Btrust developer grants here: https://www.btrust.tech/grants/developer
We’re excited to support the Lagos 🇳🇬 edition of #Hack4Freedom, kicking off tomorrow and running through May 30th.
Stephanie Titcombe, Kelvin Isievwore, and Rita Anene will also be joining the program and leading sessions over the next couple of days.
Huge thanks to Brianna, @techkeenah , and team for the incredible work they’re doing to build a strong pipeline of female Bitcoin open-source developers.🧡
We’re looking forward to the next two weeks, the conversations, the learnings, and seeing the ecosystem continue to grow.
Behind every active Bitcoin open‑source contributor is a system that helped them get there; one that helped them discover Bitcoin, develop the skills to work on it, and find a place within the open‑source ecosystem.
Supporting that system across the Global Majority is what Btrust grants are designed to do.
Developer grants support open‑source contributors working across the Bitcoin stack, from core protocol development to wallets, privacy tools, and user‑facing applications. Through funding and support, developers are able to focus on contributing to the software that powers the network.
Education grants strengthen the pipeline of future contributors by supporting programs that introduce developers to the Bitcoin open‑source ecosystem. By funding these initiatives, the grants help expand access to Bitcoin development education and prepare more engineers to participate in open‑source work.
Event grants support meetups, bootcamps, workshops, and conferences that create the spaces where developers meet, collaborate, and find their way into Bitcoin open‑source contribution.
Across all three categories, the goal is the same: strengthening the conditions under which Bitcoin open‑source development can grow across the Global Majority.
In 2025 alone, this work translated into over 3,800 developers engaged across our programs, with more than $2M awarded in grants to contributors and initiatives across the Global Majority.
Explore Btrust grants to get started: https://www.btrust.tech/grants
Throwing it back to our 2025 Year in Review.
2025 was about strengthening the foundation for decentralized Bitcoin development across Africa and the broader Global Majority. After several years of experimentation and iteration, the year marked a shift toward more structured execution; deepening the programs, partnerships, and systems that support open‑source contributors across the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Throughout the year, we focused on building and strengthening the developer pipeline, from discovery and education to mentorship, grants, and long‑term contribution opportunities. Across our initiatives, more than 3,800 developers engaged with Btrust programs and ecosystem activities.
From Btrust Builders, which continues to introduce engineers to Bitcoin open‑source development, to grants supporting contributors and initiatives across the ecosystem, our work centered on expanding opportunities for developers to learn, collaborate, and build.
We also supported BitDevs communities across Africa, participated in global conferences, and brought together developers from Africa, India, and Latin America through gatherings and technical events designed to strengthen collaboration across the Global Majority.
Together, these efforts reflect our long‑term mission of helping build a more geographically distributed community of engineers contributing to Bitcoin’s open‑source infrastructure.
If you missed it the first time, read the full Btrust 2025 Year‑in‑Review blog here: https://blog.btrust.tech/btrust-2025-year-in-review/
Lightning⚡ is best known as a network for fast bitcoin payments. But what if the same infrastructure could also carry private messages?
That’s the idea behind onion messages🧅. They rely on onion encryption, a technique where data is wrapped in multiple layers of encryption, like layers of an onion. As the message travels through the network, each node removes just one layer, learning only where the message came from and where it should go next. No single node ever sees the full route or the original sender and final recipient.
In this article, @abdoolcodes explores how onion messages work, how they differ from traditional payment routing, and how they’re being implemented in LND. The piece also looks at why this small protocol change could turn Lightning into more than just a payment network.
If you’re curious about how Lightning might evolve into a private communication layer, read the full blog to learn more: https://blog.btrust.tech/onion-messages-lightnings-private-messaging-layer/
As our work supporting Bitcoin developers and open‑source communities across the Global Majority continues to grow, we’re excited to welcome three new team members to Btrust. 🎉
Earlier this year, we opened applications for two roles on our team, programs & operations officer and communications associate, and received an incredible 536 and 529 applications respectively.
After a thoughtful selection process, we’re thrilled to welcome Taiye Salami and Feranmi Famuyiwa to the team. We’re also excited to officially bring on Absalom Gavin as our Designer, after working closely with him over the past couple of years.
Taiye Salami joins us as program & operations officer, bringing over seven years of experience leading and supporting large, multi‑stakeholder programs across Africa. Before Btrust, Taiye worked with organizations including AfriLabs, Microsoft, and EdTech Hub, where he coordinated grant‑funded initiatives, managed continent‑wide innovation and education programs, and supported founders, hubs, and ecosystem partners across multiple countries. His work has spanned program execution, stakeholder coordination, operations systems, and the delivery of large-scale initiatives backed by partners such as the World Bank, European Commission, GIZ, and UNFPA.
Joining as Communications Associate, Feranmi Famuyiwa brings strong experience in digital marketing, storytelling, and community-focused communications. Prior to Btrust, she worked with Bitnob where she managed newsletters, blogs, and social media content while supporting campaigns, developer events, and product communications within the Bitcoin ecosystem. Her work focuses on making complex ideas easy to understand through thoughtful content and consistent messaging across digital platforms.
We’re also excited to welcome Absalom Gavin as Designer. Absalom has been working with the team for the past couple of years, supporting design needs across our initiatives. With a background in graphic design, UI/UX, and technical systems, he brings a thoughtful mix of creativity and technical understanding to visual storytelling and product design.
Please join us in welcoming Taiye, Feranmi, and Absalom to the team.
Yesterday BitDevs Addis Ababa 🇪🇹 hosted its inaugural meetup, bringing together 75 developers and Bitcoin enthusiasts for the community’s first Socratic Seminar. 🚀
The session featured a lively discussion, led by Yeabsra Henok, exploring recent developments in the Bitcoin ecosystem. The level of engagement in the room made it clear that there is strong interest among developers in Addis to better understand Bitcoin from a technical perspective.
If you're a developer in Addis Ababa curious about Bitcoin development, BitDevs Addis is building a local community where developers can connect, discuss Bitcoin’s technical developments, and discover resources, programs, and pathways that support getting started and contributing to the ecosystem.
Join the community and attend the monthly meetups to be part of the conversation and connect with other builders in the ecosystem.
A big thank you to Kal Kassa, Hana Terefe, and Yeabsra for getting the ball rolling. 🧡
BitDevs is coming to Addis Ababa…
First pioneered in New York City, BitDevs is a global network of Bitcoin-only technical meetups that brings together developers, researchers, and enthusiasts who care deeply about Bitcoin and its future.
First Monthly Event – Thursday, April 23, 2026
2025 was a defining year for Btrust as we focused on strengthening the foundations needed to decentralize Bitcoin development across the Global Majority.
We focused on scaling what works, building stronger pathways for developers to discover Bitcoin, contribute to open‑source infrastructure, and grow sustainable careers.
Here’s a snapshot of what that looked like in 2025:
• 3,800+ developers engaged globally across Africa, Latin America, India, and beyond
• 1,800+ applications to the Btrust Builders program
• $2M+ in grants awarded, with 39.7% going directly to developers
• 18 developer grantees contributing to 15 open‑source Bitcoin projects
• 13 BitDevs communities supported across 9 African countries, hosting 70+ meetups attracting ~1,900 developers
• 16 global conferences attended, with developer grantees speaking at 9
• ~265 attendees at the second edition of the Btrust Developer Day in Mauritius 🇲🇺
A more geographically distributed Bitcoin developer ecosystem is already beginning to emerge, and the Global Majority is increasingly part of shaping it.
Read the full Btrust 2025 Year in Review to see everything we built and learned throughout the year: https://blog.btrust.tech/btrust-2025-year-in-review/
Bitcoin works best when transactions don’t easily reveal who paid whom. But in practice, sharing addresses and receiving payments can still create privacy challenges.
Silent Payments offer a different approach. They allow someone to publish a single address while still receiving payments that appear as unique, unlinkable transactions on the blockchain.
In this blog post, Btrust grantee Sonkeng Maldini explores how Silent Payments work and why they’re an important development for Bitcoin privacy.
The article also walks through a practical example of detecting Silent Payment outputs using Frigate, an experimental Electrum server, and the Bitcoin Dev Kit.
If you're curious about how Silent Payments could improve privacy and how developers are experimenting with tools around them, this post is a great place to start.
Read the full blog for more details: https://blog.btrust.tech/silent-payments-a-case-study-of-frigate-for-ephemeral-client-key-scanning/
We’re excited to announce the Q1 Btrust Developer Grant recipients, our largest cohort to date. 🚀
Ten Bitcoin open-source developers have been awarded grants, including six starter grant recipients and four open-source cohort members, including two renewals and two promotions from starter to long-term grants.
This cohort also marks a couple of important firsts: support for Cashu 🥜 development and the introduction of a dedicated research role within the open-source cohort. This builds on our work across the stack, from core protocol development to wallets, privacy tools, and user-facing applications.
The Btrust starter grant provides support 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.
Q1, 2026 starter grantees are:
• Michael Ariwaodo working on Cashu
• Frankline Omondi working on Bitcoin Core and bip353‑rs
• John Osezele working on Bitcoin Dev Kit and Rust Payjoin
• Victor Chabunda working on rust‑payjoin and UniFFI‑Dart
• Muhammad Shehu working on Payjoin Dev Kit and Bitcoin Dev Kit
• Sonkeng Maldini working on Bitcoin Dev Kit and Bitcoin Core
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 Majority to make meaningful, lasting impacts on Bitcoin's open-source ecosystem.
Q1, 2026 long-term grantees are:
• Chuks Agbakuru working on Lightning Dev Kit
• Peter Tyonum working on Bitcoin Dev Kit
• Enigbe Ochekliye working on Lightning Dev Kit with a focus on research
• Tobechi Chukwuleta working on BTCPay Server
Learn more: https://blog.btrust.tech/q1-2026-btrust-developer-grant-announcement/
