Human Rights Foundation Donates $325,000 In BTC For Bitcoin Development

HRF made eight donations in BTC to further censorship-resistance, open-source solutions, Bitcoin Core development and other initiatives in the ecosystem.

The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) has announced its latest round of donations totalling $325,000 in BTC, focused on furthering key elements of the Bitcoin ecosystem, per a press release sent to Bitcoin Magazine.

With this round of bitcoin donations, HRF is focusing on censorship-resistance, open-source custody solutions, Bitcoin Core development, Chaumian e-cash, and education across the globe.

The largest contribution of $100,000 goes to BTCPay Server, an open-source bitcoin payments processor. The software enables users across the globe to accept bitcoin payments from anyone, enabling the use of a censorship-resistant form of money with relative privacy. This particular donation was made in partnership with Strike's affiliated non-profit, per the release.

Additionally, two donations of $50,000 each will be allocated to Jon Atak and Josh Kitman. Atak is a core developer continuously reviewing and working to improve Bitcoin, while Kitman is working on Fedimint, a Chaumian e-cash solution for Bitcoin.

A $25,000 donation to Keith Mukai is meant to further his work on Seed Signer, an offline, air-gapped Bitcoin hardware wallet. In addition to research and development, Mukai will build out multilingual support for right-to-left languages such as Arabic and Hebrew.

Leigh Cuen is receiving a $25,000 grant for her work in developing a bitcoin donation guide for non-profits. The guide walks non-governmental organizations (NGOs), state institutions and activists on how to accept donations in bitcoin and is set to release next month in partnership with the Bitcoin Policy Institute.

Beyond the individual developers, Robosats, an open-source peer-to-peer (P2P) Lightning exchange, will also receive $25,000 to continue development, offer multilingual support and build out guides for the product.

Furthermore, Novaya Gazeta, an independent Russian news outlet focused on investigative reporting on Russian politics and society, will also receive a $25,000 donation. The funding will enable the outlet to explore the relationship between cryptocurrency and human rights as it relates to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Finally, the Vinteum Initiative, a non-profit bitcoin research and development center, will receive the last $25,000 for its educational seminars, fellowships, and grants used to support and build Bitcoin developers in Brazil.

The HRF has donated over $1.5 million in BTC and USD over the past two years to further Bitcoin development across the world and will announce its next round of donations in January 2023.