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Advancements in Developer Training
A thriving Bitcoin ecosystem depends on developers with a deep understanding of Bitcoin's core principles, who can navigate the intricacies of its protocol and are equipped to meaningfully contribute to its continuous evolution. To help new contributors reach this level of competence and confidence, there must be clear pathways into open-source Bitcoin development that are accessible, practical, and sustainable.
To that end, OpenSats supports education initiatives that lower barriers to entry, build contributor skills, and strengthen the open-source Bitcoin ecosystem. These programs differ in structure and style but share a core emphasis on hands-on experience, close mentorship, and meaningful project work. Many participants go on to contribute independently, join active projects, or foster local communities through events, mentoring, and education.
This impact report highlights four initiatives announced across funding rounds in July and September 2024, and March 2025. Together, they expand access to Bitcoin development through practical training, expert guidance, and grassroots engagement:
- Onboarding Student Developers
- Lightning Development in Africa
- Technical Training and Mentorship
- Growing Regional Developer Communities
Collectively, these programs have introduced nearly a thousand people to Bitcoin's technical landscape. They have enabled contributions to dozens of open-source projects and opened new career paths in Bitcoin around the world.
Let's take a closer look at how these training initiatives are making an impact.
Onboarding Student Developers
New contributors often struggle to find a starting point in Bitcoin open-source development. University programs do not teach Bitcoin, yet, and most students lack the context, mentorship, or network to navigate real-world FOSS workflows. As a result, many technically capable students never get the chance to contribute–or even explore Bitcoin as a serious technical path. Summer of Bitcoin has been working to address this gap.
Since its founding in 2021, Summer of Bitcoin has trained more than 200 students through a competitive process that includes a technical bootcamp, project proposals, and direct collaboration with maintainers across the Bitcoin ecosystem. In 2024, the program received over 2,700 applications from students across 63 countries. More than 800 participants completed the public code challenge, hosted on GitHub, which tested their ability to work with Bitcoin tools and engage with open-source workflows. From that pool, 60 students were selected for the final cohort.
Participants have contributed to over 60 projects, from wallets and testing infrastructure to protocol tools, user education resources, and developer libraries. Examples include enhancements to error handling in Zeus and Alby, interface functionality in Fedimint, backend infrastructure improvements in Bcoin, and documentation maintenance in BDK. Many of these contributions were merged into production repositories, directly improving infrastructure across widely used Bitcoin tools and libraries.
The Summer of Bitcoin project has been a great training and recruiting tool for the BDK project. Myself and other BDK developers have mentored multiple students over the years, many of whom have gone on to work on BDK or other Bitcoin projects.
–Steve Myers, contributor to Bitcoin Dev Kit
Support from OpenSats has helped fund intern stipends, mentor gratuities, and core program operations. The results extend well beyond the internship period. Of the 158 alumni who have since graduated, 35% are now working in Bitcoin–either through open-source grants, roles at Bitcoin companies, or ongoing educational work. Over thirteen alumni have returned as mentors, guiding new contributors on projects such as BDK, Fedimint, Galoy, and libsecp256k1. The mentor network rotates annually, allowing active contributors to participate as their time permits. Many returning mentors are alumni of the program themselves–contributing to a mentorship loop that deepens over time and strengthens the contributor base from within.
Over the past four years, I've watched many Summer of Bitcoin alumni grow into confident contributors to multiple open-source Bitcoin projects and secure roles in the industry.
–Conor Okus, Spiral
By creating a rigorous, well-supported entry point into open-source work, Summer of Bitcoin gives promising developers–regardless of geography or background–a credible path into Bitcoin development. While only a subset are selected for final internships, the remaining participants gain early exposure through its bootcamp, code challenges, and open resources. Many alumni go on to organize events, lead clubs, or become mentors themselves, reinforcing a virtuous cycle of contribution.
Lightning Development in Africa
In parts of Africa, many people live without reliable access to banking services. The Lightning Network offers a practical alternative–enabling low-cost, peer-to-peer payments that don't rely on legacy infrastructure. Africa Free Routing is tapping into this potential by training a new wave of developers to build tools that serve their local communities.
Backed by OpenSats, the team held a four-day Bitcoin Lightning Development Bootcamp in Nairobi in June 2024. Thirty-five participants–ranging from students and entrepreneurs to local organizers–spent several days learning how to set up nodes, build with Lightning primitives, and work through real-world problems in group settings. The bootcamp closed with participant-led demos focused on solving challenges specific to African markets.
Eye-opening, empowering, and deeply rewarding–I've gained valuable skills and a strong sense of community.
–Setutsi Adzei, Bootcamp participant
The Nairobi bootcamp is one of four events Africa Free Routing has run so far, spanning three countries and reaching more than 100 developers. These training sessions serve as a first step into deeper mentorship and technical contribution. Many graduates now participate in Btrust's developer mentorship track–a structured continuation that gives them long-term support as they grow into confident, independent contributors.
It's a great thing to be part of this bootcamp. Prior to this bootcamp, I didn't know much about Bitcoin development and the Lightning Network, and now I can say for sure that I am very enthusiastic to be part of this journey.
–Perez Yeboah, Bootcamp participant
The bootcamps are just one part of a larger push. Africa Free Routing is building out the infrastructure to support long-term growth from developer networks to follow-up mentorship and community engagement.
OpenSats' support has also helped fund venues, materials, and post-bootcamp programming, ensuring that learning doesn't end after the workshops.
By helping developers gain Lightning-specific skills, the project is helping with more than just software contributions. It's opening doors to financial tools that many African communities have never had access to–tools that work even in places where banks and payment processors don't. This work lays the foundation for grassroots innovation and broader participation.
Technical Training and Mentorship
Learning beyond the basics of open-source development for Bitcoin requires meaningful access to real codebases, experienced mentors, and the time and space to contribute consistently. Without this, even technically capable developers can struggle to progress from learning to meaningfully contributing.
Bitcoin Dev Launchpad, run by Vinteum, bridges that gap through a tiered learning track that takes developers from foundational theory to hands-on contribution. Participants progress through remote coursework, live seminars, and a 10-day in-person residency–each stage building toward deeper engagement with real Bitcoin infrastructure. The program prioritizes autonomy and practical problem-solving, allowing developers to interact with open-source tools, collaborate with maintainers, and navigate real-world technical challenges under active mentorship. It's a fast-paced, high-expectation environment designed to accelerate skill development and readiness for contributors.
What surprised me most was the quality of discussions and instructors, as well as the high level of commitment and purpose among participants. [...] I can honestly say the BDL completely transformed my career path. I had always wanted to work in the BOSS ecosystem, but without the program, that career transition might never have happened.
–G.L., Bitcoin Dev Launchpad cohort graduate
With support from OpenSats, the first cohort launched in early 2024 and drew over 600 applicants. After a round of initial screenings and a 4-week Mastering Bitcoin seminar, 109 candidates were selected to take on a series of programming challenges–including key derivation, SegWit transaction construction, and P2P networking on mainnet. From there, 22 developers advanced to a 10-day residency at Casa21 in São Paulo, collaborating directly with maintainers from BDK, Floresta, Krux, and Rust-Bitcoin.
Out of that residency, the selection committee chose seven participants for a full fellowship, who worked under close technical mentorship, directly engaging with maintainers on real-world challenges like test coverage, fuzzing, and prototype design. Their work includes PRs in core components, increased test coverage, differential fuzzing of Lightning implementations, and prototype development on emerging ideas like hash rate aggregators.
Brazil is without a doubt attracting attention from the global Bitcoin builder community. The Bitcoin Dev Launchpad is helping accelerate that momentum–taking people from zero Bitcoin knowledge to contributing to major open-source projects in just six months.
–Lucas Ferreira, founder of Vinteum
The program also strengthens local infrastructure by supporting a growing network of contributors across Latin America. Fellows are helping teach newer cohorts through Vinteum's Mastering Seminars; recently, one group launched a new BitDevs chapter in Curitiba, bringing the total number of active meetups in Brazil to six. From mentorship to community-building, these developers are becoming force multipliers for the ecosystem–evidence of the long-term impact made possible through sustained support.
Growing Regional Developer Communities
Building local technical communities is essential to the long-term resilience and decentralization of the Bitcoin ecosystem. Bitshala, based in India, is doing exactly that–training new contributors, cultivating technical communities, and laying down infrastructure that enables long-term, regionally driven Bitcoin development.
Since 2023, Bitshala has grown into a national hub for open-source activity, with more than 1,200 members in their Discord community, and more than 350 regular participants in their technical cohorts, study clubs, summits, and workshops–both online and across multiple Indian cities. Its programs serve developers, designers, and educators, many of whom go on to contribute to projects like Bitcoin Core, BDK, Silent Payments, and Coinswap. Bitshala also operates a coworking space in Bangalore called Bitspace, which hosts meetups, dev days, and community events.
Each part of the initiative reinforces the others. Weekly study clubs–typically drawing 8 to 10 recurring attendees–focus on topics like the Optech newsletter, open pull requests, and intersections between Bitcoin and traditional finance. Developer cohorts provide instruction in areas such as protocol development and command-line tooling.
In early 2025, Bitshala ran two of its four rotating tracks–Mastering Bitcoin and Bitcoin Protocol Development–with 73 enrolled and 17 completing the full course. Many fellows also serve as informal mentors–hosting study clubs, reviewing PRs, or guiding new participants–creating a peer-led model of education and knowledge sharing. As of Q1 2025, Bitshala had seven active fellows, including those working on Bitcoin Core and researching features like covenants and silent payments.
Bitshala is the best thing that has ever happened to the Indian Bitcoin technical scene. It's the first time I've seen this level of energy, coordination, and long-term vision around Bitcoin FOSS in the region.
–Anon Senior Developer in the Indian Bitcoin community
Fellows and cohort graduates have launched open-source libraries like SilentPay, a TypeScript implementation of BIP352 primitives, and rust-coinselect, which is a blockchain-agnostic coin selection library inspired by Bitcoin Core's internal logic. Bitshala also maintains a repository for its biweekly PR Review Club, where aspiring contributors collaboratively analyze open pull requests to Bitcoin Core.
In-person events are an important part of Bitshala's model. In March 2025, it hosted the second edition of the BOSS Summit–a technical gathering of 30 developers, designers, and maintainers for two days of deep-dive discussions and collaborative hacking.
The event was followed by the BitPlebs Summit, a 150-person community gathering with talks, panels, and demos focused on strengthening India's broader Bitcoin ecosystem.
Bitshala is also investing in reproducibility. Behind the scenes, it's building public playbooks, internal dashboards, and lightweight infrastructure to help other communities replicate its model. Its stated goal is to "open source the open-source education," making it easier for contributors around the world to launch their own local programs–from study clubs to fellowships to meetups.
By focusing on reproducible infrastructure and community-driven learning, Bitshala is helping define what regionally grounded, open-source Bitcoin education can look like.
Up-and-coming developers need time, training, and mentorship to move from interest to impact. The training programs in this report are designed to make that journey possible–and repeatable.
Each program takes a different approach, but all work toward the same outcome: growing a stronger, more globally distributed base of contributors to Bitcoin's open-source ecosystem. Together, they've supported hundreds of new developers, introduced practical skills, and helped launch sustained engagement with real-world projects.
The initiatives highlighted above represent just a small sample of the 295+ grants OpenSats has awarded to date. Many of these efforts operate far from the spotlight, but their impact compounds over time–mentors become maintainers, fellows become teachers, and local communities become lasting infrastructure.
OpenSats will continue investing in the people behind open-source Bitcoin development. If you believe that education, access, and reproducibility are essential to Bitcoin's future, we invite you to support this work.
If you're running a program or initiative that trains or mentors new open-source Bitcoin contributors, we encourage you to apply for funding.