- Published on
Fourteenth Wave of Bitcoin Grants
- Authors
- Name
- OpenSats
- Name
- Arvin
- @arvin
OpenSats is pleased to announce our fourteenth wave of grants from the General Fund, providing support to four first-time recipients and six grant renewals.
This round focuses on practical infrastructure by expanding access to test networks, making full nodes easier to run, improving transparency in Lightning payments, and reducing operational friction for ecash systems.
The four first-time grant recipients are:
The six grant renewals will go to:
Each of these projects contributes to keeping Bitcoin decentralized, transparent, and user-driven, while ensuring it remains robust and accessible.
None of this would be possible without the generosity of our donors. If you'd like to help move Bitcoin forward by supporting projects like those in this wave, consider donating to our General Fund.
Let's take a closer look at these projects to discover their purpose, impact, and the value they bring to the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Orchard
Orchard is a web application that unifies multiple tools to operate a Cashu mint. Mint operators today rely on command-line tools, SQL queries, and separate dashboards for Bitcoin, Lightning nodes, and other services, which makes operations fragmented and prone to errors. Orchard provides a single interface that integrates LND, Taproot Assets (tapd), Cashu implementations like CDK and Nutshell, and an AI interface powered by Ollama. Its modular architecture allows each service to be toggled on or off, letting operators start small and expand as needed.
With support from OpenSats, Orchard will add revenue features and backups for Cashu mints, improve authentication and observability, increase trust through event logs and multi-user support, add support for Lightning implementations beyond LND, including CLN, and improve long-term sustainability with test suites, documentation, and research into revenue models. These efforts aim to reduce the learning curve for new operators, increase the number and quality of Cashu mints, and demonstrate how Bitcoin infrastructure can be improved through the convergence of open-source software and AI.
Repository: orangeshyguy21/orchard
License: MIT
Floresta
Floresta is a modular and lightweight Bitcoin full node written in Rust that uses the Utreexo dynamic accumulator, a cryptographic technique that maintains a compact set of unspent coins (the UTXO set). While Floresta has previously received OpenSats' support, this is contributor Jaoleal's first grant for his work on the project. To date, the project has delivered libfloresta, a reusable library for building Bitcoin applications, and florestad, a daemon that includes a view-only wallet and an integrated Electrum server. By combining pruning with Utreexo, Floresta has reduced storage requirements and sync times, making it possible to run full nodes on resource-constrained devices while still independently verifying Bitcoin.
With support from OpenSats, Floresta will expand its RPC interface to align more closely with Bitcoin Core, enabling developers and infrastructure providers to integrate it more easily into existing applications. It will also be packaged for nix-bitcoin and upstream nixpkgs, making deployment seamless for users of NixOS. Alongside these milestones, the project will continue to conduct code reviews, provide contributor support, and maintain its long-term stability, ensuring it remains both technically robust and accessible to a growing community of developers and users.
Repository: vinteumorg/Floresta
License: MIT
Alt Signetfaucet
Alt Signetfaucet is a Bitcoin faucet for the Signet test network, built in a POSIX shell using only Bitcoin Core and BusyBox. Running since March 2025, it provides a reliable way for learners and developers to access test bitcoin for experimentation. By offering these test coins, the faucet makes it easier to practice Bitcoin transactions, test applications, or teach others how the network works. It supports a wide range of transaction formats, including older public key types (P2PK with uncompressed keys), and its activity can be tracked openly through the mempool.space Signet explorer.
With support from OpenSats, the project will document its current design, identify areas for improvement, and make updates to ensure the faucet is more robust and user-friendly. Planned milestones include running a faucet on a custom Signet network that produces blocks at a steady pace, and refining the underlying bitcoin-faucet-shell code into a tool that anyone can deploy. These efforts aim to expand access to test bitcoins, ensuring it is easier for developers, educators, and new users to explore and learn about Bitcoin safely.
Repository: jsarenik/bitcoin-faucet-shell
License: MIT
Lightning Detective
Lightning Detective is a Rust library and web service that analyzes Lightning invoices to determine the likely recipient. It works with the standard format used in the Lightning Network (BOLT-11) and compares invoice data with the public Lightning graph to classify the payee as a custodial service, a non-custodial wallet, or another type of provider. The tool can match well-known public nodes directly, for example, by identifying custodial wallets like Wallet of Satoshi, and can also detect wallets that rely on Lightning Service Providers (LSPs), such as Phoenix, through ACINQ's infrastructure. A public demo is available at detective.lipa.dev.
With support from OpenSats, the project will expand its coverage and improve usability. Planned work includes detecting the target network, adding support for common Lightning payment methods like LNURL-Pay and Lightning Addresses, exposing more invoice details, and improving error handling to provide more reliable results. These updates will make the library easier for developers to integrate into applications, while ensuring researchers and users have clearer insight into payment flows and wallet usage patterns across the Lightning Network.
Repository: getlipa/invoice-detective
License: MIT
From new tools for testing and education, to infrastructure that improves payments and node operation, this wave of grants reflects the broad range of work required to keep Bitcoin decentralized and resilient. By supporting both new contributors and established projects, we aim to ensure that open-source software and research remain freely available to anyone who wishes to build, learn, or transact on Bitcoin.
To date, OpenSats has issued 328 grants, underscoring both the scale of our program and the ongoing need to sustain open-source contributors building across the ecosystem. If you are working on a project that advances Bitcoin, we encourage you to apply for funding.
Our work is made possible by the generosity of our donors. To help make the future of free and open-source development more sustainable, please consider setting up a recurring donation to one of our funds. Every contribution makes a difference.