The final day of @btcplusplus Nairobi 🇰🇪 brought together developers, educators, and builders for a full day of talks, workshops, hackathon presentations, and community discussions. Sessions explored a wide range of topics, including bitcoin mining, Lightning payments, privacy, mobile money integration, and open-source development. The workshop track offered hands-on learning opportunities, with Abdullahi Yunus leading an L402 workshop on using Lightning for API authentication and payments, while Sonkeng Maldini demonstrated how developers can send and receive Silent Payments using Bitcoin Dev Kit tooling. Several Btrust community members took the stage throughout the day, including Simon, Abdullahi Yunus, Muhammad Shehu, Sonkeng Maldini, Michael Ariwaodo, Ojok Emmanuel, and @Sharon Murugi, sharing insights on open-source development, privacy, Lightning, mining, and community building. The afternoon featured the hackathon finals, where teams showcased innovative projects spanning developer tooling, financial infrastructure, privacy, and open-source maintenance. The event concluded with the hackathon awards, celebrating the builders and projects that stood out during two days of intensive hacking and collaboration.

90 builders. 48 hours. Multiple ideas brought to life. 🚀 The @btcplusplus open source edition hackathon showcased what happens when builders are given the opportunity to collaborate, experiment, and ship. From cross-border payments and open-source tooling to Bitcoin infrastructure, Nostr applications, and financial inclusion solutions, the quality of projects was exceptional. As sponsors of the Best Contribution to Open Source and Solve Open Source Contribution Spam challenge tracks, we were happy to recognize: 🏆 UTXOracle BTC Calculator by Parrish for best contribution to open source challenge. 🏆 Filter by John Osezele, and Core-Gate by Aisha Omar & Mary Gathoni, joint winners for the open source contribution spam challenge. Congratulations as well to the overall winners: 🥇 WestToEast by Mouhamadou Kouta, which enables cross-border mobile money payments powered by Bitcoin and Lightning⚡ 🥈 Robin by Chris Oketch and Fidel Otieno, helping prospective Bitcoin open-source contributors find the right path before opening a PR 🥉 nairobi2, a permissionless ride-sharing platform with Bitcoin-based Sybil resistance And special recognition to the category winners and honorable mentions, including Hodlr, LNpesa, Pontswap, Dishi Fresh, PoWR System, Zaptip, SiriScore, MindfulSats, and Tando's Ark for pushing the boundaries of what's possible with open-source technology. Read our full recap for a breakdown of the winning projects, the builders behind them, and why we're excited about what's being built across Africa and beyond:

Btrust Blog

Celebrating the Builders of the Bitcoin++ Open Source Edition Hackathon

The bitcoin++ Open Source Edition Hackathon brought together 90 builders from across Africa and beyond for two intense days of hacking, collaborati...

Day 2 of @btcplusplus Nairobi 🇰🇪 kept the momentum going with a mix of technical deep dives, design conversations, and discussions about the future of bitcoin adoption. The day explored how bitcoin can become more accessible and usable across different contexts, from Lightning⚡ as bitcoin's translation layer and cross-platform wallet development, to open bitcoin mining and building better on and off-ramp experiences. There were also conversations around product design, the role of African designers in shaping bitcoin's future, and how more women across the continent are contributing to and reimagining Bitcoin innovation. We're especially proud of our grantees who took the stage, including John Osezele, who shared insights on building cross-platform bitcoin wallets with Flutter and BDK-Dart, and Tobechi Chukwuleta, who spoke about extending BTCPay Server through plugins while maintaining the integrity of the core project. Meanwhile, hackers continued building throughout the day, refining their projects, collaborating with mentors, and turning ideas into working solutions ahead of the Hackathon Expo.

Still buzzing from @btcplusplus Nairobi 🇰🇪, the first-ever conference in Africa, and the first open-source edition. Day one was packed with incredible sessions that explored what it really means to build, contribute to, and sustain open-source software. From practical advice on getting started in Bitcoin open source and becoming a better code reviewer, to discussions on making software more hackable and user-modifiable, there was something for everyone, regardless of where they are in their journey. We also dove into the technical side of Bitcoin and Lightning, exploring topics like improving Lightning infrastructure security, enhancing privacy in Taproot transactions, modern testing and fuzzing techniques in Bitcoin Core, and implementing features such as Replace-By-Fee in Lightning applications. AI was another major theme throughout the day, with speakers examining both the opportunities and trade-offs of using AI in open-source development. Conversations ranged from how AI can support contributors to the cognitive costs that come with relying too heavily on these tools, and what that means for the future of open source. There were also important discussions around building technology for African realities, closing the gap between contributor and founder, improving payment experiences across the continent, and exploring emerging technologies like Nostr and secure enclaves. Proud to see several Btrust grantees and team members take the stage, including Sulaiman Aminu Barkindo, Abiodun Awoyemi, Kelvin Isievwore, Abdullahi Yunus, Frankline Omondi, and 👩‍💻 Rita Anene, sharing their work and contributing to these important conversations. And that was just day one. Stay tuned for updates from the following days.

The countdown is on.⏳ In less than two days, @btcplusplus Nairobi 🇰🇪 kicks off, marking the first-ever conference in Africa and the first open source edition of the series. As the title sponsor, we're excited to be part of this milestone moment for the Bitcoin ecosystem. We'll be in Nairobi alongside developers, researchers, and open-source contributors from around the world, sharing ideas, learning from one another, and building the future of Bitcoin. If you're attending, come find us, say hello, and join the conversation. See you in Nairobi. 🚀

We had such an incredible time at the Freedom Tech Summit ahead of @BTC Prague 🇨🇿. A huge thank you to Lea Petrasova and the entire team for creating a space where builders, developers, and freedom technology enthusiasts can come together to learn, collaborate, and exchange ideas. We're leaving with new insights, meaningful connections, and plenty of inspiration for the work ahead. 🚀

We're heading to Nairobi 🇰🇪 for @btcplusplus open source edition, happening June 17–19. We're excited to join developers, contributors, and builders from across the global Bitcoin ecosystem for three days of talks, workshops, hackathons, and networking. If you'll be in Nairobi and would like to attend the conference, we're giving away a number of tickets. Here's how to participate: • Join the BitDevs Nairobi or the Btrust Builders Discord • Check the general channel for the giveaway details We'll be selecting a few community members to receive conference tickets. See you in Nairobi! 🚀

Earlier today Abubakar Sadiq Ismail walked us through a demo of the Bitcoin Core fee rate estimator Ul and the new mempool fee rate diagram (v31) was presented, showing ongoing work on making Bitcoin Core fee estimator design and proposal to reduce its over estimation and increases accuracy. If you're interested in the details or want to contribute, you can check out the work ongoing work on GitHub:

GitHub

fees: Introduce Mempool Based Fee Estimation to reduce overestimation by ismaelsadeeq · Pull Request #34075 · bitcoin/bitcoin

This PR is another attempt to fix #27995 using a better approach. For background and motivation, see #27995 and the discussion in the Delving Bitco...

Explore the live fee estimation stats here:

Bitcoin Core Fee Rate Estimator

Real-time Bitcoin fee estimation and mempool health analysis powered by Bitcoin Core.

On June 10th, Abubakar Sadiq Ismail will be speaking at the Freedom Tech Summit in Prague 🇨🇿. The Freedom Tech Summit is a gathering of developers, builders, hackers, and freedom technology enthusiasts exploring the future of open-source and decentralized systems. Abubakar will be presenting Bitcoin Core Fee Rate Estimator U.I demo. The session will feature: • A demonstration of the Bitcoin Core Fee Rate Estimator and fee estimation benchmarks • A demo of the Cluster Mempool Fee Rate Diagram UI Location📍: Hotel Duo, Prague West Room Time ⏰: 12:10pm If you'll be at the conference, be sure to stop by and catch the session. Learn more about the conference here:

Freedom Tech Summit 2026 | Prague

Freedom Tech Summit (formerly dev/hack/day) - Year 4 of the one-day conference for developers, hackers, and tech enthusiasts diving deep into Bitco...

Last week, the Btrust team had the privilege of attending the Oslo Freedom Forum, joining builders, activists, technologists, and advocates from around the world in conversations about freedom, human rights, and open technologies. Our CEO, @Abubakar Nur Khalil, took the stage during the closing panel of the Freedom Tech Track alongside Anaïse Kanimba, @npub1kp7j...487l, and @Sabina to discuss one of the most important questions in the Bitcoin ecosystem today: How do we make bitcoin practical for everyday people? A key theme throughout the discussion was Africa's growing role in Bitcoin adoption. Across the continent, people are already using Bitcoin for payments, savings, financial inclusion, and economic empowerment, demonstrating real-world use cases at scale. The conversation explored how builders, entrepreneurs, and advocates can continue creating tools that reduce barriers to access, expand freedom, and make bitcoin more useful in people's daily lives. Watch the full discussion here: https://www.youtube.com/live/Q-7xMYnMXfc?t=12208 A huge thank you to the @HRF team for curating such an impactful space for dialogue, learning, and collaboration.

The Btrust team is heading to Prague 🇨🇿 Kelvin Isievwore, @Sharon Murugi, Itoro Ukpong Oluwasegun, Abubakar Sadiq Ismail and Oghenovo Usiwoma will be attending the Freedom Tech Summit, @BTC Prague, and BTCPay Day from June 10-14. Across these events, they'll be joining builders, entrepreneurs, open-source contributors, educators, and advocates from around the world who are working to advance freedom through technology. We're excited to connect with the global Bitcoin ecosystem and contribute to conversations around open-source development, financial empowerment, digital sovereignty, privacy, and censorship-resistant technologies. If you'll be in Prague for the events, we'd love to connect.

The Btrust team is heading to Norway 🇳🇴 @Abubakar Nur Khalil, @Chuks, Peter Tyonum, Abubakar Sadiq Ismail and Oghenovo Usiwoma will be on ground at the 2026 Oslo Freedom Forum, by @HRF, happening from June 1st to 3rd. They will be joining activists, technologists, innovators, and freedom advocates from around the world for important conversations around human rights, financial freedom, digital rights, and censorship-resistant technology. We’re excited to connect with builders, thinkers, and fellow advocates exploring how technology can help protect and empower communities where it matters most. If you’ll be attending #OsloFreedomForum, we’d love to connect.