Btrust Announces Largest Q1 Developer Grant Cohort to Date, this is how you can get on the next corhort

Maybe it is just a skill issue, but I have been struggling as a software developer lately. I’m starting to think I should just pivot to Bitcoin development.

Btrust just dropped the news about their Q1 2026 developer grant recipients, and it is their biggest group yet. Ten builders are getting the financial runway to stop treating Bitcoin open-source as a side hustle and start treating it as a full-time career. These grants are paid out monthly in bitcoin.

Starter Grants The starter grant is essentially a runway for engineers who want to quit the day job and commit to Bitcoin full-time. It’s a period where you can stop worrying about rent, pick a part of the protocol you actually care about, and start making your name in the global dev community.

Michael Ariwaodo (Cashu): Michael is the first-ever Cashu developer grantee for Btrust. Based in Nigeria, he is focusing on the Chaumian ecash protocol to make Bitcoin payments faster and more private. His work involves improving mint reliability and aligning protocol specifications to ensure different wallets and mints play nice together.

Frankline Omondi (Bitcoin Core): Representing Kenya, is a systems programming expert focusing on fuzz testing and validation logic. He also authored bip353-rs, which helps with DNS payment instructions. His goal now is to expand testing coverage to catch bugs before they ever reach the network.

John Osezele (BDK, Rust Payjoin): John is a Nigerian mobile dev focusing on the Bitcoin Dev Kit (BDK). As a co-maintainer of bdk-dart, he is making it possible for Flutter developers to build high-quality Bitcoin wallets. He is currently working on an open-source reference wallet to show other builders exactly how it is done.

Victor Chabunda (rust-payjoin, UniFFI-Dart): Known as "Chavic" in the dev community, this Zambia-based developer is all about the developer experience. He builds the "glue" (FFI tooling) that allows Rust-based Bitcoin libraries to work on other platforms like .NET and C++. He is also working on a tool to help wallet devs detect privacy leaks.

Shehu Muhammad Aliyu (PDK, BDK): A graduate of the Btrust Builders pathway, Shehu is tackling transaction privacy through the Payjoin Dev Kit. He’s been busy moving databases to SQLite for better reliability and fixing security vulnerabilities. His next move is integrating Payjoin directly into the BDK command-line tools.

Sonkeng Maldini (BDK, Bitcoin Core): Based in Cameroon, Sonkeng has over eight years of experience with complex systems. He is currently focused on improving the BDK ecosystem, maintaining fuzz testing infrastructure, and organizing the BitDevs Yaoundé meetups to grow the local developer community.

Long-Term Grants The Btrust Open-Source Cohort provides sustained support for established contributors. These members receive monthly bitcoin funding and high-level mentorship to ensure they can make a lasting impact on the ecosystem.

Chuks Agbakuru (LDK): A former starter grantee, Chuks has officially leveled up to a core contributor for the Lightning Dev Kit. He was instrumental in adding human-readable names (BIP-353) to LDK-Node. Now, he is shifting his research toward "splice batching," which could significantly lower fees for Lightning service providers.

Peter Tyonum (BDK): Peter is a maintainer who has spent the last year refining bdk-cli and adding hardware wallet support. His new mission is building a production-ready Bitcoin Core RPC client library for BDK, creating a unified way for different components to talk to Bitcoin Core.

Enigbe Ochekliye (LDK): Enigbe is making history as the first member of the cohort to focus entirely on research. With a background in mechanical engineering and control systems, she is modeling the Lightning Network as a multi-agent dynamical system. Her work explores how decentralized controllers can better manage liquidity across the network.

Chukwuleta Tobechi (BTCPay Server): As the lead organizer of BitDevs Lagos, Tobechi is the bridge between the protocol and the real world. He has built vital plugins for Shopify and Mavapay, and his renewed grant will see him developing even more integrations for African payment rails and local currencies.

The Path Forward Most of these grantees started their journey as part of the Btrust Builders program. It is a clear pipeline; you learn the fundamentals, you start contributing to open-source, and eventually, you get the backing to do it full-time.

I think you'll be happy to know that the program is open year-round, with new recipients announced every quarter. If you are a developer with at least six months of proof-of-work, a clear vision for your project, and a mentor to vouch for you, the door is open. They are specifically looking for self-driven individuals who are ready to collaborate and eventually mentor the next generation of starter grantees.

There are thousands of bitcoin developers out there and recently, more and more are getting sponsered, if you are an experienced developer ready to move into a full-time, remote open-source role, you can apply for a Btrust grant here.

For your best chances, it helps to join some communities and start creating some signal over there, but applying today is the first step.