Btrust Builders

We just wrapped up week 5 of the Bitcoin CLI live cohort.🧑🏾💻 This week the cohort went deeper into Bitcoin scripts and explored how more advanced spending conditions are built into transactions. In chapter 10, participants learned how Bitcoin scripts are embedded into P2SH (Pay-to-Script-Hash) transactions. This introduced a new way to lock funds using custom scripts while keeping the transaction itself simple. The cohort explored how P2SH works, how multisig scripts are constructed, and how different SegWit script variations interact with these structures. By the end of the chapter, participants understood how funds sent to a P2SH address can later be unlocked by revealing and satisfying the script. In Chapter 11, the focus shifted to timelocks inside Bitcoin scripts. Participants learned how scripts can control when funds become spendable using two important opcodes: CheckLockTimeVerify (CLTV) and CheckSequenceVerify (CSV). These tools allow developers to create more flexible conditions, such as delaying spending until a certain block height or enforcing relative time delays. Throughout the week, participants completed technical exercises, collaborated with their assigned partners, and prepared discussion responses. During the live study session, participants shared their insights and the faculty helped guide group discussions around the week's topics.

We just concluded week 6 of the Mastering Bitcoin live cohort. 📚 This week focused on understanding how the Bitcoin blockchain works and how new blocks are created through mining and consensus. Participants explored the structure of the blockchain, including how blocks store transaction data, how blocks are linked together using cryptographic hashes, and how the block header contains the key information used to secure and validate each block. The cohort also examined merkle trees and how they efficiently organize transactions inside a block, allowing nodes to verify transactions without needing to download the entire blockchain. In addition, we studied the mining ⛏️ process and Bitcoin’s proof‑of‑work consensus mechanism, learning how miners compete to solve cryptographic puzzles, how difficulty adjustments keep block production consistent, and how block rewards and transaction fees incentivize miners to secure the network. We also discussed how consensus emerges across the distributed network, ensuring that all nodes agree on the valid chain while maintaining Bitcoin’s decentralized and trustless design. Throughout the week, participants reviewed the assigned materials, collaborated with their partners, and worked through discussion questions to deepen their understanding. During the live session, participants shared insights with the group and the faculty led the discussion on key ideas from the readings.

BitDevs is coming to Addis Ababa... First pioneered in New York City, BitDevs is a global network of Bitcoin-only technical meetups that brings together developers, researchers, and enthusiasts who care deeply about Bitcoin and its future. First Monthly Event – Thursday, April 23, 2026 at weVentureHub supported by Btrust

We just wrapped up week 4 of the live cohort of the Bitcoin CLI pathway. 🚀 During the week the cohort explored how Bitcoin transactions can go beyond simple payments. In chapter 8, we learned how transactions can include additional conditions. Participants explored locktime, which allows a transaction to be valid only at a certain time or block height, and OP_RETURN, which makes it possible to attach small pieces of data to the blockchain. These features show how bitcoin transactions can be more flexible than just sending funds. In chapter 9, the focus shifted to Bitcoin Script, the programming language that defines how bitcoin can be spent. The cohort explored how scripts set the rules for transactions, and why testing scripts is important when designing spending conditions. Throughout the week, participants reviewed the study materials, completed the technical exercises, and met with their assigned partners to discuss key questions. During the live study session, participants shared their insights and faculty members led short discussions with the group. Week 4 helped the cohort move from basic transactions to understanding the scripting logic that powers Bitcoin.

2025 was a defining year for Btrust as we focused on strengthening the foundations needed to decentralize Bitcoin development across the Global Majority. We focused on scaling what works, building stronger pathways for developers to discover Bitcoin, contribute to open‑source infrastructure, and grow sustainable careers. Here’s a snapshot of what that looked like in 2025: • 3,800+ developers engaged globally across Africa, Latin America, India, and beyond • 1,800+ applications to the Btrust Builders program • $2M+ in grants awarded, with 39.7% going directly to developers • 18 developer grantees contributing to 15 open‑source Bitcoin projects • 13 BitDevs communities supported across 9 African countries, hosting 70+ meetups attracting ~1,900 developers • 16 global conferences attended, with developer grantees speaking at 9 • ~265 attendees at the second edition of the Btrust Developer Day in Mauritius 🇲🇺 A more geographically distributed Bitcoin developer ecosystem is already beginning to emerge, and the Global Majority is increasingly part of shaping it. Read the full Btrust 2025 Year in Review to see everything we built and learned throughout the year: https://lnkd.in/d68eMCTv

We just concluded week 5 of the Mastering Bitcoin live cohort. 📚 This week focused on transaction fees and the structure of the Bitcoin network. Participants explored how Bitcoin transactions compete for block space through fee rates, how wallets estimate appropriate fees, and mechanisms such as Replace‑By‑Fee (RBF) and Child Pays for Parent (CPFP) that allow transactions to be confirmed faster when needed. The cohort also examined how the Bitcoin peer‑to‑peer network functions, including how nodes connect and discover peers, how blocks and transactions propagate across the network, and the roles of full nodes, lightweight clients, and mining nodes. We further explored mempools, block relay, and how different node types interact to maintain the decentralized network. Throughout the week, participants reviewed the assigned materials, collaborated with their partners, and worked through discussion questions to deepen their understanding. During the live session, participants shared insights with the group and led a short discussion on key ideas from the readings.

Bitcoin works best when transactions don’t easily reveal who paid whom. But in practice, sharing addresses and receiving payments can still create privacy challenges. Silent Payments offer a different approach. They allow someone to publish a single address while still receiving payments that appear as unique, unlinkable transactions on the blockchain. In this blog post, Btrust grantee Sonkeng Maldini explores how Silent Payments work and why they’re an important development for Bitcoin privacy. The article also walks through a practical example of detecting Silent Payment outputs using Frigate, an experimental Electrum server, and Bitcoin Dev Kit. If you're curious about how Silent Payments could improve privacy and how developers are experimenting with tools around them, this post is a great place to start. Read the full blog for more details: https://lnkd.in/dm7J9jsv

We’ve just wrapped up week 3 of the Bitcoin CLI live cohort. Over the past week, participants explored chapters 6 and 7, diving deeper into how Bitcoin transactions can be expanded beyond the basics through multisignatures and Partially Signed Bitcoin Transactions (PSBTs). The focus was on understanding how multiple parties can collaboratively create and authorize transactions. Participants learned how to create and manage multisig wallets, spend from them, and think through real-world use cases where shared control of funds is essential. They also worked through the PSBT workflow, gaining hands-on experience with constructing, funding, and signing transactions across different stages. Throughout the week, participants applied these concepts through practical exercises and met with their study partners to discuss key ideas, compare approaches, and deepen their understanding. We then came together for the live session, where participants shared their insights, walked through their solutions, and led discussions on the challenges and possibilities unlocked by multisigs and PSBTs.

This week we wrapped up Week 4 of the live cohort, continuing our deep dive into how Bitcoin enforces rules and verifies transactions. Over the past week, participants studied chapters 7 and 8 of Mastering Bitcoin, met with their learning partners to discuss the material, and then came together for the group session. The week began with a closer look at authorization and authentication in Bitcoin. Instead of relying on identities, Bitcoin uses scripts to define the conditions for spending funds. The group explored how these scripts are evaluated, and how transactions are only valid when those conditions are satisfied. From there, the conversation moved into Bitcoin Script itself. Participants looked at how the stack-based language works, how input and output scripts are combined during validation, and how different script types like P2PKH, multisig, and P2SH are used in practice. The group also discussed timelocks and how they can restrict when funds are spendable. After building a foundation with scripts, the cohort shifted into digital signatures. Participants learned how signatures prove ownership of funds, authorize transactions, and protect transaction data from being altered. The group walked through how signatures are created and verified using private and public keys. The discussions also covered the differences between ECDSA and Schnorr signatures, and why Schnorr offers improvements in simplicity, efficiency, and privacy. Participants explored how signatures can commit to different parts of a transaction using SIGHASH flags, enabling more flexible transaction designs. A key focus was the importance of randomness in signing. The group reflected on how reusing a nonce can expose a private key, reinforcing how small implementation details can have serious consequences. By the end of the session, participants had a clearer picture of how Bitcoin enforces spending conditions and verifies transactions without relying on trust. The discussions helped connect scripting and signatures into one coherent system that underpins how Bitcoin works.