OpenSats General Fund
OpenSatsBitcoinOpen
Bitcoin-paid grants of 3 to 12 months for free and open-source Bitcoin work, from Bitcoin Core to wallets, privacy and education.
Time left to apply
98% of the window left, 59 days of 61
Apply to OpenSats General Fund
Applications go through opensats.org. Expect a decision in about 13 weeks.
Grant stats
- Grant size
- Undisclosed
- Largest grant
- Not published
- Paid in
- BTC
- Payout
- One payment
- Funding model
- Round
- Fixed application window, reviewed as a batch.
- Typical decision
- 13 weeks
- From submission to an answer
- Round
- Q4 2026
- Round budget
- 2025: about $8M allocated
- Ecosystem
- Bitcoin
Checked Oct 1 against 12 sources. Confirm amounts and dates on opensats.org before you apply.
About OpenSats General Fund
OpenSats is a US 501(c)(3) public charity that funds free and open-source work on Bitcoin and the software Bitcoin depends on. The General Fund has paid for Bitcoin Core contributors, Lightning implementations, hardware wallets, fuzz testing, ecash, developer libraries, translation and education. It does not fund altcoin projects or closed-source work.
Applications are open in the first two months of each quarter and closed in March, June, September and December. You submit a short proposal with two written reference letters and a two-minute video. A volunteer technical committee reviews it, and a majority of the nine-person board must approve every grant. Long-term support (LTS) grants for established maintainers have a separate form.
Grants are set in USD but paid in bitcoin. Amounts are private by default, so there is no published range. In 2025 the fund allocated $5,639,789 to regular grants and $2,328,000 to LTS grants. The spring 2026 call for applications asked for proposals on Bitcoin base-layer privacy.
Resources
Categories
Funded before
- Payjoin
- JoinMarket NG
- Specter DIY
What they fund
- Bitcoin Core contributions, code review and testing
- Security research and fuzz testing
- On-chain privacy, such as Payjoin, Silent Payments and CoinJoin tools
- Wallets, developer libraries, Lightning and ecash infrastructure
- Developer education, translation and design/UX work
Who can apply
Tick what applies to you. Saved on this device only.
How applying works
- 1
Prepare your application
Use the OpenSats template, keep it to about one page, and line up two written reference letters.
- 2
Submit in a window
Apply through opensats.org/apply during the first two months of a quarter, with a video that runs exactly two minutes.
- 3
Committee and board review
A technical committee screens the proposal, OpenSats does due diligence, and a board majority decides.
- 4
Sign the grant agreement
If approved, you sign an agreement setting the scope, payment schedule and reporting, and give a bitcoin address.
- 5
Report progress
You publish your work openly and send a progress report every 90 days.
Similar programs
More in Public goodsFAQ
- When does OpenSats General Fund close?
- Applications close on Nov 30, 59 days from now.
- How much can I get?
- The program doesn't publish a range; amounts are set per proposal.
- How long until I hear back?
- About 13 weeks from submission to a decision, going by the program's own process or past rounds.
- Where do I apply?
- On the official site, opensats.org. web3grant links there directly and never takes applications itself.
Sources
Checked on Oct 1 against these pages. Programs change often, so confirm the details on opensats.org before you apply.
- opensats.org/apply
- opensats.org/faq
- opensats.org/faq/application
- opensats.org/selection
- opensats.org/funds
- opensats.org/projects/general_fund
- opensats.org/docs/agreement.pdf
- opensats.org/blog/2025-year-in-review
- opensats.org/blog/call-for-applications-spring-2026
- opensats.org/blog/seventeenth-wave-of-bitcoin-grants
- opensats.org/blog/avoiding-single-points-of-failure
- opensats.org/feed.xml