Qala will now rebrand to ₿trust Builders Programme and join forces with its parent company to democratize the development of open-source Bitcoin software.
₿trust, a non-profit organization committed to decentralizing the development of open-source Bitcoin software, has announced the acquisition of Qala, a leading organization training the next generation of African Bitcoin developers for an undisclosed amount. According to the announcement, Qala will henceforth rebrand to ₿trust Builders Programme in a bid to enable the Jack Dorsey-backed organization to democratize the Bitcoin software development program. Notably, Qala is available in seven countries led by Nigeria, Cameroon, Uganda, and South Africa, among others. Currently, Qala has over 100 community members with 4 global projects in the pipeline.
“… we strongly believe our new transition should not only be viewed as a massive boost for the Bitcoin ecosystem, but a crucial foundation in leveraging Bitcoin as the gateway and catalyst to financial freedom in Africa and the Global South,” Bernard Parah, Co-Founder & Director of Qala, noted.
As part of the acquisition deal by ₿trust, Femi Longe, CEO of Qala, and Stephanie Titcombe, Programmes Manager at Qala, are expected to officially join the new entity as Programme Leads. Furthermore, ₿trust Builders’ programme will put more effort into advocating for African software developers to join the Bitcoin and Lightning journey.
“As we move forward, we’re fully focussed on not only building on Qala’s impressive work in Africa but also empowering more developers throughout the Global South with the support they need to build truly innovative open-source solutions through the power of Bitcoin,” Ojoma Ochai, Board Member at ₿trust, noted.
₿trust and the Bitcoin Market Outlook
Founded in early 2021, ₿trust was initially funded with about 500 Bitcoins from music icon Jay-Z and tech veteran Jack Dorsey. The non-profit organization was created to support the software development of Bitcoin only, amid the emergence of over 10k crypto coins. With a huge fellowship placement rate, ₿trust has helped its alumni join leading platforms like Galoy, SphinxChat, and Bitnob, among others.
Notably, ₿trust operations are headed by four directors – Abubakar Nur Khalil, Carla Kirk-Cohen, Obi Nwosu, and Ojoma Ochai – who are guided by core principles of supporting Bitcoin open source software development.
The growth of the Bitcoin open-software network is critical to mainstream adoption and also widening the censorship of the top coin. Moreover, governments around the world have turned to control centralized crypto firms in a bid to tame the original work of Satoshi Nakamoto. Nonetheless, the development of open-source Bitcoin software is expected to significantly increase the knowledge of blockchain technology, more so in Africa where most people are unbanked by traditional banking services.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin price traded around $25.7k on Wednesday, down approximately 6.3 percent in the past seven days.
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