Jay-Z and Jack Dorsey bet $23 million on Africa's Bitcoin future. Here is what happened next

In February 2021, Jack Dorsey and Jay-Z did something that got the cryptocurrency world talking. The then-CEO of Twitter and the rap mogul whose real name is Shawn Carter jointly donated 500 Bitcoin, worth roughly $23 million at the time, to establish a nonprofit called Btrust. The goal, as Dorsey framed it on Twitter in typically sparse fashion, was to make Bitcoin the internet's currency, starting with teams in Africa and India.

It was the kind of announcement that generates enormous buzz and then frequently disappears into the noise. Five years later, Btrust has not disappeared. It has quietly become one of the more consequential Bitcoin development organisations operating on the African continent, run entirely by Africans, distributing real money to real developers, and building a talent pipeline that did not exist before they put up the funds.

Hands off by design

The structure Dorsey and Jay-Z chose from the start was unusual. Neither man would sit on the board. Neither would direct how the money was spent. The 500 BTC endowment was placed into a blind irrevocable trust, and control was handed entirely to an independent board selected through an open application process.

Over 7,000 people applied for the board positions. Three were ultimately chosen, with a fourth added shortly after. The final board consisted entirely of Africans: Nigerians Obi Nwosu, Ojoma Ochai and Abubakar Nur Khalil, alongside South African Carla Kirk-Cohen.

It was a deliberate act of stepping back. Dorsey has spoken publicly about his belief that genuine decentralisation of Bitcoin requires moving the developer base away from a handful of Western cities and into the countries where Bitcoin is not an investment thesis but an actual financial tool. He once put it simply: "In Europe and the US, Bitcoin is a desire. In Africa, Bitcoin is a necessity."

Jay-Z's role was financial from the start. He provided the co-funding and the cultural weight of his name, but has not been publicly active in Btrust's operations since the launch announcement. The organisation has been driven by Africans from almost day one.

Building the machine

The early phase of Btrust was deliberate and slow. The board spent much of 2022 putting infrastructure in place: governance documents, hiring processes, grant frameworks. Abubakar Nur Khalil, one of the original board members and a prominent Bitcoin developer in his own right, became the public face of the organisation during this period, describing the challenge of building something designed to last rather than something designed to spend quickly.

The first substantive external move came in September 2023, when Btrust acquired Qala, a Ghanaian nonprofit that had been training African Bitcoin and Lightning engineers since 2021. Qala's first developer cohort, which ended in July 2022, posted a 100 percent job placement rate for its 12 graduates. The organisation's problem was not quality. It was money. As its founder Femi Longe acknowledged, Qala relied entirely on grants and was exposed to the volatility of the Bitcoin funding cycle.

The acquisition solved both sides of the equation. Btrust had the capital but lacked the operational training structure. Qala had the structure but lacked sustainable funding. The merged entity was rebranded as Btrust Builders, combining the financial firepower of the Dorsey-Carter endowment with the programmatic expertise Qala had spent two years building.

Growing the developer pipeline

In January 2024, Btrust Builders launched its inaugural fellowship programme with 55 software engineers enrolled for a three-month structured track. The programme covers Bitcoin fundamentals, Lightning network development, and hands-on open-source contributions, moving developers from academic understanding to active participation in Bitcoin's codebase.

The results have been measurable. Since mid-2024, Btrust has distributed more than $1.7 million in grants, with more than half going directly to individual developers. The organisation runs two grant tracks: a Starter Grant for engineers making the transition to full-time open-source Bitcoin work, and a longer-term Open-Source Cohort grant for developers deeper into the pipeline. In April 2026, Btrust announced its largest developer grant cohort yet, awarding grants to 10 open-source Bitcoin developers across starter and cohort categories.

Beyond individual grants, the organisation has been funding the broader ecosystem. In early 2025, it deployed $1.04 million in a single grant round to 10 Bitcoin events and developer education initiatives across the Global South, with four African Bitcoin conferences receiving funding in that round alone.

Dorsey's Africa conviction holds

Dorsey separated from Twitter, which he co-founded, in November 2021 and now leads Block Inc., the fintech and Bitcoin-focused company formerly known as Square. His interest in Africa's relationship with Bitcoin has not waned with his departure from the social media world. He attended the inaugural Africa Bitcoin Conference in Accra, Ghana in December 2022, returned for the second edition, and confirmed attendance again at the third edition held in Nairobi, Kenya in December 2024.

At the Nairobi conference he said Africa is "a region with immense potential for Bitcoin to make a real impact on people's lives." His position has been consistent since he first began engaging seriously with Nigeria's tech scene in 2019, when he visited Lagos and Abuja and described the trip as transformative.

The Nigeria connection is particularly relevant. During the country's 2020 EndSARS protest movement against police brutality, the Nigerian government briefly blocked conventional payment channels used to fund protest activities. Bitcoin fundraising stepped in. Dorsey publicly supported that effort. The Nigerian government subsequently banned Twitter in June 2021, a ban that lasted seven months. These events reinforced Dorsey's thesis about Bitcoin's utility on the continent, specifically in contexts where conventional financial infrastructure can be weaponised against citizens.

What Btrust is now

Abubakar Nur Khalil, one of Btrust's four founding board members, was formally appointed full-time CEO in late 2025, having served as interim leader. He stepped down from his board position to take the executive role on a three-year renewable term, reporting directly to the remaining directors.

The organisation he now leads bears little resemblance to a donor fund. It has staff. It has a fellowship programme with alumni now contributing to Bitcoin's open-source codebase. It has partnerships with developer education organisations in Latin America, India and across Africa. It has a grant track record. And it is expanding.

The 500 BTC that Dorsey and Jay-Z put up in 2021 remains the financial foundation. What has been built on top of that foundation is something neither of them directly controls, which is precisely the point.