The Jay-Z and Jack Dorsey-funded Bitcoin non-profit acquires Qala, in an undisclosed deal to support next generation of Open-Source Bitcoin Developers

₿trust, the non-profit company formed by Block CEO Jack Dorsey and American rapper and entertainment mogul Shawn Carter, popularly known as Jay-Z, has acquired Qala, an organisation that trains African Bitcoin and Lightning engineers. Following this acquisition, Qala has rebranded into ₿trust Builders Programme. ₿trust, a 500BTC ($21.5million) endowment fund was formed in February 2021 to “fund #Bitcoin development, initially focused on teams in Africa & India.”

Qala, founded in 2021, sources, trains, and matches African software developers with leading Bitcoin companies from across the world. With its latest acquisition by ₿trust, Qala has the needed resources to build the next generation of African Bitcoin talent pipeline.

Speaking on the acquisition, Bernard Parah, Co-Founder and Director of Qala, said their goal was to build African engineers with deep understanding of Bitcoin’s capabilitites, and that the aquisition further strengthens the goal.

It costs up to $200 million a year to keep Bitcoin’s code maintained and functioning. Several developers around the world write and maintain code for the Bitcoin blockchain, however, African developers make up a small fraction of these developers. 

Since its launch, Qala has added more than 100 community members across seven countries. “Qala is a programme designed to train the next generation of Bitcoin and Lightning Network developers from across the African continent. The goal is to find, upskill and match African developers with Bitcoin companies from around the globe,” a statement on the website reads.