A new Bitcoin-based system will allow activists, political prisoners, and human rights defenders to easily receive donations from anywhere in the world without relying on traditional banks or applications. This is Agora, a platform announced at the Oslo Freedom Forum event on June 2nd. A platform developed by Soapbox and promoted by the World Congress for Freedom, an international network of pro-democracy organizations, in collaboration with the Human Rights Foundation’s Freedom Technology Program.
This platform combines two technologies. On the one hand, Bitcoin as a decentralized payment network that operates without banks or intermediaries and cannot be unilaterally shut down by governments, companies, or individuals, and on the other hand, Nostr, a decentralized communication protocol also based on public-key cryptography, with no central server or entity controlling it.
In Agora, this combination serves a specific function. When an activist creates an account on this platform, The system mathematically derives Bitcoin addresses From your Nostr private key, without the intervention of an external server, according to the Agora website.
Activists control that key and therefore the funds they receive (no one else can move it). According to the Agora website, when an account is created, This address can receive donations from anywhere in the world.
Donors send Bitcoin directly from any wallet to the activist’s Bitcoin address, and Agora presents it as a QR code on the campaign page. This platform guarantees that it will not hold or transfer funds at any time.
According to the announcement, Agora is available on the agora.spot website and ZapStore, a decentralized app store for Android that is compatible with the Nostr ecosystem.
There are two ways to donate: Public or Leave No Trace
The campaigns that activists run at the agora include two things: endpointpayment acceptance points with different privacy characteristics and encoded with the same QR code.
The first is a standard Bitcoin address, which is visible to everyone on the chain. The second follows the silent payment scheme (BIP-352), where a different random address is generated each time the recipient receives a transaction in Bitcoin (BTC). He has not publicly disclosed his involvement in the campaign and is not listed as a donor.
When a donor scans the QR, your wallet will detect both endpoint Automatically use silent payments if silent payments are supported.
For activists in high-risk environments, this distinction is important. Public donations on the Bitcoin network leave a permanent and irreversible mark. However, there are currently few wallets (Sparrow Wallet, Cake Wallet, Bluewallet) that implement BIP-352, limiting its practical use.
Finally, at launch, the platform includes active campaigns from organizations in Uganda, Nicaragua, Zimbabwe, Cambodia, and Palestine, as well as from members of the World Congress for Freedom Network. sauce No number of active campaigns or amount raised is specified. It also does not detail whether there is a process to verify the legitimacy of published campaigns, nor does it explain how the platform is funded. Agora is not available on iOS at the time of release.
(Tag Translation)Bitcoin (BTC)
