Fedi, a company focused on community-driven financial infrastructure, has announced the full open-sourcing of its software stack on January 3, fulfilling a commitment made at its launch in 2024. This significant move transitions all Fedi software to the Affero General Public License (AGPL), moving away from an interim business source license. The AGPL is a copyleft license, ensuring that any derivative works based on Fedi’s codebase will also remain open, fostering a collaborative and transparent development environment.

The chosen date, January 3, holds particular historical weight in the Bitcoin community, marking the anniversary of the Bitcoin genesis block, which was mined in 2009. Fedi emphasized that this timing underscores its dedication to community ownership and the development of grassroots financial infrastructure, aligning with its founding principle to act as a “freedom technology” by empowering users and communities with control over their financial tools. This open-source transition eliminates the risk of vendor lock-in for groups relying on Fedi’s software.

Fedi’s platform is designed to enable communities to establish local financial and social systems. Its application integrates encrypted messaging, Bitcoin payments, and additional services accessible through Mini App extensions. The foundational wallet infrastructure is powered by the Fedimint protocol, which facilitates shared Bitcoin custody among groups using federated trust models. The AGPL license is specifically chosen to ensure that all improvements and enhancements to the software remain publicly accessible, even when utilized in hosted or networked services, thereby aligning development incentives with the broader interests of its users. Fedi executives, including CEO Obi Nwosu, have been vocal about the importance of this licensing shift in recent public appearances.

The company now joins a growing movement of Bitcoin-native projects that are fully embracing open development as the adoption of Bitcoin expands beyond early enthusiasts into broader, community-scale applications. The underlying Fedimint protocol draws inspiration from cryptographic concepts first introduced by David Chaum in the early 1980s, specifically his ideas on Chaumian e-cash. This concept allowed users to conduct transactions while maintaining privacy, without revealing their identity or transaction history to the issuer.

However, earlier iterations of digital cash struggled due to their centralized nature, where a single mint controlled issuance and redemption, introducing significant trust and censorship vulnerabilities. Bitcoin subsequently addressed the double-spend problem through decentralized transaction validation across a global network of nodes, thereby eliminating the need for a trusted central mint. Yet, Bitcoin transactions are inherently public, and its throughput capacity remains limited.

Fedimint seeks to bridge these different models by utilizing Bitcoin as its reserve asset while simultaneously distributing custody across a federation of independent operators, known as guardians. This innovative structure ensures that no single entity holds control over funds or transaction data, significantly reducing censorship risks while preserving user privacy. Fedi’s ultimate vision is to empower communities to deploy their own shared financial infrastructure, freeing them from reliance on traditional banks or centralized platforms.