# Agora — Funding Rails

Agora is Soapbox's non-custodial, on-chain-Bitcoin fundraising app for activists — campaigns move wallet-to-wallet with zero platform fee, no KYC, and no approval step.

**Verified: 2026-07-09**

## What It Is

Built by Soapbox (Alex Gleason's company) on Nostr + Bitcoin, Agora started as a hackathon project called *Pathos* and relaunched as **Agora** on June 2, 2026 at the Oslo Freedom Forum, announced by the World Liberty Congress (WLC) with Human Rights Foundation (HRF) backing. It lives at [agora.spot](https://agora.spot) (web) and on ZapStore (Android), with source at `gitlab.com/soapbox-pub/agora`.

> "Agora never holds funds. Donations move wallet-to-wallet on Bitcoin." [1]

> "Recipients sign up in seconds. No bank. No paperwork. No approval." [1]

The platform describes itself as "the world's first Borderless Micro-Philanthropy Network" [8] — positioned specifically for activists, dissidents, and political prisoners, not general-purpose crowdfunding.

## How a Donation Flows

Campaign donations run entirely on-chain — **not Lightning**. (Lightning appears elsewhere in the broader app for social tipping — see Integration Points.)

```mermaid
sequenceDiagram
    participant A as Activist
    participant AG as Agora app
    participant N as Nostr relay
    participant D as Donor
    participant W as Donor's own wallet
    participant BTC as Bitcoin network

    A->>AG: Sign up (Nostr keypair)
    AG->>A: BTC address derived from nsec — instant, no approval
    A->>AG: Create campaign (goal, story, Public/Silent/Both)
    AG->>N: Publish campaign as Nostr event(s)
    D->>AG: Open campaign page
    AG->>D: Show QR code (address or silent-payment code)
    D->>W: Pay from existing wallet (Cash App, Strike, Coinbase, hardware)
    W->>BTC: Broadcast tx — amount + network fee
    BTC->>A: Funds confirm directly to activist's address
    Note over AG,BTC: No Agora server sits in the payment path
    BTC-->>N: Public payments verifiable on-chain and on Nostr
```

Donors pick **Public** (standard address, visible forever, widest wallet support, fastest) or **Silent** (BIP-352, unlinkable fresh output, fewer wallets support it, slower, no push notifications) [6]. Creators choose which to accept, or both [7].

## Campaign Creation & Eligibility

| Question | Answer | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Who can create a campaign? | Anyone with a Nostr key — no application | "No permission needed... no gatekeepers" [7] |
| Is it WLC/HRF-gated? | No — permissionless by mechanism. WLC/HRF campaigns are *featured*, not exclusive | [1][3] |
| KYC for creators or donors? | None documented at any Agora-controlled step | FAQ costs/creators + donor guide [6][7] |
| How does trust work, then? | Opt-in and social: orgs publish a public "verification statement" vouching for campaigns they endorse | "your reputation does the work" [7] |
| Is anything moderated? | Yes — Agora runs its own relay + Blossom file server, zero-tolerance CSAE policy, NCMEC/law-enforcement cooperation | Safety page [8] |
| Could TresPies or a client org start a campaign today? | Technically yes — nothing in the flow blocks it | Inferred from permissionless signup; no ToS document was located |
| Would it fit the brand? | Not natively — every launch campaign is a human-rights/political-prisoner cause | [1][3] |

The gate here is social and reputational, not technical: Agora doesn't vet campaigns, but it also doesn't market itself to small businesses or general nonprofits — a non-activist campaign would be real and fundable, just off-brand and undiscoverable without its own audience.

## Fees & Costs

| Cost | Charged by | Rate | Paid by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Platform fee | Agora | **$0** — "no platform fees" [1], "we take nothing" [10] | n/a |
| Bitcoin network (miner) fee | Bitcoin network | Market rate, varies with congestion | Donor, on top of the gift [6] |
| Donor's wallet/exchange fee | Donor's own provider (Cash App, Strike, etc.) | Varies by provider | Donor |
| BTC→USD conversion | Recipient's chosen exchange | Standard trading/withdrawal fee | Recipient, later, off-platform |

Agora's own cut is genuinely zero — the FAQ instructs donors to "pay the amount plus the network fee" [6], meaning the only unavoidable cost is Bitcoin's own transaction fee, not a Soapbox markup.

## Custody, Compliance & Fiat Reality (US Operator Lens)

Custody is real and non-custodial: the receiving address is derived from the recipient's own Nostr secret key, and funds can be exported straight to Sparrow, BlueWallet, Trezor, or Ledger [7]. But "no KYC at Agora" doesn't mean "no KYC anywhere" — it just relocates to both ends of the transaction:

| Step | Touches Agora? | KYC/AML checkpoint? |
|---|---|---|
| Campaign created, address derived from nsec | Yes (app only) | None |
| Donor pays from their own wallet | No — wallet-to-wallet | Only if the donor's own wallet/exchange requires it (most retail apps do) |
| BTC confirms on-chain | No — Bitcoin network only | None |
| Recipient wants a US tax-deductible receipt | No | **Not practically possible** for anonymous/Silent-payment gifts — no donor name/address is ever captured |
| Recipient converts BTC to spendable USD | No — recipient's own exchange | Standard exchange KYC/AML applies here |

Two general considerations for a US-based 501(c)(3) or small business — **not legal advice**: (1) the IRS treats crypto as property (Notice 2014-21); issuing a compliant donor receipt requires the donor's identity and fair-market-value at receipt, which Silent Payments structurally prevent and Public payments only partially provide (an address isn't a legal name). (2) Funds sit in BTC, subject to price movement, until someone manually off-ramps them — a $10,000 goal today isn't a fixed $10,000 in the bank the way a GoFundMe balance is.

## Self-Host / White-Label

Agora is open source (AGPL-3.0) and built to be redeployed, not just used [4]:

| Requirement | Detail |
|---|---|
| License | AGPL-3.0 — copyleft; a hosted fork must offer source to its users |
| Stack | React 18, Vite, TypeScript, Tailwind 3 + shadcn/ui, React Router, TanStack Query, Nostrify + nostr-tools, Capacitor (mobile), Vitest |
| Hosting | Builds to static files — GitLab/GitHub Pages, Netlify, Vercel, or any VPS; Docker Compose path documented |
| Config | `agora.json` (gitignored) for per-deployment branding/relays; `CONFIG_FILE` env var for a custom path |
| Multi-tenant SaaS option | **None found** — no hosted "Agora for Teams" product; this is fork-and-run, not buy-a-plan |
| Skill needed | A developer fluent in a modern React/Nostr stack, plus a relay (and optionally a Blossom file server) to operate |

**Verdict:** technically real, but it's a codebase to fork and operate, not a product to purchase. Realistic for a dev-capable client; not a weekend project for a non-technical one.

## Traction & Credibility

| Signal | Detail |
|---|---|
| Launch | June 2, 2026, Oslo Freedom Forum [9] |
| Origin | HRF's "AI Hack for Freedom," Bitcoin Park, Austin, Jan 17–18, 2026; Team Soapbox ("Pathos") took 2nd place, 0.25 BTC = 25M sats [2][12] |
| Early hackathon traction | 100+ users within 24 hours of the original build [2] |
| Backers | Human Rights Foundation, World Liberty Congress (Leopoldo López), Soapbox, "And Other Stuff" [10] |
| Independently verified press | PRNewswire wire release, syndicated to Yahoo Finance, StreetInsider, Amsterdam Aesthetics, Norwegian outlet Geopolitika [9][11] |
| Self-reported-only press | Forbes, Associated Press — claimed on Agora's own sponsors page; not independently located in this research [10] |
| Only public dollar figure found | Venezuela pilot: $8,420 of $10,000 goal, 247 donors, 12 countries [1] |
| Platform-wide totals ($ raised, live campaigns) | Not published anywhere found |

Confidence: Medium. The launch itself and WLC/HRF backing are solidly corroborated by an independent wire release; platform-wide traction is not — the one dollar figure available comes from Agora's own marketing page, not an independent scan.

## Incumbent Comparison

| Platform | Fee | Custody | KYC | Rails | Where it beats Agora |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| **Agora** | 0% + BTC network fee | Non-custodial, always | None | On-chain BTC only | *(baseline)* |
| GoFundMe | 2.2–2.9% + $0.30/donation [16] | Custodial | Government ID + bank account, ~20 countries [16] | Card/bank, USD | Discovery, trust, card checkout, disputes, tax help |
| Kickstarter | 5% + ~3%+$0.20 processing | Custodial, all-or-nothing | Bank/tax info | Card, USD | Built-in audience, reward mechanics |
| Patreon | ~10% + ~3% processing | Custodial | Bank/tax info | Card, USD | Recurring billing, tiered perks, mainstream reach |
| Open Collective | 0–10%, fiscal-host dependent | Semi-custodial (fiscal host holds funds) | Fiscal host's own KYC | Card/bank, USD | Public expense ledger, legal nonprofit wrapper |
| Geyser.fund | 0% (own node) to 5% (Geyser wallet) + 10% for promotion [17] | Non-custodial (Boltz-Exchange swap) | None for creators [17] | On-chain BTC + Lightning | Lightning speed/cost, built bitcoiner audience, reward campaigns, longer track record |

Confidence: Medium — Agora's own figures are primary-sourced; incumbent fee figures are drawn from secondary aggregation (help-center pages and pricing trackers), not each platform's raw fee schedule fetched directly.

**Where Agora structurally loses**, regardless of fees: no card/fiat donor checkout (a donor must already own or acquire BTC themselves), no Lightning option for cheap micro-donations, no reward or membership mechanic, five weeks of track record versus GoFundMe's ~15 years, and a brand that reads as off-topic for anything that isn't a human-rights cause.

## Integration Points

| Connects to | Mechanism | Enables |
|---|---|---|
| Lightning wallets | NIP-57 zaps (kind 9734 request / 9735 receipt) [13] | In-app tipping of posts/activists — a **separate rail** from campaign donations |
| Remote Lightning wallet | NIP-47 Nostr Wallet Connect (NWC) [14] | One-tap zap payment without exposing keys to the client |
| Browser Lightning extension | WebLN [4] | Alternate in-browser zap path |
| On-chain BTC wallets | BIP-352 Silent Payments | Unlinkable, private per-campaign donation addresses |
| Nostr relay network | Nostrify + nostr-tools; Agora runs its own relay + Blossom file server [4][8] | Campaign posts, updates, social graph, moderation |
| Hardware/desktop wallets | Seed export | Move campaign funds to Sparrow, BlueWallet, Trezor, Ledger |
| Static hosting / Docker | AGPL-3.0 open-source build [4] | Self-hosted, white-label forks (copyleft obligation attached) |
| Android distribution | ZapStore [9] | Censorship-resistant install path outside Google Play |
| External sites (e.g. Shakespeare-built pages) | **None found** | No embed/iframe/widget documented — only linking out to an `agora.spot` URL is confirmed possible |
| Zap Goals (NIP-75, kind 9041) [15] | **Not confirmed in use** | The ecosystem-standard Lightning crowdfunding-goal event exists, but Agora's on-chain goal bar is not documented as using it — likely custom logic instead |

## Open Questions

- Exact Nostr event kind(s) recording the on-chain campaign/donation itself (site says donations are "public... on Nostr" [1] but doesn't name the kind)
- Whether NIP-75 powers campaign goal-tracking, or if it's bespoke
- Mechanism for posting campaign updates to donors (standard Nostr notes vs. a dedicated notification path)
- Any embed/widget capability for third-party sites — none located
- Platform-wide traction (total raised, total live campaigns, total donors) beyond the single featured example
- Whether the claimed Forbes/AP coverage is substantive — could not independently locate either
- Full workings of the org "verification statement" feature (concept confirmed, UI/workflow not)
- No Terms of Service document was located despite being referenced from the FAQ
- No iOS listing found — web and Android/ZapStore only, cause unconfirmed

## Sources

1. [soapbox.pub/agora](https://soapbox.pub/agora) — Soapbox, "Agora — GoFundMe Without Borders." Accessed 2026-07-09. Supports: tagline, custody quote, zero-fee claim, payment options, Venezuela campaign figures.
2. [soapbox.pub/blog/building-pathos](https://soapbox.pub/blog/building-pathos/) — Soapbox blog, "Building Agora: From Hackathon to Real-World Activism." Accessed 2026-07-09. Supports: Pathos→Agora rename, hackathon origin, 25M-sat prize, 100+ users in 24h.
3. [soapbox.pub/blog/agora-connecting-freedom-fighters](https://soapbox.pub/blog/agora-connecting-freedom-fighters) — Soapbox blog. Accessed 2026-07-09. Supports: launch story, WLC/HRF/Bitcoin Park partnership, Venezuela pilot, 2026 expansion countries.
4. [gitlab.com/soapbox-pub/agora](https://gitlab.com/soapbox-pub/agora) — GitLab repository + README. Accessed 2026-07-09. Supports: AGPL-3.0 license, tech stack, self-hosting/Docker instructions, config model, Nostr kinds, Lightning zaps via NWC/WebLN.
5. [agora.spot](https://agora.spot) — Live app. Accessed 2026-07-09. Supports: navigation structure, "zero platform fees."
6. [agora.spot/help/donors](https://agora.spot/help/donors) and [agora.spot/help](https://agora.spot/help) — Donor guide + FAQ. Accessed 2026-07-09. Supports: 3-step donation flow, network-fee statement, wallet list, Public vs. Silent explanation.
7. [agora.spot/help/activists](https://agora.spot/help/activists) and [agora.spot/verify](https://agora.spot/verify) — Activist guide + verify page. Accessed 2026-07-09. Supports: non-custodial confirmation, wallet export options, permissionless creation, org verification-statement model.
8. [agora.spot/safety](https://agora.spot/safety) and [agora.spot/about](https://agora.spot/about) — Safety + about pages. Accessed 2026-07-09. Supports: "Borderless Micro-Philanthropy Network," no-Lightning-for-donations, CSAE policy, own relay + Blossom server.
9. [PRNewswire — World Liberty Congress Launches Agora at Oslo Freedom Forum](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/world-liberty-congress-launches-agora-at-oslo-freedom-forum-to-power-global-support-for-human-rights-movements-302788493.html). Accessed 2026-07-09. Supports: June 2, 2026 launch date, López/Fain quotes, launch countries, ZapStore/Android distribution.
10. [agora.spot/sponsors](https://agora.spot/sponsors) — Sponsors page. Accessed 2026-07-09. Supports: partner list, self-reported press coverage.
11. [Yahoo Finance — World Liberty Congress Launches Agora](https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/crypto/articles/world-liberty-congress-launches-agora-131500558.html) (syndicated PRNewswire). Accessed 2026-07-09.
12. [HRF — HRF Sponsors AI Hack for Freedom in Austin, TX, Jan. 17-18](https://hrf.org/latest/hrf-sponsors-ai-hack-for-freedom-in-austin-tx-jan-17-18/). Accessed 2026-07-09. Supports: hackathon structure, prize tiers (0.5/0.25/0.1 BTC), dates.
13. [NIP-57 — Lightning Zaps](https://nips.nostr.com/57). Accessed 2026-07-09. Supports: kind 9734/9735 definitions.
14. [NIP-47 — Nostr Wallet Connect](https://nips.nostr.com/47). Accessed 2026-07-09. Supports: NWC mechanics.
15. [NIP-75 — Zap Goals](https://nips.nostr.com/75). Accessed 2026-07-09. Supports: kind 9041, amount/relays tags, goal semantics.
16. [GoFundMe Help Center — Requirements to receive funds](https://support.gofundme.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001977868-Requirements-to-receive-funds) and [Learn about GoFundMe fees](https://support.gofundme.com/hc/en-us/articles/203604424-Learn-about-GoFundMe-fees). Accessed 2026-07-09. Supports: GoFundMe fee rates, ID/bank/country requirements.
17. [Geyser Guide — Geyser Fees](https://guide.geyser.fund/geyser-docs/resources/geyser-fees) and [How on-chain contributions work](https://guide.geyser.fund/geyser-docs/product-features/getting-started/how-on-chain-contributions-work). Accessed 2026-07-09. Supports: Geyser fee tiers, Boltz-Exchange non-custodial swap, no-KYC-for-creators.
18. Kickstarter, Patreon, and Open Collective fee figures — aggregated via web search of secondary pricing-comparison sources (not each platform's own pricing page fetched directly). Accessed 2026-07-09. Confidence: Medium; treat as directionally accurate, not verbatim-verified.