More and more Africans without reliable access to the web are still using Bitcoin for peer-to-peer transactions thanks to a solution called Machankura.
In 2022, South African software developer Kgothasso Ngako created a tool, Machankura, to access Bitcoin despite the continent’s cellular web connectivity challenge. It provides a way to access the Lightning Network through an additional unstructured service knowledge interface, the Mobile Phone Subscriber Identity Module’s telecommunications network. USSD is similar to interactive voice response.
You’re listening to an IVR program when you call a cellular network operator’s visitor service. It tells you which numbers to press for the service you need to access. USSD is a bit like IVR but in textual form. Machankura is already used in about seven countries, adding Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda and Namibia. Despite the immediate expansion of the tech industry on the continent, web penetration in Africa still has a long way to go.
The silver lining here is that the setting gives Africans a unique opportunity to build teams for rural and emerging spaces that haven’t been explored elsewhere. Other offline Bitcoin solutions, such as Locha Mesh in Venezuela, rely on mesh networks to send the message from one device to another until it reaches a device with internet connectivity. This only works if other people within a few miles of the sender are also a mesh network device. By contrast, Africa’s unique context offers commercial merit for technologists seeking to reach the 2. 9 billion people who, according to the International Telecommunication Union, still lack reliable access to the web.
USSD, a communication layer for cellular telecommunications networks compared to SMS, gives software developers underrated flexibility. The USSD protocol allows requests to be forwarded to online programs that Bitcoin users can access by dialing a code such as *483*8333# in Kenya. for example, to interact with the Machankura app even if the phone doesn’t have web connectivity. Here’s a demonstration of a payment in Machakura:
Actions at Machankura can be even more complex than simply sending, receiving, or “checking the balance. “You can “barter BTC,” which involves promoting your BTC for goods and on Bitrefill.
Machankura itself offers a Lightning-enabled Bitcoin wallet, so users can send to an associated wallet with a username or phone number or choose to send any other Lightning wallet a Lightning address. If all goes well, the user receives an on-screen message detailing that the payment was a success and the Lightning management that won the funds appears.
Although Machankura’s allocation is early, the growing popularity of this product shows that the Bitcoin economy can integrate low-income populations without reliable access. Femi Longe, program director of the Qala Africa school initiative, told me that “Africans want to think about bitcoin in context and how it can be used to solve the upheavals they face. ” Projects like Machankura illustrate how bitcoin can be used in such an African-centric context.
If the Global South is going to take the lead in Bitcoin adoption, as many industry experts claim, then I also believe that African users and developers will lead innovation in Bitcoin applications.
Africans are not just consumers of emerging technologies. We are also manufacturers and inventors. Although there are a growing number of web startups on the continent, web penetration on the continent is still very low. In 2020, the World Bank estimated that only 29% of the population in sub-Saharan Africa used the web. This incentivizes technologists to create answers for consumers who don’t have web connectivity.
On the other hand, the use of the telephone is widespread. GSMA (Groupe Speciale Mobile Association) data from 2018 indicates that 74% of sub-Saharan Africans use SIM cards, and estimates that this figure will increase to 84% by 2025. In short, a significant number of people in Africa use phones without an internet connection, such as the Motorolla C113 or basic phones such as the Nokia 3310.
For Lightning USSD invoices to be reliable, secure, and censorship-resistant, Machankura will need to overcome several demanding conditions. These demanding conditions come with the fact that USSD does not use encrypted messages, so this communication can be intercepted without problems through a third party. part and is not ideal for conditions requiring confidentiality. According to Kgothasso, they are already applying tactics to introduce encryption into the service in order to mitigate this challenge.
Second, the Machankura USSD service is lately in custody. Users don’t own their keys, which means they can lose their funds. When it comes to Bitcoin, the rule is “not your keys, not your coins. “
One option may simply be for apps to use a SIM card as a Lighting signer that allows users to back up their wallets. The challenge here is that the SIM cards in today’s phones can’t be easily programmed. To solve the programmability challenge, the Machankura team has lately been experimenting with programming SIM overlays as Lightning signers. In addition, each USSD request to the Machankura App is forwarded to Machakura’s servers through a third party (a cellular network operator or a USSD gateway service such as Africa’s Talking). All of them are centralized platforms that may be forced by the government to remove Machankura or cancel the service.
To solve this problem, the Machankura team told me that they are considering potentially hosting the service as a virtual cellular network operator. Last but not least, an app hosted on express cellular network operators means that the service is limited to certain countries where cellular service is available on the carrier’s network. So, scaling the service means integrating it with cellular network operators in each new country or with a gateway like Africa’s Talking to make the process easier.
There is still a long way to go before offline Bitcoin solutions are borderless, such as the Bitcoin network itself. Personally, I’d like to see undeniable phone apps with easier integration that allow other people to buy bitcoins, not just send or get bitcoins. that someone already owns, directly from the service’s USSD screen. These can take advantage of cellular cash facilities that are already available through USSD. And, of course, I hope that long-term iterations will result in those facilities not being in custody. I think we will continue to see more Bitcoin inventions, unique to the Global South, in the coming years. African bitcoiners are just getting started.