An innovation using the cellular network (GSM) could onboard millions of Bitcoin (BTC) users previously unreachable by the internet-dependent Bitcoin protocol. Built by South African developer Kgothatso Ngako, the new SMS-based service is named Machankura, a slang South African word for money.
KG, as he’s known to his friends, spoke to Cointelegraph from Pretoria, South Africa, about his fascination with Bitcoin and the hope he has that sending it like a text will bring BTC to millions of Africans.
Machankura, the #Bitcoin for feature phones service in Africa, is slowly growing. https://t.co/TZngXXVhu0
— Derek Ross ⚡5️⃣ (@derekmross) August 8, 2022
As an English speaker, when he first learned about Bitcoin, he listened to audiobooks and podcasts on the way to work. His commute kept getting longer to maximize Bitcoin education. A 20-minute cycle became a 2-hour commute to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa, where he worked as a software developer. KG also coded up Manchakura while working at the CRIS.
In a separate interview, Master Guantai, founder of Bitcoin Mtaani, told Cointelegraph, “The number of cellphones in Africa is double the number of people.” However, internet-enabled smartphone penetration remains low.
In Kenya, Guantai’s home country, he explains that topping up a phone with airtime is as common as credit card payments in the West. A report by Caribou backs up the statement: 94% of financial transactions in Africa are through USSD, the protocol used to send text messages, whereas just 6% of these transactions are made via mobile apps.
In sum, while there are millions of phones in Africa, they’re mostly used for texting. KG had stumbled onto something that could be huge for Bitcoin adoption in Africa.
“This year, a lot of conversations in the space were around USSD or making Bitcoin accessible on feature phones–this could be a part-time project–let me just set it up. And that’s basically how Machankura came to be!”
KG started by building an African language translation project Exonumia. Now providing Bitcoin-related education in dozens of languages, he explained to Cointelegraph that if we make Bitcoin more accessible to Africans, then, as a consequence, they will learn about money and find a way to improve their quality of life.
Once Exonumia picked up steam, he questioned, “what are the other barriers to accepting Bitcoin? Language is one–the other is internet…
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