Lots of people ask us how can we mobilize funds in Kenya so quickly. All the expats we talk to here struggle to open bank accounts, fund credit cards issued by Western banks, and pay huge commissions on international transfers. Alternatives such as international money transmitters are complete rip-offs.

Few people understand the power of Bitcoin as peer to peer digital money because, in the West, few have the opportunity to really use it. But if you do you immediately understand that it is the most revolutionary monetary tech tool ever created.

In our life as bitcoiners, we have spent countless hours trying to explain what bitcoin is, how it works, and how it can benefit all of us, inflation, currency debasement, store of value properties, etc, etc. With zero — null — nada — sifuri success.

Then we came to Kenya.

Here, things changed. It is not about economic theory, not about the price going up or down, it is about its daily use.

We first learned how to take advantage of Bitcoin to live in Kenya without having to open a bank account and without even bothering to fund a credit card issued by a European bank. To our great surprise, we discovered that it was possible to live in Kenya using only Bitcoin. In fact, we believe it may be the first country in the world where this is currently possible.

Such an amazing development is due to two key factors.

First, Kenya has implemented a simple yet extremely advanced mobile payment system called M-Pesa, which runs over the Safaricom mobile telephone network. This means that any person or business in Kenya with a mobile phone (just a SIM card) can receive digital local cash (Kenyan Shillings) on their mobile phone.

And we are not talking about smartphones or 5G internet speeds. We mean very basic phones with no internet connection at all, just a telephone line capable of receiving SMS messages.

This is a crucial factor, because many people here cannot afford even a cheap $80 smartphone. Internet data packages then, despite connections being ubiquitous and far better than in many parts of Europe, are also expensive for locals.

Second, two bright young Kenyans recognized the massive market need for an easy and seamless way to convert Bitcoin into Kenyan Shillings and send them to anyone via the M-Pesa/Safaricom mobile network.

Bingo. The Tando app was born.

This simple, no-frills, lightweight yet extremely efficient app allows anyone with a Bitcoin Lightning-compatible wallet (and most popular wallets are) to send bitcoin via the Lightning Network to anyone with a SIM card in Kenya.

The transaction is instantaneous and costs practically nothing.

There is an upper limit for each transaction of about $400 at current exchange rates, but that is already a very high limit for peer-to-peer payments in Kenya. And if someone needs to send more than that, it is easy to simply split the payment into several transactions. See this Video for how it works.

This type of frictionless payment system is fostering real Bitcoin adoption — because people learn what Bitcoin is by seeing it used in real life and are naturally incentivized to understand it.

At the same time, it stimulates economic growth, because it channels funds into local economic initiatives that previously had no access to capital.

Hakuna Matata with Bitcoin in Kenya.

Kwaheri.

PS: Contact us if you are a Charity or another organization and you want to learn how to use bitcoin to fund local projects and we will be happy to help. And if you have bitcoin capital to deploy in Africa let us know. There are lot’s of opportunities.—