First Bitshoka, built and tested: #1015347 https://xcancel.com/GridlessCompute/status/1937812135813497219

When living hand-to-mouth, even for the merchants, when any funds come in, they go straight to where they are needed most. So for a merchant that accepts bitcoin, having the ability to also spend in bitcoin themselves saves having to convert to fiat. Though not all their vendors and staff are accepting bitcoin yet -- so the merchant will sometimes need to convert to fiat. But, in Kenya at least, there are ways that is done effortlessly and inexpensively (e.g., with Tando -- which converts sats to mobile money, instantly).

With this ecosystem, there's no risk to the merchant in accepting bitcoin, and they have the growing bitcoin community within their area as patrons. The flywheel spins, needing less and less "grease" over time.

There's something else driving this. In the informal economy, merchant revenue transactions don't always get (i.e., almost never are) reported, many don't even have a KRA PIN (Tax ID number) for their business. That means that there is no "value added tax" (VAT) paid to the government either, nonetheless income tax.

There is a renewed push by the government to force this "informal economy" to buy and use the government mandated terminals that track revenue, to ensure that VAT (Value Added Tax) is getting paid and tax compliance can be monitored.

When the tax collectors visit (literally, quite often, resulting sometimes in violent pushback) cash in the register is at risk of being taken. So bitcoin provides another benefit -- revenues, with little to no physical evidence, even when the taxman makes a surprise visit.

Prices are going to be in KSh -- the local currency (Kenyan shillings). Usually, at checkout the final total from the register/terminal is entered into whatever bitcoin merchant payments/wallet is used (e.g., Blink wallet), which converts to sats and an LN invoice is produced. https://www.blink.sv/en/merchant-tools

If this is done with just a bitcoin wallet (e.g., Wallet of Satoshi, or Machankura), then the merchant converts, using an exchange rate app, first to USD and then to sats. The buyer then sends to the merchants Lightning Address, or scans a QR code (e.g., zero-value LN Invoice, or scans the QR generated for the transaction from the merchant's wallet).

Afribit (featured in the video) is evaluating the Tollgate (bitcoin-enabled) Wi-Fi hotspot, as another method for residents to earn in bitcoin:

https://tollgate.me #991732

Also, not all impoverished area housing groups are slums. Slums geneally are where the residents have built homes and businesses on property without having the permits and property titles. For instance, on property adjacent to a rail line, owned by the railroad for future development. Because the residents could get forced out at any time (likely without much or any "compensation"), the residents don't invest in a properly built house -- and instead are built essentially using just some rough timber and sheet metal, and maybe a few blocks at the base to keep the water out when it rains. There's no water service, no ability to put a water tank on the roof even, no sewer, and not even real drainage for rain runoff.

Like "Informal settlements" is cooler? Or, "impoverished area"?

So, ... slum isn't a "cool" name, it's just what they are known as.

A leading radio station, whose studio is essentially at the border of the slum in the video above, even goes by the name Ghetto Radio.

Here's additional coverage on this, from The Independent:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/africa-largest-slum-now-takes-104828441.html #1001491

This received additional coverage, from FirstPost Africa:

#1007234

Looks like they are doing trash service at each house now too (or maybe they always did, this is the first I've learned of this).

Afribit ( https://geyser.fund/project/afribitkibera ), for example, not one gets merchants signed up, and wallets in the hands of the community, but also helps fund some needed services. The absence of structured waste disposal in much of Kenya has led to widespread normalization of littering -- particularly so in the slums. Afribit pays (in sats) for workers to collect trash from the streets, gutters, and some collection points, and also helps to educate as to why littering harms the community.

As far as questions or feedback, I don't think @geyserfund itself has that, at least not beyond you being able to add a comment when contributing. You could include your contact info, to hopefully permit a direct response.

Machankura is a custodial LN wallet that uses USSD, meaning it can be used by any phone, including "candy bar" phones (feature phones) -- which can be obtained brand new for $12 (at the low end).

Also, phone plans are not like in the West. Airtime is generally purchased with "bundles", or plans where you can choose the plan based on how closely it matches your usage.

For instance for $0.15 you can buy 20Mins (outgoing voice) +20Mbs (data), for use for one day. Incoming calls and texts are free, so it isn't even required to buy the plan each day.

Most people with smartphones though are paying $20 to $40 / month, mostly due to social media addiction (only half joking there).

And there's the buy now, pay later model for smartphones, where payment is required daily. Fail to pay, and your phone becomes locked until payment is made.

Overindebted? There's what's essentially an overdraft facility, with steep payday loan rates.

Incidentally, the government of Kenya owns more than a third of the near-monopoly mobile network provider which also owns and operates the mPesa mobile payments network. It's a very profitable business. Mobile subscribers are paying fees coming, and going, while awake and asleep.

Got me excited there for a moment ....

That's for their treasury operations, and not for consumer payments. Still interesting, but not something I wasn't already assuming they were doing.

This publication has a proper title for their article:

This Tweet contains a newscast on it:

This is the correct answer.

Am using bitcoin more frequently than I did the previous month, which was more than the month before that, and so on. Because these involve custodial exchanges and wallets, probably not a single on-chain transaction was the result, at least not for my spending alone.