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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @KenyaCoin OP 1h \ on: Tether's Battery as a Service - "Few hundreds kiosks already up and running" bitcoin
Shitcoiners already in this space:
https://resources.eonpower.energy/our-solution
Details from Tether are very limited on this, but this is possibly something like a portable power station type of device (e.g., along the lines of an Ecoflow, Bluetti, etc.) whose batteries can be swapped out. For providing powering in the home (interior LED lighting, TV, laptop, phone charging, etc) where their utility power is unavailable or unaffordable.
A power station that itself does not need to be so portable, and does not need to charge interior batteries is something that can be built quite a bit cheaper than the current portable systems reliant on solar for power, or an A/C power source.
And with swappable batteries, capacity is essentially unlimited since once could possibly have multiple batteries so that there's always a fully charged battery at the ready.
Solar installation on the house + battery storage might be preferable (versus a battery subscription), but many homes are not suitable for solar installation (shade, or rented and no roof acccess, no place for the batteries, etc.) or the cost is prohibitive. This battery (rental) subscription lowers the cost to access the sun.
And this is apparently a bridge ... until Tether becomes the electric utility too:
Will develop first power generation and then infrastructure.
Though, my guess as to what this really is could be completely off the mark. We'll see.
Agreed -- the UX for contacts could definitely use some love, including your suggestions.
Including letting you paste in the leading "0" (e.g., for +254, Kenya, a number dialed domestically is 0712345678 -- 10 digits.
But with Strike Send Globally you try to paste that 10 digit number and it won't take it, as it wants only the 9 number (omit the leading 0).
Stuff like that.
But now that Tando app is back, and working so beautifully, I'm not using Strike Send Globally hardly ever anymore. 60 seconds between hitting "Send" and the recipient messaging back that they received the m-pesa payment is a level of service that Strike Send Globally's local payment provider (Ali Pay or something like that) could only dream of providing.
This is generally the same as what Tando does in Kenya. And serves as a bridge between bitcoiners and normies.
One of the great advantages is personal financial privacy. The merchant or person who receives the funds only sees the name of the payment service provider, and not that of the sender, like a normal mobile money transaction would.
Just don't send to the wrong number. Along the same lines as bitcoin being irreversible, it's unlikely a payment through BitSpenda, sent to the wrong mobile number, would be reversed by the Mobile Money network operator.
My only issue with the UX is with the transaction history. It's like go to the FAQ, and then in that you will find your list of past transactions.
Then, ... there's no pagination. Maybe intentional, but I only get to see the last n transactions (where n is however many can be displayed on the page) -- everything prior to the one page worth of trxs is forever hidden.
One other item is that I don't always see trxs status change after payment is made. But if I go to trx history, it shows payment received and fiat sent.
BTW, Tando is not just an app. Not just a tool. Is it the lifeline that connects bitcoiners to normies.
Haven't watched this yet, but Preston's interviews are always excellent.
There is one thing. I wanted to say however, regarding the degree of impact that bitcoin mining has and potentially could have.
Bitcoin mining revenue is very small relative to revenue that comes from traditional demand. In the aggregate it is like a rounding error, in size
So bitcoin mining isn't transforming anywhere, except in perhaps the acutely local sense. Like what Gridless is doing ... enabling a community to go from zero KW capacity to a sufficient level to cover demand -- in the areas served.
But for every micro hydro plant Gridless serves, there is the need for hundreds more where they do not yet have electric service. And bitcoin alone isn't big enough to transform even a single country nonetheless the continent.
Not saying this is too small to matter, but that these are tiny developments that won't move the needle as a large scale solution.
Kenya has a relatively large area with deposits of (lower quality) coal, and the government has already sold mining rights to investors (China), however the extraction will ultimately involve the relocation of tens of thousands of households, among other downsides expected.
While the economic gains from mining the coal are sorely needed in the country, the ground will still likely remain untouched for quite some years, if ever.
Neither Strike's Send Money product nor Bitnob's Withdraw provide support for PayBill or Till Number (paying at the point of sale). So, advantage: Tando
Also, Tando's Send Money (person to person fiat transfers) are lightning fast (pun intended), which let's you be able to rely on the fiat payment to the recipient going though promptly. Both Strike and Bitnob rely on a third party intermediary to deliver the the fiat and, at a very high rate, will see payment stuck in a pending/processing state until the sender contacts the app's support team with a dispute.
tl;dr: Tando definitely is deserving of the praise this article gave them.
The incident has left at least 13 people dead, with several others trapped inside the structure. It remains unclear how many persons were injured. The cause of the collapse remains under investigation.
Over a decade ago, it was a One Woman Army in Botswana, ... Alakanani Itirileng (Bitcoin Lady). Great to see the bitcoin community growing and bitcoin gaining traction!
To be fair, they show burning EUR 🔥💶 🔥 as well as burning USD 🔥💵🔥
Probably wanted burning GBP 🔥💷 🔥 as well, but that was probably going a step too var for even London Mayor Sadiq Khan.
Backed or not, there never was the promise that you could redeem for gold, nonetheless any specified weight in gold (e.g., N grams)
Otherwise people would buy the discounted currency up, and redeem it, and the price of the remaining currency would rise to about the value of that weight of gold the currency represents (less redemption fees, and other costs), unless the discount is because you cannot redeem on demand, at a counter, and carrying a redeemable note might not actually yield the weight of gold (if anything) as expected.
There is a lot of shitcoinery yet -- the shitcoin platforms sponsor events and such so that's the road into the shitcoin Web.
Well, that didn't last long...
Zimbabwe knocks 40% off value of gold-backed currency
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8el4kgk98eo
When you are financially poor, money that comes in must, essentially, instantly go out (i.e., there are expenses, purchases, or debts where those funds received will be used).
It's the same everywhere in the world where the poor are, but in most of Africa, being financially poor is the norm, not the exception.
Thus integration where spending bitcoin to pay in fiat is necessary, otherwise the bitcoin earned (or bought) is limited (or useless) to those who do not save and are not in a financial position to where saving in bitcoin is an option. When there is wider acceptance of bitcoin by individuals, merchants, and lenders, then at that point funds received can be turned around and spent immediately. But today, there's a wide gap between when bitcoin comes in and the ability to use it for spending that would otherwise be done in fiat funds.
The combination of Strike with mobile money drives huge things in terms of financial inclusion, not only in Malawi but in Africa as a whole.
Except, Strike actually integrates in very few countries in Africa:
There is "Send Globally", which is not reflected in the chart from the FAQ in the link (above), but even then there are significant gaps (e.g., Strike's Send Globally feature does not list Malawi as a country you can send to):
In places where Strike and Strike's Send Globally are available , ... they definitely dominate on the cost factor, relative to not only traditional remittance methods but to new fintech, p2p, and other approaches
with a whooping 86% declared
What does that refer to?
The program will also explore ways to increase transparency and accountability in the donation process by direct tracking from donor to program participant.
Adding transparency, this is an improvement.