155 sats \ 7 replies \ @KenyaCoin OP 3 Jul 2022 \ on: Machankura - LN custodial wallet accessible via any phone in six African countries bitcoin
Works using USSD so no smartphone or mobile data / wi-fi needed.
Once set up, the user can receive via Lightning address, like:
⚡[phonenumber]@8333.mobi
And then using the USSD commands, they can send to any other number that has signed up, or can Send to any Lightning address.
But this service does not yet have Spend (LN invoice) withdraw implemented yet.
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124 sats \ 3 replies \ @KenyaCoin OP 3 Jul 2022
Serves six countries (in Africa) with a total population topping 400M people.
  • Ghana
  • Kenya
  • Malawi
  • Nigeria
  • South Africa
  • Uganda
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51 sats \ 2 replies \ @KenyaCoin OP 3 Jul 2022
There is a post, here on SN, with some info on USSD:
What is USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data)? #40458 https://www.techtarget.com/searchnetworking/definition/USSD
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100 sats \ 1 reply \ @KenyaCoin OP 3 Jul 2022
There are charges for using USSD service. These charges will vary country-to-country, or these charges can even vary between mobile network providers, and subscriber plans (i.e., pre-paid versus post-paid). In Kenya, for example, a pre-paid subscriber will pay KSh 1 (about $0.01) per USSD command on Safaricom, the largest mobile network provider in the country.
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120 sats \ 0 replies \ @shyfire 4 Jul 2022
I can't believe the MNOs charge for USSD. What a ripoff. Boo
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120 sats \ 1 reply \ @nice 6 Jul 2022 freebie
That is actually cool. Though being custodial does take away some of its shine though. Would it be possible for this system to work for a non-custodial LN wallet?
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101 sats \ 0 replies \ @KenyaCoin OP 6 Jul 2022
If I had to guess, probably not for feature phones.
Since every user has a Lightning address (their [phone number]@8333.mobi and optionally, [username]@8333.mobi, thus anyone can send from to a Machankura user, including from non-custodial LN wallets.
For receiving, for a non-custodial wallet, I suppose the service could add a way you could provide an LNURL-Pay so then any payments received at your [phone number]@8333.mobi just get forwarded (sent again) to your own node. There's custody by 8333.mobi, but for just a short moment till the payment is forwarded.
I don't think they've decided how best to accommodate this, but I did heat that topic discussed on the Twitter spaces for this.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @KenyaCoin OP 6 Jul 2022
There is another post, here on SN, with a guide:
How To Transfer Bitcoin Via USSD Code #41321 https://thebitcoinmanual.com/articles/transfer-btc-ussd
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