Machankura is enabling Bitcoin adoption in Africa, bringing Bitcoin to ANY phone
67 sats \ 6 comments \ @derekross 19 Jul 2022 bitcoin
Africa may be lacking when it comes to Internet infrastructure, but Africa has a better mobile telephone infrastructure. Machankura is a new company that is utilizing the existing telecommunication infrastructure to bank the unbanked in Africa
Machankura is enabling Bitcoin adoption in Africa by bringing Bitcoin to ANY phone. Feature phones, dumb phones, you name it. You can send and receive Sats via Lightning to your phone number. To get started, just dial the following:
Ghana 9208333#
Kenya 4838333#
Malawi 3848333#
Nigeria 3478333#
South Africa 134382*382#
Uganda 2848333#
Every registered user can send and receive Bitcoin to their phone number from other Machankura users or to their Machankura Lightning Address.
For more information, visit their official website and follow them on Twitter:
https://8333.mobi/
https://twitter.com/Machankura8333
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111 sats \ 1 reply \ @KenyaCoin 19 Jul 2022
You can now buy airtime using your sats on @Machankura8333 simply by dialling *483*8333# if you’re in Kenya 🥳 #Bitcoin
https://twitter.com/noelynesumba/status/1549290835904270337
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20 sats \ 0 replies \ @derekross OP 19 Jul 2022
Wow, this project is growing fast. Thank you.
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20 sats \ 1 reply \ @sb 19 Jul 2022 freebie
This seems like an incredible project! As someone with low technical experience, I'm unfamiliar as to how this works. Can someone explain it to me like I'm a noob?
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @KenyaCoin 20 Jul 2022
USSD support is built into nearly every GSM (Global System for Mobiles) phone sold in the past couple decades. GSM is a type of mobile phone (cellular) network found in essentially every country of the world. In the U.S., AT&T and T-Mobile run GSM phone networks, for example.
Most of Europe uses GSM technology, and many countries in Africa followed the lead from Europe. So on a GSM network, using a phone that runs on the network, you can "dial" a phone number that is a shortened code. After dialing, the phone will connect to a back-end service and get a response. This USSD is a technology that was designed back when phones were text-only and before phones had internet service, but the aim was to provide a way to navigate a menu and enter data (from the keypad) to drive a response from a back-end service.
USSD today overall is not frequently used by those with a smartphone, as the user experience is generally better on a mobile phone app or on a website accessed via a browser. But if a service or feature needs to support those mobile subscribers who use a feature phone, then USSD is one of just a couple ways to communicate with a back-end data service from those feature phones.
As a result USSD is how online banking is offered by a number of banks in various countries in Africa, where feature phones are still used by a good fraction of the population. For many years for many of these banks USSD was the only method in which online banking was offered, though today a mobile app for smartphones is also available from most banks.
Offering USSD requires coordination with the mobile network telecom operator, so essentially that can be a choke point. Machankura is the first bitcoin wallet built on USSD, and it just launched a few weeks ago, so this service might not be permitted in a country that is hostile to bitcoin (and very well could end up getting blocked in a country in which it already operates). We'll see, I guess.
On the back-end, Machankura is just custodial wallet software that responds to the commands from the mobile subscriber's device. They do use a third party USSD gateway service, so they are not a direct customer of any of the mobile network telecom operators directly.
But anyway, the user guide shared in the following post here on SN has screen shots that will show you how Machankura is used:
How To Transfer Bitcoin Via USSD Code #41321 https://thebitcoinmanual.com/articles/transfer-btc-ussd/
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @KenyaCoin 19 Jul 2022
Additionally, there are a couple other posts, here on SN, about Machankura:
Machankura - LN custodial wallet accessible via any phone in six African countries #40804 https://8333.mobi
How To Transfer Bitcoin Via USSD Code #41321 https://thebitcoinmanual.com/articles/transfer-btc-ussd
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6 sats \ 0 replies \ @nerd2ninja 19 Jul 2022
Yes this is good, but in the Central African Republic, you need an ID to obtain a sim card (the same requirement that keeps many people unbanked) source: https://bdatacenter.fr/wp-content/uploads/Report-from-the-Bitcoin-Delegation-in-the-Central-African-Republic.pdf
For them, they will need a different solution:
https://www.althea.net/
You're going to want to look at UHF for long haul communications, and long distance WiFi extenders if the haul is only a few miles.
For shorter distances, you'll want this: https://www.instructables.com/LoRa-Mesh-Radio/
If you happen to be working with a community that doesn't have internet access (I suppose in addition to an ID requirement to obtain a SIM card) like the Central African Republic for example, these projects are the way to go. Its just, internet citizens such as ourselves have a hard time getting this information to people who aren't on the internet.
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