Machankura has likely done more for bitcoin awareness in Africa in the four months since they launched than had any other bitcoin-related endeavor in their first four months.

While this chapter (KYC-Free USSD wallets for any phone, including feature phones with no internet service) has likely closed for good, the seeds planted will germinate and alternatives will emerge. Those with a smartphone are not really affected as they can continue to use Machankura (through its website), and can use any other LN wallet. It's the feature phone users who don't have internet access (who still represent nearly half of the population in many countries in Africa) who are back to being left without an alternative to use bitcoin.

Maybe a solution that supports NFC enabled cards will become an alternative. Or maybe some other solution emerges that permits offline use, such that the wallet owner with a $10 or $20 device never needs to have internet access but can still own and send/receive bitcoin.

The link for this post uses a read-only front-end for Twitter, which can be easier to read for viewing a full Twitter thread. The Tweet that kicked off the thread is:

Really such a dick punch, Kot has been doing so much great work and he is committed to rolling out a non-custodial version too, I just hope we can start to find ways that we can break away from these centralised services who clearly have no vision and start to built bitcoin friendly infrustructure