How Africans Are Using Bitcoin Without Internet Access
Machankura enables users that do not have smartphones to send and receive bitcoin.
- South African software developer Kgothatso Ngako built a tool, Machankura, for accessing bitcoin despite the continent’s mobile internet connectivity challenge.
- Machankura enables users that do not have smartphones to send and receive bitcoin. Users only need a basic mobile phone that can send and receive text messages.
- As of 2021, 54% of mobile phone users in Africa do not have a smartphone.
- It works through an Unstructured Supplementary Service Data interface, utilizing mobile phones’ Subscriber Identity Module telecommunication network.
- Machankura is already being used by roughly 2,900 African users across more than seven countries, including Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda and Namibia.
