CD121: BITCOIN IN AFRICA WITH KG - FOUNDER OF MACHANKURA

Austin, Texas. A place that's widely regarded as the Bitcoin capital of the US.

Bear or bull market, Bitcoiners have flocked to the city because of a combination of pro crypto policies,

abundant renewable energy,

and an ever growing network of some of the brightest developers and miners on the planet. Bitcoin was found in 2009. A lot's happened post financial crisis.

Also, it was already emerging as that tech center and, you know, enter Bitcoin, and it just became the logical home. The clubhouse for all these Bitcoiners

is a place called the Bitcoin comments, which is on the city's iconic thoroughfare called Congress Avenue that leads to the Texas state capital in the heart of downtown. We help, early companies to work out of here. They don't necessarily have the the means or funding to have a full office. The Bitcoin Commons host a regular monthly meetup called BitDevs.

The topics of conversation run the gamut from detailed discussions about code to concerns that the Microsoft run GitHub may pose a greater

existential threat to the Bitcoin network since much of the development work is carried out on that platform. The Bitcoin commons is a venue that also played host to multiple events on the sidelines of South by Southwest.

There's so many people in town. There's not a great South by Southwest Bitcoin track, and so we host the Bitcoin takeover here in Austin. Another part of the Bitcoin programming in Austin focused on a major hackathon.

Francisco Chavarria

was born in Mexico City and spent time in Salt Lake City, but 3 years ago he made the move to Austin to be part of a community of like minded thinkers.

His company, Yopaki, which is a neobank for Bitcoin focused on the Latin American market,

just won first place in the hackathon.

If you talk to other builders in in the competition,

a lot happens here. There there definitely is a sense of I don't need for others to lose, for me to win. There really is a relationship and a collaboration for Bitcoin to succeed. Right now, it feels like we're all winning because of the prize, but those of us who have been building in the bear market, we know. The VC appetite for Bitcoin projects building on top of the blockchain is really heating up. Grant Gilliam spent 15 years working in private equity in New York before pivoting to run a VC fund focused on Bitcoin called 1031.

Now since launching, it's invested a 100 and

$25,000,000 of equity in aggregate

over the last 5 years with more than $100,000,000

deployed in the last 2 years during the bear market. We invest across the Bitcoin ecosystem, across every major theme,

anything that is relevant to

Bitcoin infrastructure. We like to say the picks and shovels of companies building

products and services,

for holders of Bitcoin. Grant, who spent a few years commuting from New York to Austin every month for the BitDevs meetup, tells CNBC that some of the l two Bitcoin investments are more hype than substance,

but he's still bullish overall on the deal space. There's been a lot

of l two,

hype lately, mainly driven by

the ordinals

and inscriptions

developments or innovations if you wanna call it that. It's our

firm view that

the ordinals

will prove to be a passing fad.

But, generally, we're focused on

basic

building blocks of the ecosystem such as companies that are providing

financial services

which could be

custody, trading, lending.

It's

lightning oriented

scaling

companies that are operating on the the Lightning Network. Meanwhile, Bitcoin mining remains a big part of the narrative when it comes to Texas.

Every 4 years, Bitcoin undergoes a market making event known as the halving. It cuts the production of new Bitcoin in half, and it typically comes before a major run up in the price of the coin. For some, it may prove an armageddon level event. Others have braced for impact by swapping out their fleet of machines for more efficient rigs. West Texas miner Jamie McCavity has a 16 megawatt mine that runs on a part of the grid that is 90% powered by a mix of solar and wind power. This go around, if prices and difficulty stay where they are, it's not gonna be that big of a deal. I project very few miners will come offline

if pricing difficulty stay where they are as of right now. McCavity, who previously worked for 10 years as a trader on the floor of the New York Mercantile Exchange, added that ETF flows have helped to change the pricing dynamics for the world's largest coin. Though any sort of reduction in supply is likely to have some impact on the market price equilibrium,

The spot ETF inflows have been so massive that reducing the available supply of newly mined bitcoins from 900 to 450

is probably going to be immaterial relative to that. Number goes up is a big mantra in the Bitcoin space, but as a community evolves, so too does the thinking about the price of the coin. So price is relevant. The price is really an output of many inputs

of human beings

building tools to make Bitcoin both more secure and a greater utility.

Price is the best indicator of more people coming to the conclusion that Bitcoin is money, and it's a better store of value, so it is very relevant. It's just the output of a lot of hard work, a lot of trial and error, and and the output of labor of a lot of good people.

Happy Bitcoin Monday freaks. It's your host, Odell, here for another Citadel dispatch.

The interactive live show focused on actionable Bitcoin and Freedom Tech discussion.

That long intro clip you either just saw or listened to was CNBC

focused on

Bitcoin takeover

and,

ClubLab's

hackathon that happened 2 weeks ago in Austin.

Vibes were high there. It was a great event. It was an honor to be a part of it.

I was actually one of the judges,

who helped

decide that Yopacchi,

Francisco, and his cofounder Carlos,

won that award,

which I believe was a $10,000

prize.

Really great to see. Yopacchi is based out of Mexico.

But, anyway, vibes were high, and it was, like, pretty crazy to see,

coverage on CNBC. We've come a long way. But, anyway, with all that said, I got my good friend, KG, here.

How's it going, KG?

It's all good, Matt. How is it going with you? Very good. Very good. So KG is the founder of Manchancura,

which is a Bitcoin payments company,

based in Africa.

I believe it is,

Afrikaans

for money. Am I correct there?

No. It's slang. It's South African slang for money.

So what, like, people just on the street when when they say, let me get paid, they they say how do I pronounce it?

Machancura.

Machancura.

Yeah. So

as in give me money.

Give me money. Fair enough. Well, great name. Makes sense.

Uh-huh.

So, I mean, you've been you've been kinda quietly building out there at least at least for Americans. I mean, I I feel like you haven't necessarily been on on people's radar, but you've been getting a lot of traction,

building a a Bitcoin wallet that's easy to use for Africans. How how do you think about that?

Yeah. So

but you mean, how did I the foot process that went into starting much on Google?

Yeah. What what is what are the

why have you found success? What what is let I guess, let's start with let's start it with what is the product.

If you're if you're African user, if you're someone using matching Koda, how how Mhmm.

How do they interact with the product? What is the product?

Cool. So Machangura,

as it is today, is effectively

a USSD service that a person can dial on to from any device from any mobile device

as long as it has a cellular connection.

So, effectively, you don't need a smartphone to send or receive Bitcoin. Alright?

And it's a custodial wallet, similar to wallet of Satoshi.

You can just access it via dialing the USSD code, which is star 134 star 7714

in South Africa. Or if you're in Kenya, you'd dial star 483

star 8 triple triage

for Kenya.

And yeah. It then gives you a text based interface that you could

interact with.

Yeah. How you I usually explain it is like a decision tree, where the first few options will lead down

more options and more options and more options. So the first few options are similar to what you would see on a normal wallet. Send Bitcoin, receive Bitcoin,

balance

history, and all of these other things. And then from there, whichever option you choose, you then get to see other options.

And,

yeah,

since it takes space, it's limited to 160 characters or

140 characters.

And so everything we put in front of the user has to fit within that character

set. And that's, I think, the nutshell of it all.

So, I mean, specifically, this is for users that don't even have a smartphone. Right? This is,

they're using, like, Nokia phones and, like, those brick phones that are just t nine. They only have the 9 characters. They only can do basic text messages. They can't they can't access an app or a web browser.

Right?

And, I think other people have smartphones, but

or especially the older generation,

they prefer the simp, well, it's not simpler, the slower interface.

Because,

since it takes space, it takes maybe, like, a second to move between screens, and some people prefer that pace to interface with,

tech.

Wait. So even people that have smartphones will use this service?

Yes.

Right. So,

of course yeah. Yeah. And, of course, the African continent, the other thing a lot of people don't know is that USSD

is actually the preferred interface for most digital payments because of M Pesa 1.

And,

the second reason is

Internet coverage is not uniform.

So you may be in an area like the city that does have good Internet coverage, but then when you go to the township or the village or the farm,

you your Internet coverage may not be as good as it is in the city. So a lot of people prefer US50

because they will know that it will be uniform.

Okay. So

I'm quite proud that dispatch has a global audience.

Mhmm. You know,

when when when you do podcasts, you get, like, this rough analytics. It's not, like, the best analytics in the world, but you can see where people download stuff. And

every continent in the world, there's

that listen to dispatch, but we're primarily

still an American focused show.

Mhmm. So I I I really want to,

I was fortunate enough to get to meet you,

earlier this year, and we had Who was that? In in-depth conversations about

everything you're building over there. But I I wanna make sure that that people from America kinda understand, you know, your perspective and and what's going on.

Mhmm.

So

USSD, what is USSD?

Yeah. So USSD has a meaning, which,

I don't care much what the meaning is because it's too complicated. It's like universal supplementary,

something something data.

And

it's effectively how

you would start an SMS session

between yourself and a service on a telecom.

So some people I think when it started, it was like the web,

w a p, a website, you know,

that didn't have pictures and everything could be ported to

work on USSD

as long as it would interface

all your inputs would be text based instead of clicks and stuff like that. Right? So, yeah, think about it like that. Technology that we used to have way back in the day that still runs on the GSM network on most phones,

that you could build

something like a website,

but on a cellular device. So it's the protocol that lets you do the text based commands and interface with the server?

Yes.

So then what and then what is M Pesa?

M Pesa is effectively built on top of USSD.

It's a mobile money,

digital payment system,

and

it's basically the biggest digital payment system in Kenya.

Each country has its own version of M Pesa.

And

in it was launched around 2,008,

around the same time as Bitcoin was launched. And within a year, it had, like, over a 1000000 users

in Kenya. And then now, I think most of the Kenyan economy

runs through, PISA.

So how many users have been PISA right now, do you think?

I don't know, man. I think, like, 50,000,000, I think,

in Kenya.

But that may be who? Oh, yeah. Because, well, Kenya has a population of 50,000,000 people. So It says over

M Pesa is over 56,000,000

customers

in total across Africa,

and it's over 30,000,000

in Kenya.

Okay.

Cool. That's insane. Okay. So Mhmm. So people use M Pesa to transfer

local currency, like low digital local fiat. Can they transfer dollars using M Pesa?

Nope.

Okay.

So they're comfortable they're they're they're doing a lot of their commerce already through the same exact interface

that you basically adopted, but you you do it with Bitcoin.

Yes. Effectively.

And then

okay. That's badass. Okay. So how many,

you you mentioned Kenya. You mentioned South Africa. You're based in South Africa. Correct? Mhmm. Yes.

How many countries are do you support? Do you support only Kenya and South Africa?

No. I'm in 8 countries.

Like,

I think yeah.

Eight countries, South Africa, Kenya, Namibia,

Nigeria,

u

Zambia, Uganda,

and Malawi.

I don't know if I skipped yeah, Ghana as well.

That's impressive.

I mean, that's a lot of people. And do you do you have a lot of users in Nigeria specifically?

No. Not that many, sadly. I think it's, like, 2,000

users.

Oh, wow.

That's kinda tiny. Nigerian.

Why is it so small in Nigeria?

Because

I'm not in Nigeria, and I think I need to actually be there to push it. Right? Fair enough.

There's a lot of, small hurdles that people have

that

until I'm there, I wouldn't know about it. Until I see them using it in Nigeria,

I wouldn't know that, oh, this is actually one small hurdle,

these users have.

I mean, Nigeria is over 200,000,000 people live in Nigeria.

Fucking massive country. And they I think they love Bitcoin. They at least love, quote, unquote, crypto.

Mhmm. Well, I no. I think they love Bitcoin most definitely.

Right? So some some point in this year, I'll be making a trip there to see how things are on the ground.

I mean, the regulatory environment's kinda dicey over there right now.

Yeah.

Especially if you're a big company like Binance and, you know Yeah. They're going after Binance. It's hard.

Uh-huh.

Okay. Cool. Does does

does Manchancoda,

support

fiat?

No. Not at all. Bitcoin only?

No Tether, nothing?

Mhmm.

And what what is the decision behind that?

Okay. So,

the decision

oh, and the other thing is people cannot buy Bitcoin on Machanglu. They can only send and receive. It says send and receive a lot. Got it. Yes. Alright. And the reason is because,

at the time that I started building it out, a lot of people were saying Bitcoin is banned in a lot of the countries that we are already in, Nigeria being one of them, Namibia being another.

And, technically,

if you read,

the circulars from the central banks of Nigeria, Namibia, Kenya, Tanzania, and everything else,

they were just saying,

financial institutions

should not do business with Bitcoin companies. Right?

So you could still build a wallet, you could still do whatever you wanna do with Bitcoin, but you couldn't integrate with the financial institution.

And,

yeah, that's why p two p is so big in Nigeria as well because people were so forced to do p two p as well as in Kenya,

instead of a normal exchange. So,

yeah,

that informed my decision to do Bitcoin only, not even do, buy or sell,

functionality

on the service.

Because as I was talking with the service providers that I'm using,

they also needed to be convinced that this was

a legal thing to do.

Yeah. So that is why it's like that now. And, sadly, things have changed, and now I can do some of the stuff like,

add buy and sell functionality,

which is one of the

hurdles that most users are presented with in these countries because

the exchanges and the on ramps and the off ramps really do not cater for a person without an Internet connected device.

So Right. A person registers, and then they don't have any way to acquire their Bitcoin. So then they stop using the service, or they don't tell anyone about the service.

Is there a way to do, like

I mean, it seems like the dream would be like M Pesa to Bitcoin.

Yes. Right?

And there's a history there. Because somewhere

in 2013,

there was a service that was doing that. I think it was called

Capucha.

Let me see if I can find a link. Yeah. Capucha Pay.

This is their Twitter,

and then you can maybe see some of their history. I'll just send it to you.

And they were effectively

doing that where you could,

on ramp and off ramp via M Pesa.

What ended up happening is as they gained some traction,

M Pesa didn't like that. Right? So M Pesa ended up,

removing

their integration partner or telling their integration partner that, yo, we are not comfortable with your use of,

mobile money for,

Bitcoin. And so they lost the

integration,

and then they didn't see value in being a Bitcoin wallet at that time.

And, yeah, maybe it was valid. On chain fees were high as well. Lightning was never closed. They have, like, a bunch of Roger Verretweets there. So

I kinda and then I lost the plot at some point there.

Yeah. And I didn't even see that. Funny enough.

The

yeah. I mean, that makes sense. Right? Like, M PACE is a centralized

entity, obviously. It's I mean, to Americans, you can kinda think of it like a PayPal or something like that.

So And it's still like that today. If they don't like you, they can just cut you off.

Uh-huh. Exactly. But it does seem ideal for your product

specifically because it's the same a similar interface. Right? Like, if someone's used to M Pesa, they can they can grok your interface. Right?

Yes. Alright. And

I agree with you,

but I also think

that M Pesa

is blinding us at the same time to,

the reality

of the situation.

I think I saw

this,

article where they asked the

one of the Mastercard CEOs or Mastercard or Visa CEOs,

who has put his competitor

is in Africa.

And he said it's cash, right, Because,

most of the African economy is still a cash based economy.

So

I think

the solution would be to build something that works quite well

for cash, cash on ramps and cash also. Like cash cash points?

Yes. Right.

And not necessarily ATMs because I don't think, the infrastructure is also there for ATMs.

But yeah. BESSA worked because they set up an agent network

that

is effectively a normal store. You walk into the store with your cash, and then you give them your cash, and then they credit your Inpessa account.

So when you give them your you give them cash and you give them your phone number, and then your account gets credited? Is that how it works? Yes. Exactly.

So All you need to do is I mean, easier said than done, but a similar concept. Right? You walk into a storefront.

You give them cash. You give them the phone number, and then you have Bitcoin in your wallet.

And then the store gets a cut, presumably. Right? Like, that's how you spread it out.

Mhmm. And, yeah, that is better than, you know,

being at the mercy of Safaricom,

which is a company behind Vistra.

And,

also, if it works for whichever country, you can take the same model and the same interface and the same infrastructure,

do that in any country in the world.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Freaks, we got, like, about 300 of you in live streams right now.

The live chat is a little bit dead.

I'm I don't ask for much, but I I would like to see some more activity in the live chat.

If you are listening if you're watching via Twitter or via YouTube, the live chat that's shown on screen is at citadel dispatch.com/stream.

It uses Nostr. Bitcoin is integrated so you can send zaps

while you're watching,

but you do not need to have a Nostr account or know what a Nostr account is. You just go to dispatch.com/stream

if you wanna participate in the live chat.

Okay. So is that what you're gonna that's the plan? You're gonna roll that out? The

At at some point

yeah. At some point, we're gonna

try to build something like that.

Sorry. I'm I'm just chuckling at the live chat.

Mhmm.

Someone just

well, who do we have here? We have,

Sean Kibler said, here's a chat. I'm not creative. Sorry. Not sorry, but I appreciate you trying.

Okay. Well, if you guys have any questions for KJ, feel free to put them in the live chat.

The live chat is what one of the things that makes dispatch so unique,

that I'm not like the host alone here. The rider dive freaks also help.

Okay. So

where where do you have

I'm trying to figure out where I wanna go with this conversation because I I

I'm incredibly grateful

to have you on here. I think you've been crushing it over there. Where where do you have the most users? Is the most users in South Africa?

Yes.

That is where the most users are, and that is where most

integrations are. Right? I think we are now at

3,700

users on SA.

And yeah.

A person could you 37100

users?

No. 3,700.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's the same thing. I'm so You said the same thing. You're good. You're good. Cultural

differences.

And yeah. So a person in the essay could effectively

live on Bitcoin

using Matangura,

thanks to all the nice

Bitrefill integrations,

Azteco integrations,

crypto convert integrations.

Let's talk about those integrations.

How does that work?

Yeah. So I'll start in reverse.

Okay. But let me start in the life cycle way.

Effectively,

a stethoscope would be how a person acquires Bitcoin. Right? Right. And,

this person would be as the ideal user in in my,

case,

being a person without an Internet connected device.

They just go to a store that sells Azteco

integrated vouchers.

In South Africa, I think they're called EasyPay vouchers.

And Okay. And not another one is called Equin vouchers. And then they just type out

the 16 digit voucher they get, and then

we redeem it on their behalf.

So

it's the closest thing to that agent network,

I was talking about earlier. You're kinda latching on to Azteca's

agent network.

Yes. Exactly. Right? So that redeem process, how does that so they're getting, like, a receipt with a voucher code, and then they're putting it into your

text based app? Mhmm. Yes.

And then it's automatically credited to someone with Bitcoin?

Yes. Alright.

And

that is effectively the same experience they would have if they were topping up their airtime, which is, their prepaid,

phone credits.

Right.

Mhmm. And Okay. So that's where they get Bitcoin into the app if they don't have Bitcoin to begin with.

Mhmm.

And then the other integrations are for actually using the big spending the Bitcoin to to live. Right?

Yes. Exactly. Alright.

So CryptoConvert,

their earliest,

product was electricity.

So you could pay your electrice prepaid electricity

using Bitcoin via lightning.

The cool thing about how they did it was a Huddl invoice.

Right? So they give you a Huddl invoice. You pay the Huddl invoice. They don't settle the Huddl invoice because then they try

to issue your voucher for the electricity bill.

If they fail to issue that voucher to your meter,

then they fail your payment, and then you get your SATS back effectively.

Right? And,

the SATS never left your balance anyway.

And this is so cool because

you don't need an account with them effectively. Alright?

And they only settle the payment if they succeed to issue

your voucher, your electricity voucher. And

then they also don't need a refund

policy because you will always keep your SaaS if Right. Something goes wrong. Yeah. And then the other thing CryptoConvert

did was the Pick n Pay thing. Pick n Pay being the biggest grocery store

in South Africa.

And,

yeah, they

effectively

allow you to send them Bitcoin,

and they settle

your bill for you. Right?

At the tip. So the grocery store doesn't know they're accepting Bitcoin?

Yes. Effectively.

But so how how does that work? So I'm I'm stand I'm in the grocery store.

I got my I got my Nokia phone. Right? I got Munchkin Koda on it.

Yeah. Okay. So let me How am I how am I paying for my groceries?

So, currently,

you cannot use that directly. Right? Okay. So you would need

a smartphone

because

the Pick n Pay system.

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. The Pick n Pay system shows you a QR code. Right? Okay. And so your Nokia will probably not be able to scan the QR code,

and,

they don't even show you some text at the bottom of the QR code that you could use

as a placeholder,

or as an alternative

to

the QR code that you have. Is just a lightning invoice?

No.

Sadly. Right? So It's not even a lightning invoice? Yes. Not even a lightning invoice, but,

CryptoConvert

then have an app, and that app

will re scan that QR code and produce a lightning invoice for you to pay.

Okay. So I'm scanning it with my phone.

I'm scanning the QR code with

the CryptoConvert app

Yes. On my phone, and then it's showing me a lightning invoice. And then I'm, I guess, leaving

that app and paying lightning invoice with, like, a Phoenix wallet or something like that while it was in touch. With Bitcoin wallet. Yes. Right? And yeah.

Effectively.

We could also do lightning invoices

via WhatsApp

because of the 1 960 character limit. Right? So, yeah, you can then copy that, put it in WhatsApp, and then it's the same interface but on WhatsApp. So,

yeah, the payment goes through and then you get You support WhatsApp?

Yes.

But those are all smartphone users that are using it on WhatsApp.

Weird enough, no. WhatsApp also works on some feature phones. Oh, shit. Really? Okay. Yep. So that would be one of the apps, yeah, that come with the feature phone.

Okay. I mean, that makes sense. The voice app, like, runs the world, so

they they they put it on the feature phones now.

Yeah.

Okay. That's that's cool. Okay. So then where does bitrefill come into all of this?

Cool. So Bitrefill

is the thing you would do if you wanna pay at Pick N Pay, but you don't have a smartphone. Right? So Okay. We have API access to Bitrefill, so we can buy the voucher for you,

using your Bitcoin balance

and then deliver it back to you via SMS, and then you just show them the voucher code at the store.

And how am I showing the voucher code the voucher codes on my feature phone? Yes.

And were they manually typing it in?

Mhmm.

And it's essentially a gift card?

Yes. Effectively.

And that works all through the feature phone. Don't need a separate app. Nothing.

Yes. Yeah. You don't need WhatsApp.

That works via USD as well. I think people

a lot of Americans and even Europeans, I think, don't appreciate,

like, how much Bitrefill helps people around the world. And, also, like, the Bitcoin company like, these gift card companies. Like, it's a nice little hack in the meantime while we're waiting for merchants to actually accept Bitcoin directly.

Like, if you actually wanna live on Bitcoin,

and and and you don't have access to, like, a, you know, like, a fully regulated Bitcoin exchange or brokerage or, like, an app like Strike or something,

the gift cards are are really good stopgap. Like, people people use them frequently.

Yes.

And weird enough, even if you do have access to an Exchange, Stripe,

whatever else,

Bitrefuel is great because it's not

it it doesn't suffer from the banking hours.

Right. So

if you wanna buy something on a Sunday or on the long weekend,

will work for you

there and there.

So So Yeah.

I mean, so you effectively have

you just don't control them, but you have on ramp, off ramp on

Mount Chincoda through Azteco as the on ramp,

or I like to call it, like, a Fiat off ramp. But but you have you have Azteco you have Azteco from fiat to Bitcoin, and then you have bit refilled from Bitcoin

to whatever you need to buy.

Yes.

But I guess you can make that flow better if you actually integrated it yourself. And

Yeah. No. But I think they're doing a great job. Both of these companies are doing

a better job than I would ever do if I did it myself.

Okay. I mean, I have a bunch of different places I can go with this.

I guess my first question for you before we continue

is Mhmm.

I think

people love telling the story of Bitcoin

is helping Africans

and people in LatAm and the rest of the developing world.

How

much how much of that is bullshit,

like engagement,

you know, bullshit, and how much of that is real? Like, is is Bitcoin actually

is is Bitcoin actually helping Africans?

Yeah. So let me say this. It's funny,

because,

the cases where it's actually helping are not the ones that are mostly spoken about.

Okay. And

yes. A lot of the times,

you think

the beauty of Bitcoin is that how

and the people that use it

well

don't broadcast it,

don't broadcast the fact that, oh, I'm actually

doing this with Bitcoin. Right? So for Nigeria,

one of the biggest use cases is,

importers

use it to pay their Chinese suppliers

because there's capital controls,

that the banks have to adhere to, but they could easily just pay the what's this?

The supplier using Bitcoin or get somebody who would pay the supplier

in China,

and they just send the Bitcoin. Alright?

And

there, the other interesting thing is there's a lot of companies as well

that are leaving the Nigerian market because of capital controls. These are big companies like Emirates,

Ping P and G as well,

who

effectively

then have,

money stuck in Nigeria that they cannot get out

because of capital controls.

And Bitcoin is one of the ways that

some of them have used,

to actually move money out of Nigeria.

And yeah. So

that is, you know, I think one of the stories that is,

finally getting

attention.

And

yeah, outside of that,

there's smaller businesses that allow people to

explore,

opportunities

between, you know, the capital controls, p 2p markets where people become traders and,

end up being rich because they are then, you know,

doing arbitrage off of that.

And, yeah, it's not a major

use case, but, yeah, I think there's a lot of examples of people who do that, across the continent.

The

the importers thing is super interesting. I mean, those people are I mean, they're professionals, essentially. Right? Like, they need to move money across borders. They're moving product and money across borders.

Mhmm.

That that's super fascinating to me. So do you think they are they using your app? Or

Nah.

I don't think they're using the my app. And I also don't think they are way

that they're even using Bitcoin. Right? Because

someone approaches them and says, I know a guy.

And

then the guy takes care of the deal for them. So they're, like, giving the guy cash, and the guy is handling it.

Yes. Exactly. And there might be a guy like that on the other side that's doing the same thing, receiving it and then paying out in cash.

Mhmm. Right. And Yeah. From what I've seen, these guys use Binance a lot.

Right. And,

yeah,

Trust Wallet and all of these different Right. Trust Wallet is Binance's self custody wallet.

Mhmm.

Most most popular self custody wallet in the world. It's a piece of shit. Horrible wallet.

That does not work well.

We gotta do better. We gotta do better. Yes. We do have to do better.

Mhmm.

So, like, how how I guess.

So, like, what is what is missing? Like, why

mean, like, I don't like, okay. So so you have, like, nearly 4,000 users in South Africa.

Mhmm. How many users do you think you have across,

all the continent?

It's over 13,000.

Okay. 13,000 users.

Mhmm.

Do

how do we how do we grow that? Like, why like, how do we what is the biggest limiter to to user growth in your opinion?

Well,

so this is what I've seen,

over the past almost 2 years now. Alright?

Right. The service has

days where it goes back or days where

in one country,

over a 1000 people

get onboarded.

Right?

And

there,

I'm like, oh, okay. So there is a huge,

what's this?

First for Bitcoin across the continent in different countries. This has happened in Ghana. This has happened

in Tanzania.

Happened in South Africa yet. Right? So

for that, I see that, okay,

what usually happens is

somebody

in the right community

picks it up and,

shares it with someone else, and then they share it with someone else. And then, you know, how virality

usually happens. And

where it stops is okay. In my case, oh, I cannot buy Bitcoin using this ring. Oh, okay. That was fun while it lost it. So

the thing that needs to happen is that it has to be a seamless experience

from start to finish.

Right?

Yes, you get the wallet, but where are you gonna get the Bitcoin?

And yeah. So

we would need to have that embedded in the wallet,

or in the interface where the person can clearly see, oh, I can buy Bitcoin

using

cash or using whatever I'm using

right on the interface. Right? And

we sadly couldn't do that because, of course,

of years of the legal landscape

and everything else.

So, I mean, I I wish we had Bernard here

from Bitnob. Mhmm. Yeah. So, I mean, Bitnob is a African based exchange.

I believe he has, like, a smartphone apps as well.

Yes. And

so do do you do you think do there is there any overlap there between, like, Bitknob users and your users, or is this, like, a whole different group of people?

No. There is an overlap, actually. Right? And,

yeah, I think we're working on something that would add

a widget,

to Bitnub

in the countries that Bitnub operates.

Okay. The what do you mean by a widget? Yeah. Well, it would be something that we have to build from scratch and have, well, use API access to that. Like a text based widget.

Yeah. That's what you mean. Right?

Yes.

So, like, press 7 to link your Bitnub account or something.

Exactly.

Okay.

I mean, I for example, I don't know if this is,

I I don't know if this is translating via audio if you're listening on the podcast feeds or if you're watching the livestreams.

But it's, like, it's crazy. Like, when KG shows it to you in person,

like, when you're, like, actually looking at it, it's, like, they're they're able to use Bitcoin

on just a dumbass feature phone. Like, it it's just a like a text based feature phone. Anyone can set so does every user get a Lightning address?

Yes.

By default, the lightning address is their phone number at 8tripletrade.mobi.

Okay. So it also set a username.

8333.mobi.

Right? And their phone number. So if I have a relative in Africa,

and they Mhmm.

They sign up for your service,

I can I can go on to strike or Phoenix Wallet, and I can

and I can just type in their lightning address, and I could just instantly send them Bitcoin across the world for

basically no fees?

Exactly.

So do we have a lot of people using it for that? I mean, remittances has been a thing that people have been

Well,

there's a few people trying to use it for that. You know? Right.

And outside of these people, I wouldn't know

what a person is using it for. I just see Bitcoin moving around.

And, yeah, it's like, okay. Cool. This is happening.

But, like, our remittance is

Bitcoin remittance is a thing in Africa, or is that bullshit that, you know, white people in America and Europe just say that doesn't happen?

It happens.

If you go back to, like,

the importer paying a Chinese supplier Right. The other thing is somebody paying

their kids,

tuition

at Right. University or the country. Right?

So

that is the opposite of, remittance.

But over the long term, the same student who has then

graduated would be the one sending money back

using the It's still a cross border payment.

Yeah. I mean, I think, like, it should excel, and that should be the use case that it excels

in. I mean, I I Yes. It's amazing to me that more people don't use it that way.

Yeah. And,

this is why it doesn't. Oh, this is why I think it doesn't. Right? So

let me just take Southern Africa. Right? South Africa, Namibia,

Lesotho, Switzerland,

Malawi,

Zambia, Zimbabwe.

Right?

Botswana as well. So that's a lot of countries, but, basically,

Southern Africa,

all of them have a different currency. All of them have a different,

financial system.

3 of them share financial system. South Africa, Lesotho,

and,

Namibia share, and and Swaziland share South Africa's financial infrastructure.

Right. They all use the rand?

Packed to the rand. 1 to 1. Okay.

Yeah. So Namibia has a Namibian dollar pegged to the rand, 1 to 1.

But for the longest time, they were using the South African infrastructure.

So I could send a payment directly to Namibia

as if I'm sending it to a person in South Africa. Alright?

So as of last week, that's no longer the case.

Right? So now it has to go through the Swift network

and

blah blah blah blah blah. Right? And so the issue becomes

South Africa is effectively

the economic powerhouse for Southern Africa.

Alright? So Okay. The other countries don't have as

many exchanges there as you would want and as you would need

to do something like remittances

using Bitcoin. Right? Because where is the exchange in Namibia

going to off ramp or on ramp if it needs to off ramp and on ramp?

Where's the person receive Bitcoin. Right?

Yes. Right. And then we have can they use but they could use Bitrefill. They have the Bitrefill integration.

Bitrefill is not big in Namibia.

Bitrefill is big in South Africa,

the economic powerhouse in Right. Of,

you know, sovereign Africa. So they they have no way to actually use the Bitcoin?

No easy way. No easy way. I mean, there's always when there's a will, there's a way. There's always a way. Yes. Yeah. Right. And it's, by easy, I mean, as easy as it would be in South Africa. So,

yeah. So there is,

on ramp in Namibia,

one called Landifa, landifa.com.

Okay. But it's still, you know,

compared to the ones in South Africa, then you're like, okay. There's a lot of potential, but, you know,

we we there's a lot of difference as well. And there, Malawi is even worse. I don't know of,

on ramp or off ramp focused on Malawi,

and they also have capital controls.

And Zambia, similar story.

And then you move to Nigeria. I think it's West Africa,

where

Nigeria is the economic powerhouse, and all of this Bitcoin attention is there. Right. But then not so much in the neighboring countries, not so much in Benin,

not so much in Togo. Right? So what you would wanna do is effectively

what is this?

Have

as much

Bitcoin

companies

in all the countries, in all these different regions, and not just the economic hubs.

Right? So in East Africa, Kenya would be the hub, and you could do all of these cool things in Kenya, but then not so much in Tanzania, not so much in Uganda.

Right.

Mhmm. So I think that is one of the biggest blockers for why,

remittances

has not been picking up in Africa.

Yeah. I mean, I know like, strike is trying to

provide access to as many

African countries as possible, and it's, you know, it's a process. It's not Mhmm.

It's not as straightforward as one might hope.

Yeah.

Okay.

What about

yeah. Go on.

So the weirdest thing is if you do set up

or successfully set up

an exchange or an off ramp or an on ramp in

most of these countries,

you are usually

you will usually end up with a problem where

most people just wanna buy Bitcoin, and not too many people wanna sell Bitcoin.

Okay. Even in Africa.

Yeah.

I because,

obviously,

a lot of people would wanna get rid of the Nigerian naira.

Right. Because all the currencies there are are are fucking shit.

Yes. Right? So there,

you would need to do a lot of interesting stuff and a lot of

new

stuff to actually

get rid of your Bitcoin.

Right. Get rid of your naira,

obviously. Getting rid of your Bitcoin is easy enough to do. But then for the person who sets up the service and the exchange, you need to do a lot of cool stuff

to get rid of the naira. Because you end up with a ton of naira. Yes. Which is what Bitnop does very well if you ever do have a conversation with him,

and he's comfortable sharing how they've built out their company,

it would be one for the ages.

Yeah. I've had

some I mean, Bernard is a fucking legend. I've had some really great private off the record conversations with Bernard. Mhmm. He has not been on dispatch yet.

Yeah. Yeah. I know. It is,

when currencies fail, man, is a kind of crazy phenomenon, and I think it's gonna happen more and more.

Mhmm.

So what about

what about Tether? Like, are are are people are are Africans

are Africans fly so their currency is failing. Right? And this is a a story we've heard many times.

And instead of going to Bitcoin,

what is often heavily in demand is is dollars.

Mhmm. What do you see in terms of, like, Tether demand on the ground?

Yeah. So let me start by saying for countries like

Zimbabwe and Nigeria,

yeah, the dollar has

been used quite a lot in the economies. Right? Right. But in South Africa, not so much.

And I think it's the same for a a lot of other African countries where

we have not yet experienced,

significant

economic collapse or currency collapse

to the point where we would need to rush to the dollar.

Yeah. So Egypt, I've heard, yeah, Egypt has a lot of,

demand for the dollar.

But yeah. So it's, like, I think, 5050,

across the continent, countries that have demand for the dollar.

And Tether, I think, yes, Nigeria

has a lot of demand,

but not so much in South Africa, not so much in

Malawi.

And, yes, in Zim but, yeah, in Zim, I also don't think there's that much too,

because I don't think there's too many crypto companies

working in Zimbabwe due to the sanctions.

Okay.

Mhmm.

That's quite interesting. Or tech companies for that matter.

I mean so I mean, the what I hear is that, like, Binance just completely dominates Africa.

That'll, like Parts of Africa.

Yeah. I mean

so, I mean, what like, people are using it to get dollar exposure. Right? Are they using it to gamble on shitcoins? Are they using it to buy Bitcoin? Like

Yeah. I think gamble on shitcoins is number one priority.

Yeah. People like to gamble.

Yeah.

I mean, I was like I so, like, one of my goals of this conversation

is, you know, Bitcoin's pumping.

We got ETFs going on. We got the suits are here.

The suits just discovered Bitcoin for the first time.

But, you know

and it's a little bit of a meme. Right? But, like, I've,

I'm I'm in Bitcoin for the freedom. I I mean, I would like to get wealthy at the same time.

Good money should

increase in purchasing power over time.

But, like, to me, like, I want I want Bitcoin

to be as powerful of a tool for freedom as possible.

And,

you know, I I want Africa to be more than just a

I want Africa, Latin America, like, to be more than just a meme,

that that gets you engagement on Twitter or something. Like, I I wanted to actually be a a a powerful tool for for freedom and empowerment,

on the continent.

Like, what are we miss like, what are we missing? Like, why,

like, why hasn't it been more so? I I don't know. Is that, like, a ridiculous question?

No. It's a very valid question.

So,

this is my observations. Right?

Right.

What I've seen

is

obviously, for it to happen, you'd need a lot of the young

developers, the young people who are coming in to actually do it.

Right? Or you get the older developers in the space more experienced to do it.

So oh, and this is gonna be a long answer. I'm sorry. I can see I like the long answers.

Yeah. With the young guys,

they are still trying to gain confidence. They're still trying to build,

or learn how to build. They don't need know how to build, and they're still trying to gain confidence. And they still believe

in the system as,

we were

raised into it. So if they don't believe in their country system, they at least believe in America's

system

or Europe's system. So they would either

work towards

ending up in America or Europe or whatever else. Right? So,

yeah, so

the I don't think there's anything you could do about that per se because

a person would have to

Then just take care.

Yeah. You know?

And

so this also touches on

how the some of the older guys are not building on Bitcoin as they should. Because what would usually happen is

for them to gain that experience,

they would have already

been seen by existing companies who would hire them and pay them very well

and move them out of Africa,

and then they could go build in Europe or America or wherever else they choose to go. And so

I don't think you can build for Africa unless you live here. Right? Yeah.

Yeah. I think Bernard,

Eric, and

a few other people are great

examples of that.

And

yeah. So

there comes the other side of the issue,

which is how do you keep talent in Africa so that people could actually come up with these ideas.

And

companies like Binance, as as much as we can give them shit for what and how they choose to do business,

they do it quite well,

right,

at giving the people what they want, even though what they want the what the people want is maybe gambling and,

you know, a number go up over a night. Right? And so

they also do a great job at

spotting young talent, right, and then hiring young talent,

but

they make the

process harder

because a person would want to build out a web 3 company

for Mac. Right.

Right? And

they

are slowly

seeing how web 3 is working in other places, and then they want to use their energy and resources

to build a Web 3 company,

but then they get dragged. And then if they still have the heart to stay in the

space, they would still try again. And at that point, the person is a web 3 builder full time. They are never gonna stop or building on web 3. So

the other thing is if a person chooses to build on Bitcoin

and they don't get traction,

that is sad. Right? Because

Right. Then they feel like, this Bitcoin thing

isn't going anywhere. I I should just rather build on web 3 because the web 3 guys

are great at being flashy, are great at showing

traction that after a year dies out.

And then

they can bring in all these new devs and all these new people. So

yeah. So how does that look in practice? Is, like, Binance coming in and just paying massive salaries? They're, like, funding companies?

Binance is coming in and hosting events.

Okay.

Right?

It's not too much of

a budget. But, yeah, in some cases, they do spend

a lot of good money, like, when they host, sponsored the,

the African Cup of Nations soccer tournament.

Right. And, yeah, the visibility they got out of that was massive. Right? But the most pivotal thing that they do well is regularly host events and bring these people in and give them something to do. And

yeah.

It's like there's no road map in Bitcoin. Right? So Right.

If a person

arrives in Bitcoin, they have to

figure stuff out for themselves.

And,

yeah, I used to

watch The Matrix quite a lot. Right?

The movies.

The the well, the first one.

Maybe even the second one a bit. Right? And yeah. The movies. And

the thing of a person unplugs from The Matrix,

and

there's a group of people there to fetch that person

and, you know, show them what the real world is and rehabilitate them and Right. Train them.

Yeah. So I think that is one of the missing things for Africa. Right? Because in Africa, it's not just about Bitcoin. It's really,

you are a developer, 1st and foremost,

and you are getting paid however much you're getting paid.

So how are you gonna compete

globally

if you're getting paid what's relevant to your country salary?

Right.

Uh-huh. So, yeah, let let let me talk to the kids a little bit because it seems like they're having fun.

Give me 2 seconds. You got this.

So while KG is gone,

handling household manners, We we love, we're a family friendly,

show here at dispatch. Grow your families.

Dispatch

is a 100% audience funded.

We do not have ads. We do not have sponsors.

It is funded purely from donations from

our amazing global audience.

And you can support the show via podcasting 2 point o apps, like Fountain, Breeze,

or in our live chat,

which is sidildispatch.com/stream.

You can send zaps that way,

or by going to syllabus dispatch.com/

donate. All of our relevant links are at silldispatch.com.

But I just wanted to thank everyone who continues to support the show.

I had got some advice from a freak

to put the top supporters,

since the previous dispatch on the bottom of the livestream.

But our top supporters this week was God Family BTC with a 123,000

sats.

Thank you, sir. We have at nitrosoil

with 55,000

sats, Eric 99, rider die freak with 50 k sats,

Pringle Stacks with 44

k sats,

and Mav 21,

who's the only one listed who did not donate via podcasting 2 point o. He do donated through the livestream last time with 21,000

sats. So I'm gonna list the top 5,

on the bottom going forward,

during the livestreams. I think that's a nice balance. And,

last but not least, I know Bitcoin's pumping. I know you guys are trying to accumulate as many sats as possible.

If you if you cannot part ways with your sats, the easiest way to support the show is share it with friends and family.

We're available on every single podcasting app. You just search ciel dispatch.

We're on YouTube until we get banned.

And then after that, you can find us on Noster. But, anyway, KG, you're back.

Hola. Let

let's pivot to,

let's pivot to your product,

specifically.

Mhmm.

So so right now, it's custodial.

Mhmm. What do you and it's custodial, and you don't have an app. I guess my first question for you is, are you gonna release a smartphone app? Does that make any sense?

What are your thoughts on that?

Yes. It,

makes all the sense. Actually, a lot of the users have asked for the app.

So

I've developed the app. It's on my laptop, but I don't feel like releasing it. Right?

My reasons are

there's already a lot of good apps, you know, like one of the Satoshi,

Blink,

a lot of great custodial apps in this space, and I don't think I'd be adding any value by releasing 1.

So, yeah,

I

will one day when I'm

in a in the mood to do it, to release the Maconkle

app, But, yeah, so far, I've not. Yeah. There's no rush.

Yeah. So

to the users, though, the app is ready. Just know that the app is ready, though. I don't does that help?

Why would if I was a user, I was like, okay. Now I know the app's ready, but you're not giving it to me. I'm like, that works.

Comfort, man. It it is comforting

the heart.

So

yeah.

But then, with regards to the custodial, man, the self custodial My my next question.

Uh-huh. Alright. Yeah. So

oh oh, you wanna say a question? Or should I? No. I mean, that's my question. I mean, I I think Oh, yeah. That's the elephant in the room. Right? The elephant in the room is that it's custodial. And because it's custodial, you have 2 main risks. The first one is that users, you know, have to trust you that you're not gonna steal their money.

And then the second risk is that you have

more exposure to regulators

because you're holding people's Bitcoin for them. So how are you thinking about that?

Yeah. Cool. So,

the South African regulators

have already started moving, by the way. So they've already

put out some regulations

that we have to adhere to,

blah blah blah blah blah.

But,

what we are then working on is the self custodial version of the project.

And the core of it all is that the SIM card is programmable.

Right? The SIM card already does cryptography.

The SIM card already stores a few private keys.

So, yeah,

we're working on something here.

Let me see. Oh, yeah. That's some good quality.

So that's,

chip,

Java card chip. Oh, nice.

Production is high quality. So that's a Java card chip that you can put on your normal SIM card. And once you put this on your normal SIM card oh, and it's kind of very thin. So let me see.

Okay. Cool.

Oh, yeah. So it's kind of very thin there. Right? So, yeah, you could program this in Java card if you know a lot of Java card projects in this space, like Spectra, Java card, Satoshi chip.

I don't know if,

what's this?

Tap Signer is Java card as well, but I think they are maybe Java card based. And

a few others,

Status key card is Java card based project.

So what I was thinking was, like, oh, there's already all these,

healthy

Java card projects that sign Bitcoin transactions and do all of these other cool stuff. Why don't we just,

build on top of them? Right?

And what we need to do is effectively

was this

create a UI, and the UI would be called the simtoolkitapplet.

So depending on which network you're on or telecom you're using, if you have a SIM card in your phone, there will be something called a SIM toolkit applet

already installed,

which comes with the SIM card. Right? Not all telecoms,

deploy 1, but most of them in South Africa and, of course, the African continent do.

So,

yeah,

what we would need is to build that SDK, which would become the UI of the wallet,

and then create an interface

that allows you to,

access blockchain data so that you know what you're signing and so that you know what your

balance is your Bitcoin balance is. So, yeah, that would be the thing that we are building on now, and that's how we are getting started with the project. It's called Project Super Saiyan.

If you don't know, I'm a huge fan of both, and rest in peace, Akira Toriyama.

Yeah. That's true.

And yeah.

Wait. So so this is a separate so I have my SIM card already. Right? It's in my Nokia.

I have to take this Java card.

And is it like a is it a sticker? Or do I just, like, I place it on there as I stick my SIM card in? Is that what's going on?

Yes. It is something like a sticker. Right? So as long as you put it there,

right, put it on top of your normal SIM card.

And then I stick it back in my phone.

Yeah. And then you put it back in your phone. Now your phone has another

SIM toolkit applet on top of your

network's normal SIM toolkit applet.

And so, like, that acts as, like, a hardware wallet in my feature phone? Yes.

Effectively.

And so then users will self custody to that in the future, hopefully.

And I guess,

so then I have 2 questions for you. The first one is, I mean, with on chain fees, right now, we're we're seeing high priority is is 42 stats per byte. There's a 130 transact a 130,000

transactions unconfirmed.

Mhmm. You know, on chain fees have have

a a it they will probably increase with adoption. That is my expectation. That's

should be the expectation. Bloxpace is scarce.

So I guess there's a

there's gonna have to be, like, a flow, right, where they, like, are custodial until

a certain balance is reached, and then it migrates to self custody or something like that? How do you think about that?

No. You're on the short answer or the long answer. And long

answer. Okay. Okay. Cool.

So let me start with the long with the short answer. So the short answer is I think you could do lightning on Java card. Right? So Really?

Yeah. At some point, you will have lightning on Java card. Right? So

they have, like, a lightning channel? They'll have, like, an actual Sovereign Lightning channel?

Yes. So,

if you look at what the guys at Phoenix are doing, the architecture they have,

for me, it's some genius stuff

because

the node that runs on your phone is lightweight.

It does

very little. It just validates that the on chain,

stuff between

your phone and the async node is Right. Valid. And then The LSP. And Yep. Yeah. Right? And then when it pays a landing invoice, it just passes the invoice on to the what's the word I'm looking for?

LSP, and then the LSP, the trampoline node makes the payment. Alright. Cool. And

if that's all the SIM card has to do

yeah. The SIM card could do that.

So

yeah. So how I see it is, yeah, once we have on chain working, we could start working on lightning. And,

yeah, then

the longer version of the answer

is I think the economics are gonna change. Right? So,

ultimately,

we're gonna see incomes level out across countries or across people who use Bitcoin on a daily versus,

you know, locals and whatever else. So a person who uses Bitcoin would have the average global income.

Right.

Because they're using Bitcoin, and then they get They're part of the global economy,

so they would have the average global income. Yeah. Yes. Right? So if the person the average person in this global economy can afford

to use,

Bitcoin on chain, these people,

or my users would also afford over the long term. Right? Right.

And then yeah.

I feel like, okay. Cool. As a savings tool, on chain would always work.

And Yeah.

So, yeah, just give a person the technical option to make an on chain transaction.

Right.

Mhmm. That's interesting. So you're like Mhmm. You're thinking, like,

Phoenix Wallet on a feature phone?

Basically.

That's cool.

Mhmm.

I mean, if you could pull that off, that'd be pretty awesome. I mean, you gotta

the cool thing about that is you could

the Lightning channel obviously still requires an on chain transaction to open.

And then the way Phoenix works is,

they use splicing to add

to that balance over time. But the cool part about that is,

the on the on chain free market is a is a proper free market. It's a global permissionless free market. So you could actually

do, like, interesting things there in terms of timing

Mhmm. Where, you know, their balance gets topped up by doing an on chain splice transaction

at a specifically

low fee time of, you know, whatever the cycle or whatever.

Mhmm. There's a lot of cool things that could be done there.

Yep.

That's awesome.

So, I mean, let me pull us back real quick. We were talking about, like, community. We were talking about events.

Bitcoin and Kazi has been making waves,

on the Internet in in South Africa.

Mhmm. How How do you view Bitcoin and Kazi? Like, are you very involved with that? Or, I mean, that's, like, a local community

in South Africa, I believe.

Yeah.

How involved am I there? Like,

I think last year, I was

or the year before last, I paid them a visit at least once every 3 months

over the full course of the year. Alright?

And, yeah, they

are great guys. They have a very

great initiative,

and which has a long track record over 10 years doing what they were doing.

And, yeah, I grew up in the township. So Oh, wow. I know

some of the challenges that they are trying to solve for.

And I think

as the years pass,

doing what they're doing gets harder in the township because of

what's the word I'm looking for?

Just,

I don't have a word for it now, but things are definitely getting harder. And

they have a great approach. Just give,

and well, it started out with just Are you saying, like, the economic burden stuff in, like, like, the town is is getting worse in terms

of, like, people's economic status? Or

Yes. Regulatory?

Or is it?

No. Or I think it's more of a mental thing. Right? So,

people have an expectation that the government is gonna do something about it,

about the situation. Right? So

as much as they are able and talented and skilled and whatever else, they don't

take the initiative to fix some of the issues that they are facing because

they have the expectation that they're gonna

the government is gonna do something about. I think one of the things that highlight this is,

the checks, you know, the checks that Bitcoin Akasti paints,

or with company logos. Right? If you look at the pictures over time, what you will see

is that there's more and more Shacks over time.

Right. So

we had the Machangkura logo painted on one of the shacks. At the time, it was on the edge of the,

tungsten. Right? But, I think

3 months ago,

there were

2 more layers of shacks, 2 more layers of shacks added to the township. Right? Because the expectation is, oh, the government is gonna move,

the people in that community from those shacks

to houses

that the government built for people. And as a consequence,

this creates,

environment

that is not good to live in because you cannot build community

if everyone thinks they're just here for a temporary time. Right? There's no ownership.

Yes. Right. So what you need is always people who want

to live there, who would take the initiative

idea that the government is gonna do something. Right? So,

yeah, and what I liked a lot about

the Bitcoin Agassi project

is, yes, it started out as a Surfer Kids

initiative, teach kids how to surf,

but then

you are like, oh, the kids are not brushing their teeth. Or or well, before that, you're like, oh, some of the kids are not coming because they don't have anything to eat. Okay. Let's have a Right. Feed feeding program. Alright? So before they go into the water, they have some food. Oh, now they're eating, but they're not brushing their teeth. Oh, okay. Now we have

a toothbrush program.

Oh, cool. Now they're here, but who's if they're here, who's helping them with homework?

Okay. Cool. Let's, you know, have a homework program and so on and so forth. So

yeah.

And

I think it's also great how

their adoption of Bitcoin has helped them.

If you hear Herman speak about it, you will hear him.

One of the stands is how he had almost gave up on the project because

he was burnt out from running it. Right? And,

them adopting Bitcoin kinda gave him a lot of energy to continue doing it because there's a lot of support.

And if you see their updates, you can see that, oh, there's really a lot of supports

on a global level.

Yeah. Yeah. The project Big corners wanna help.

Exactly. Right? And, the sad thing though is that

projects like these are not replicable.

Right? Why not? That was my next question.

Yeah. It's,

the planets had to align. Right?

The right person doing the right thing also happens to be a Bitcoiner,

and

that person also understands

why Bitcoin.

And

at the same time, somebody else

in halfway across the country in El Salvador

is

doing a similar thing to what Herman is doing. This is Bitcoin Beach. Right. And Mike Mike Peterson. Right?

And Herman sees that, and he's like, oh, I could do that here. I could do what Hope House is doing. Shout out to Hope House. I'm I'm looking at the shirt here. And

he does it as well,

and it works. Right? So

they wrote

the white paper, the Bitcoin community white paper, and they highlighted some of the attributes that were, you need. Somebody who's trusted by the community, somebody who's

lived in that community.

And,

yeah, just off of that one requirement

alone,

it's very hard because a lot of the time, we move out of the communities we grew up in

to find works

elsewhere and For opportunity. Connection. Yes. Right? We lose the connection we would need to actually do a project like this back in the communities that,

love and respect us. So

yeah.

I mean, I guess it can just be distilled. Like, there's so much work left there's so much work to be done. Right? Like, it's Mhmm. Just, like, you're starting at such a low point.

Mhmm.

Right.

And you have to be, like, a little bit crazy to, like, actually fucking do it.

A lot crazy. Not a little bit will not cut it.

Fair enough. Well, shout out to Herman and everyone else who's running Bitcoin and Kazi over there.

Yeah. It's too early. Made a trip there. Yeah.

No. I haven't been on the continent of Africa yet. It's Oh, my god. It's something that I I need to do.

Unfortunately,

I I do have a lot of friends,

throughout Africa now, that I've met through Bitcoin.

Mhmm. And I promised each of them individually

that I will make a trip, but it has not happened yet. But I I will do it. Okay.

The free schedule is then.

On on that note, we're hosting in adopting Bitcoin again next year, Jan.

It would January?

Come to me. Mhmm.

Okay. Maybe I'll do that. Or I was I was thinking about doing the

the Bitcoin Africa conference. Was that just in the fall? Right?

Yeah. That's in

December. Yeah. Mhmm. So 1 month apart.

Yeah. I mean, free that is fucking awesome.

Mhmm.

Okay.

That's also another person where you have to be a lot of crazy to do what she's doing. Yeah.

The good kinda crazy.

Yes.

Okay. Cool.

Well,

I mean, before we wrap,

I think this has been great.

Do you have any

do you have any final thoughts for audience before we wrap up?

Yeah, man. I have a lot,

but none of them are coming to mind right now.

Well, what what can we do if if we don't live in Africa, what can we do to help? Mhmm. Like, how do how do we help?

Yeah. Yeah. So I think, ultimately,

okay.

So I'll say 2 things. Ultimately,

what I've noticed is everyone who's trying to

use Bitcoin and build for Bitcoin

in their own environment

will ultimately help somebody else's environment. And I think this is a point I've mentioned a lot of times, but

the project Nachangura

made sense for

me only after I explored the lightning address,

spec,

where okay. It's a human readable and human writable thing.

And for a person who does not have a smartphone with a copy and paste functionality,

you cannot type out,

what is this, a lightning invoice correctly. Yeah. If you're fucking insane,

t 9, like, t 9 a lightning invoice would be fucking ridiculous.

You know, we should probably have a contest for that and, a person who does the quickest things. But,

yeah.

So then you're like, oh, VHF and Andre

pushed and championed that so well

that when we do it, it's just seamless. Right? And

then you look at what the guys at Phoenix are doing, and we're like, oh, okay. They have solved so many different problems that when the time comes for us to piece these things together,

it will be a walk in the park for us. Right? And even Moonwallet,

I love what they do too because

they solve so many weird problems that as

I'm building what I'm building, I'm like, oh, this is why Moon Wallet, went with the recovery code,

instead of,

the 12 word phrase or 20

24 word phrase. Because

unless

well, 1,

there's no process for what's this?

Creating the word list in different languages. Right. There's no solidified process. So if you want to support multiple

languages or people in multiple countries that use multiple different languages,

the English word list is insufficient

for the properties or why you would wanna use it,

the word list anyway.

Because if I'm not an English speaker,

memorizing 4 words of a different language is not my thing. Alright? It's it's

a foreign concept. But That's ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah.

Seeing a recovery code,

it fulfills the purpose of security.

Right? And

it is similar to how we used to have recovery codes on laptops and,

disks.

I think games, if you bought a game Yep.

Your physical game, you had the activation code. Like the serial code. Yeah. Yes.

And so to some users, that works. Right?

Especially people who have who grew up on, you know, media or digital media. So, yeah, White Moon is doing that that I'm like, okay. Cool.

It's great. So to answer your question, I feel like as long as everyone is doing

what

works best for their environment,

it will effectively

spill over at some point in time somewhere else. Alright? And

yeah. The other thing is for me I mean yeah. Continue.

Okay. No. But, you can,

make your comment.

I mean, to me, that's the cool part about Bitcoin. Right? Is that it's this interoperable,

permissionless,

global network.

Mhmm. And and it's almost like a shared equity. Right? Like like, if you own Bitcoin the asset,

it's like we all share equity in, like, this almost like a start up equity.

Yeah.

And and anything we do, and a lot of times it's out of greed too. It's not out of benevolence. You don't have to be like

a charitable person.

But, you know, like, if if if strike benefits from something or if CoinKite benefits from something or Unchained Capital benefits from something, then Manchancura in in

Africa benefits from it as well at the same time, which is like a crazy concept. Like, I I feel like people just don't really appreciate that. Also, though, I think it's a little bit of a cop out. Like,

I I'm not gonna, like, just sit here and be like, oh, like, I'm helping

otherwise But but until you mhmm. Yeah. Well well, but, the other side of it is if you do wanna help, you

have to make that trip to Africa. I know. I gotta you prefer.

Fair enough.

Yeah. And

whatever country you go to, you will see something that

you could contribute towards.

And, yeah, this and you could use Bitcoin for that as well. Right? But,

the other thing

we need to be on the ground. Like, you you Yes. You don't you can't see the shit from the Internet Mhmm. Or, like Yeah. Exactly.

Video, audio.

Uh-huh.

Alright. And, the other remark is for me, I think there will be a day where,

1,000,000 new people use Bitcoin for the first time. Right?

And

yeah.

So I don't think

a lot of companies in the space are ready for that day. I don't think they are set up correctly

for that day. So

When you said a1000000, you mean a1000000000. Right?

No.

In a day, a billion, I don't I'm not sure what happened. Right? But I like I I like your thinking. Right? So even on that day where the 1,000,000,000 used Bitcoin,

for the first time

Yeah. We couldn't handle a 1000000 new users. Right now, we probably couldn't handle a 1000000 new users in a single day. Yes. Yeah. That's pretty crazy. Yeah. Mhmm. So

Coinbase is definitely gonna,

you know,

freeze for a a few hours on that day. So what is the other people,

other companies doing to correct that? And

yeah.

I grew up on rap music, by the way, and I feel like Bitcoin is gonna follow the same trajectory as hip hop or or rap did,

with regards to popularity

on a global scale.

But what needs to happen is the people who

love the art

art,

would have to

figure out the things that they need to figure out so that when it becomes a globally loved and commercialized

thing,

it's not by outsiders. It's actually by people who've been participating and who've been,

who do understand why,

Bitcoin or why hip hop or why whatever helps. Right?

So, yeah, at this point, I don't think we are ready.

And if it does happen, it would be sad,

especially with regards to what's happening with ETFs now. There's a lot of new people who are learning about Bitcoin.

Using Bitcoin for the first time through the ETFs,

and some of these people may never

move away from the ETFs

unless, you know, a lot of more work is being done.

So yeah. Do you think do you think owning the Bitcoin ETF is using Bitcoin?

Hell no.

Okay. Right?

Yeah. So but I know it for a lot of people, the price action is satisfactory.

Right.

Mhmm.

But yeah. It's a it's a Bitcoin IOU with you get price exposure for it. Yeah. I mean, I the suits are here. The suits are here, and

and, you know, I I don't know if they'll ever stop being sued, so they'll probably just continue being sued. So, KG, I mean, also before we wrap up, I I have another way of framing the question.

Mhmm. So I do a bunch of different things in the Bitcoin space, but, like, where a lot of my time has recently been focused is on 1031,

which is, like, the venture side.

The largest venture fund in the world. We support start ups, including Bitknob,

with equity with equity funding. Right? We invest. They give us equity.

And OpenSats, which is a 5 0 1 c 3 nonprofit.

We no strings attached grants.

Open Sats right now has over a 100 grants outstanding.

We've

I we

send out over $500,000

worth of Bitcoin a month,

in Bitcoin,

no strings attached. Fucking insane. I,

like, I I still can't believe it's real.

I'm so proud of our team over at Open Sats, and I'm I'm so grateful to the people who who donate and support Open Sats.

Mhmm. What can we

how how what can Open Sats do better

in term like, from with with an Africa lens on it,

with a KG lens on it, like, how does OpenSats

push the needle a little bit more? Like, part of OpenSats is, like, I just wanna, like

you know, I'm I I have low time preference. I'm willing to wait long term for things.

Mhmm. But, like, people need

need help today. So, like, I wanna just

throw throw fire on

the,

throw

throw fuel on the fire. Had what is open set how can open sets do better?

Yeah. So,

from what I've seen, I think open sets is doing great. Right?

And,

well, I I didn't know that you guys were,

paying out 500,000,

dollars a month.

And, yeah, I think

some things like that should probably

be on the website. Like, that should be the first thing I see. We have a, well, we have a we have a year end review blog post that, like, kinda has a nice chart that shows it.

Okay. Yeah.

Let the long term support for

The scale is fucking crazy. I mean, look, I yeah. I I agree. We should do better with messaging. I I think our biggest issue

is

so I think a mutual friend of ours is is Femi.

Mhmm.

And Femi got a little bit upset with me. He's like, why don't you support more?

Why doesn't Open Set? So Open Set is is is bigger than me by design. Like, that's the point. Yeah.

Mhmm. There's 9 board members. And

for a grant to be paid out, we need 5 of 9 board to vote, and that's to limit corruption.

None of the board members get paid. I do not get paid for open sets.

And we do have we have grant recipients around the world,

I think on every continent at this point except for Antarctica because no one lives on Antarctica.

Mhmm. For now. And Femi said to me for now.

Femi said to me,

why don't you support more Africans?

And the single biggest issue

is

we just don't have as many Africans apply. Like, opensas.org

slash apply.

We just don't get the applications to begin with.

It's not it has nothing to do with like, we can't review an application that has never been submitted.

Yeah. I yeah. So I think I hear you on that point. And I think on the other side, I think

there's cultural differences.

Right?

I think a lot of the African developers

have a lot of catching up to do

with regards

to open source development,

1st and foremost.

Right?

And so,

going back to what I was saying earlier on

on the point of you an African developer

and you not getting paid as much as you should be getting paid on the global level,

until a person

breaks out of that, right, they are not in a position to do open source development.

Right.

The only reason I was able to start working on Bitcoin stuff

is because

I, 1,

started working as a researcher

at the CSIR,

and I didn't like the researcher's salary as compared to what a software developer is getting paid in South Africa. So I moved to AWS

and

got paid,

relatively well

and could save money.

And I had already discovered Bitcoin, so I was saving at least 10% of my income

in Bitcoin. And

from, 2019 to 2020, Bitcoin price movement almost 10 x or to 2021, actually. So by the time that I left my job

at the end of 2021 or 2020,

because I'm bad with time due to the lockdown,

I had saved almost a year's worth of income

in Bitcoin,

because Bitcoin's value increased off of 10% off of saving 10% of my income, it became almost a year's worth of income in savings.

So I could then experiment

with Exonumia,

with,

Machangura,

and a few other projects. So

I don't think,

at this point, there's a lot that anyone else outside of Africa could do to speed up that process because Right.

This is,

things that

and there's a lot of devs that are working at a lot of African companies that are looking for a

even for me, when I when I started saving in Bitcoin,

it was during a dip. Right? And

I wasn't even sure if Bitcoin's price was gonna ever go back to what it was in 2017

with the peak that I saw because everyone believes in the things that they have seen. So,

yeah, I think it's gonna take a lot of time,

but,

as time goes by, what we will see is,

a few more

developers

pop up in the space. Alright?

But that requires a lot of work similar to what the Bitcoin Tardas are doing in Kenya.

Right? With their initiatives to just get women

brought into Bitcoin,

it creates a certain visibility

that

maybe one day,

Bitcoin data will be the developer

pipeline for Bitcoin in Africa.

Right? As they get more comfortable with the topic of Bitcoin and they start also building their own things, because I don't think you have to be a developer to build a tech company,

but they don't have that type of confidence to actually start. Right? So,

yeah,

I think we just have to be patient in in some regards because, of course, we cannot

force something that's not yet there unless you wanna go poach the web 3 developers,

across the continent and say, yo, I'll give you this much for you to stop, doing web 3.

There are no shortcuts.

Yeah.

Fair enough. Well, KG, I wanna thank you again for joining us. I thought this conversation was fucking awesome.

Mhmm.

I I hope the freaks enjoyed it as well. If you did enjoy it,

definitely leave a comment,

in your favorite podcasting 2 point o app. I do read them all.

You'd be surprised. I I see all of your comments.

So so if you're if you're out there and and you're enjoying the show, you're not liking the show, I see those comments too. Feel free to to put a comment in the show. KG, you have my contact information. If anything I can do to help

provide feedback, advice,

never hesitate to reach out. You're not bothering me.

I appreciate you, and I enjoy our friendship, and I'm I'm happy to

to help where I can to help where I can.

Thank you.

Good of having me.

Thanks for joining. I I was you know, this is a new thing that I've been thinking about. Like, I would love in, you know, like, 3, 4 months if we can do,

bring it back on. Like, we like, where where do we stand 4 months in the future? I mean, who knows what the Bitcoin price is? Who knows what suits we'll be doing at that point?

And it'll be cool to do, like, regular,

updates. Right? And they could be shorter episodes or shorter conversations, but I would love to have you back on and and catch up. Maybe maybe we'll bring Bernard on for that one.

Most definitely. I'd I'd be happy.

Mhmm. And Freaks, I have a crazy,

week

scheduled for us all.

Wednesday, we have the Noster Illuminati joining us. I have, Pablo, Fyotchaff,

Mike Dilger of Gossip Protocol to talk about Noster. That's on Wednesday, same time as this rip, 1700 UTC.

And then on Tuesday of next week,

I got I got the CEO of of async of Phoenix Wallet coming on, Pierre Marie.

So we'll be talking Phoenix Wallet Tuesday,

next Tuesday, not tomorrow,

next Tuesday at 1700 UTC.

I expect the live chat to be ripping, for both of those conversations.

Huge shout out to the freaks who joined us in the live chat. You guys make this special. And huge shout out to all the freaks who continue to support the show, whether that's through subscribing,

leaving reviews, sharing with friends and family,

or sending your precious sats,

to support the cost that go to the show. It's literally just a one man operation. People don't believe it. I have no producer.

You know? All this shit is just

Odell putting things together.

It's just just me.

But so thank you, freaks. Thank you, KG. I appreciate you. Have a great rest of your Monday. I hope your week is is is amazing, and, I'm sure we'll talk soon.

Thank you for having me. Enjoy the week.

Move on up, freaks. Love you all.

Let's live life without permission.

Stay on the stack sets.

Peace.