Post
Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: Bitcoin on the rise in Kenyan slums
by
Lucius
on 24/08/2025, 10:35:07 UTC
Unfortunately, life is not easy for people living in many African countries, and regardless of the fact that they have many natural resources and hardworking people, they are still mostly poor. I think that Bitcoin can be of great help here, primarily as a currency, since people only need a smartphone with internet access and a BTC wallet.
The highlighted one seems to me to be the main problem for poor people in poor African countries - a very low standard of living that makes it difficult to buy a smartphone + Internet (additional expenses). Also, a fairly low level of literacy, especially technical, which will make it difficult to use the BTC-wallet (correctly and safely). Also, smartphones remain quite vulnerable to storing bitcoin. Therefore, I believe that buying vegetables in Africa for bitcoin will not start very soon. And in general, I consider this something comparable to buying bread by paying with a gold bar.

We talked before about how smartphones have actually become very cheap and available, and the same is true with mobile internet, and with the increasing availability of satellite internet, which according to the latest information is available in about 20 African countries, it seems that more and more people on that continent are getting connected to the rest of the world.

As for literacy and IT education, it may not be at the level of Western countries, but you may have seen that many of our friends from Africa have testified that they are very well organized and transfer knowledge to each other, and just one person who knows how to install a BTC wallet and use it can teach dozens of people who then spread that knowledge further.

I agree that mobile wallets are a risk, but for smaller amounts every hot wallet makes sense - everyone has to start somewhere, and I'm sure that some will manage to buy computers and maybe even hardware wallets in the future. A lot of people agree that Africa has great potential and a lot of people will start using Bitcoin as soon as they get the chance to do so - so any initiative similar to the one we are talking about is welcome.