Machankura brings Bitcoin to basic phones across Africa — no internet needed📱₿

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South African startup Machankura, founded in 2022, aims to democratize Bitcoin usage across Africa. Its key innovation: enabling crypto transactions even without a stable internet connection.

Bitcoin could reach a new milestone in Africa 🌍

While most crypto users today rely on internet-connected smartphones, access to reliable connectivity remains limited or unstable across large parts of the continent.

To address this challenge, a South African software engineer and former Amazon Web Services developer launched Machankura with a bold vision: reshape how Africans access Bitcoin.

The concept is simple. Users dial a USSD code from either a smartphone or a basic feature phone. Instantly, they gain access to a digital wallet linked to their phone number, allowing them to send and receive Bitcoin directly from their device.

A model inspired by mobile money 📱💰

The system borrows heavily from M-PESA, the mobile money service launched in 2007 by Vodafone for Safaricom and Vodacom.

In an interview with TechCabal, Machankura COO Noelyne Sumba explains:

“We’re building on a system people already understand and use daily for financial services.”

The team is now applying that familiar model to Bitcoin, adapting it to local needs across different markets.

Growing traction across the continent 📊

So far, more than 39,000 phones are connected to the service. The majority of users are under 35, primarily based in urban and peri-urban areas.

Une équipe dynamique de Machankura
Source : TechCabal

Countries where Machankura is gaining the most traction include Côte d’Ivoire, South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda. Each country has its own USSD code to access the service.

Bridging African telecom networks with Bitcoin’s Lightning Network 🚀

Machankura relies on Africa’s Talking, a platform that provides USSD infrastructure.

“Africa’s Talking was very open to collaboration. This partnership allowed us to scale quickly across multiple countries. From day one, we focused on regions where technical integration was feasible,” says Sumba.

The system operates through a USSD menu limited to 160 characters, with response times of around 20 seconds. Requests are routed via the partner’s API to users.

According to TechCabal, “Each user’s phone number is linked to a Lightning Network wallet and a simplified Lightning address, similar to an email address. Anyone in the world can send Bitcoin to that address. Machankura’s nodes then handle routing the payment and updating the wallet balance.”

The startup takes a 1% fee on each transaction. It does not rely on fiat currency and operates entirely in Bitcoin. While the system is still evolving, development and deployment efforts are ongoing.

Do you think accessing Bitcoin through a simple USSD code could transform financial usage in Africa the way M-PESA did?