Bitcoin on the rise in Kenyan slums

[jogoo]

https://youtu.be/rPVoaYFiIDg?si=0mVpCoA-1_gfTAIO

In Kibera, located in Kenya's capital Nairobi, some roadside vegetable stands are accepting an unconventional form of payment. Residents in the Soweto West area of Kibera, are using Bitcoin as part of a project aimed at bringing financial services to a community that struggles to get access to traditional banking. However, as is typical, experts have cautioned that this approach could carry significant risks.

[Don Pedro Dinero]

I guess they have a crappy currency, even crappier than currencies like the dollar or the euro, and people get by as best they can. Apart from being extremely useful for the unbanked. That makes sense. From what I see on the forum, something similar is happening in Nigeria.

[BitGoba]

https://youtu.be/rPVoaYFiIDg?si=0mVpCoA-1_gfTAIO
 However, as is typical, experts have cautioned that this approach could carry significant risks.

What risks does using Bitcoin as a primary currency carry?
Honestly, I don’t see any serious risks. The only real risk is short-term volatility, but in the long run, those who use and save Bitcoin will have much greater purchasing power.Fiat currencies are unstable and far riskier in the long term. Their value constantly decreases due to inflation, and any fiat currency can literally enter hyperinflation overnight and lose its value. In that sense, Bitcoin’s volatility is a smaller problem compared to the potential collapse of the fiat system.

Bitcoin is a more reliable and safer choice in the long term than any government-issued currency.

[Becky Wealth]

I guess they have a crappy currency, even crappier than currencies like the dollar or the euro, and people get by as best they can. Apart from being extremely useful for the unbanked. That makes sense. From what I see on the forum, something similar is happening in Nigeria.

It's really a good project development.
However the risk includes.

Volatility:this means that Bitcoin value can change fast which make it uncertain.

Security risk:means they can hack your Bitcoin wallets

Regulatory uncertainty:when Bitcoin laws and regulations in that nation are been change it can affect the use and the value.

 Loss and access: when someone forget his password or his private keys it can lead to losing his Bitcoin.
These risks I mentioned are the important of caution before engaging on Bitcoin.

[arwin100]

https://youtu.be/rPVoaYFiIDg?si=0mVpCoA-1_gfTAIO

In Kibera, located in Kenya's capital Nairobi, some roadside vegetable stands are accepting an unconventional form of payment. Residents in the Soweto West area of Kibera, are using Bitcoin as part of a project aimed at bringing financial services to a community that struggles to get access to traditional banking. However, as is typical, experts have cautioned that this approach could carry significant risks.

This is the best option they could use since it seems that their native currency cannot do anything for them since maybe they have limited opportunity on it. While in Bitcoin there are lot of things to do.

Also its good that they go on the option on which they choose Bitcoin and not those crappy shitcoins which has been promoted by some mlm groups for many years.

But since it gather lots of attention now for sure that lots of people there would try to venture on what they could able to get from Bitcoin, but hopefully those people are well guided so that they can overcome with its volatility and can avoid ponzi schemes also with other scams.

[SilverCryptoBullet]

It's really a good project development.
However the risk includes.

Volatility:this means that Bitcoin value can change fast which make it uncertain.

Security risk:means they can hack your Bitcoin wallets

Regulatory uncertainty:when Bitcoin laws and regulations in that nation are been change it can affect the use and the value.

 Loss and access: when someone forget his password or his private keys it can lead to losing his Bitcoin.
These risks I mentioned are the important of caution before engaging on Bitcoin.

It's good to have solutions for the underbanked or the unbanked but security of people fund is vital concern for everyone. If this solution - I am not sure - is easy to access, but also easy to lose your fund, it's crappy.

As I said, I did not watch the video to dive deep in this given solution as watching a video is time consuming, but temporary solutions for the underbanked and unbanked in many countries in Africa continent are very popular, even they are not good in security.

It can be P2P trade on third party platforms that provide Escrow services like Paxful, Noones, Binance and more but they must keep their coins on those platforms that are centralized.

Events made you scare about custodial wallets, centralized exchanges.

[_act_]

In Kibera, located in Kenya's capital Nairobi, some roadside vegetable stands are accepting an unconventional form of payment. Residents in the Soweto West area of Kibera, are using Bitcoin as part of a project aimed at bringing financial services to a community that struggles to get access to traditional banking. However, as is typical, experts have cautioned that this approach could carry significant risks.

I think so too because bitcoin is volatile and if the price falls, I do not know how the residents will feel about slight drop in their money. But if the resident know about this, their is no other risks it has, especially for people that just want to hold the coins. But I do not think this will be possible if the Kenyan government finds out. They will not like bitcoin to be used in place of their coins.

[justinlamode]

https://youtu.be/rPVoaYFiIDg?si=0mVpCoA-1_gfTAIO

In Kibera, located in Kenya's capital Nairobi, some roadside vegetable stands are accepting an unconventional form of payment. Residents in the Soweto West area of Kibera, are using Bitcoin as part of a project aimed at bringing financial services to a community that struggles to get access to traditional banking. However, as is typical, experts have cautioned that this approach could carry significant risks.

Kenya is one country that is known to be open to learning new things and I'm not surprised they are embracing Bitcoin in droves. I remembered when Vodafone and Safaricom launched the M-Pesa in Kenya, it spread like wildfire and revolutionized the banking system of Kenya, bringing banking services to people in rural communities. Today Kenya has of the highest percentage of population that have access to banking services in Africa. If Bitcoin can be made easy to use like the M-Pesa, I'm sure that a greater percentage of Kenyans will embrace Bitcoin straight up.

[Aanuoluwatofunmi]

https://youtu.be/rPVoaYFiIDg?si=0mVpCoA-1_gfTAIO

In Kibera, located in Kenya's capital Nairobi, some roadside vegetable stands are accepting an unconventional form of payment. Residents in the Soweto West area of Kibera, are using Bitcoin as part of a project aimed at bringing financial services to a community that struggles to get access to traditional banking. However, as is typical, experts have cautioned that this approach could carry significant risks.

Bitcoin itself is not the risk that is involved here, but miscreant or let me say scammer can take this up to steal on peoples asset and tarnish the image of bitcoin to the people after they might have scammed them, i hope these same people doing this voluntarily can be trusted to that extent, because in a remote location like that, they may lack a quick access to internet of being exposed to bitcoin knowledge about how to manage their asset and take the necessary security measures.

[Lucius]

I guess they have a crappy currency, even crappier than currencies like the dollar or the euro, and people get by as best they can. Apart from being extremely useful for the unbanked. That makes sense. From what I see on the forum, something similar is happening in Nigeria.

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.

Over the years, many similar stories have emerged, and I think there are many more, we just haven't learned about them yet. Volatility is certainly a problem, but these people can probably profit from it, part of the income they have to spend/change to fiat, and part of it they can save and make additional earnings in the future.

[KiaKia]

In a place where people are struggling to survive you think this won't turn around someday? It's a god damn slum, mine isn't even a slum like state, yet people are becoming a target because of what they have or own.

@Don Pedro you can't use Nigeria to compare to Kenya, the stage of Nigeria right now have not worsen to such state where their fiat currency has become so worthless and useless.

In Nigeria everyone still accepts Naira here and there, there is no sight of people abandoning the fiat and going to Bitcoin as the only way to make some payment and run businesses.

[EluguHcman]

https://youtu.be/rPVoaYFiIDg?si=0mVpCoA-1_gfTAIO

In Kibera, located in Kenya's capital Nairobi, some roadside vegetable stands are accepting an unconventional form of payment. Residents in the Soweto West area of Kibera, are using Bitcoin as part of a project aimed at bringing financial services to a community that struggles to get access to traditional banking. However, as is typical, experts have cautioned that this approach could carry significant risks.

Governments and it regulatory bodies will always fail in their services and undermines citizens and residence conveniences.
Yeah I like what is happening therein Kenya leaving the residents no choice than to facilitate the use of bitcoin for their transactions since the government has hold them all handicap inaccessible from the conventional services.

This course will trigger wider range of adoptions in the society and also providing convents that can help educate the masses to be familiarized with the use of bitcoin.
I so much love what one of the speaker in the video said that "they don't want to only aim for people to earn in Bitcoin but also facilitating it use case to do and accept it for payments" which is worth what bitcoin is all about.

We just have to hope the authorities does not put bitcoin into law as illegal as a case of massive embracement of the DEFI regarded that they can not not regulate it in those countries that the government does not support it but only allows individuals and private institutions to take their decisions on it  just as that of Kenya.

We have also experienced this Kenya's approach in Nigeria few years back during when rebranding our traditional currency lead to over 90% of the Naira (#) scarcity out of politics leaving everyone on panic. Of course Bitcoin was an admired alternative to do payment while it was limited to those knowledgeable about the technology. The government saw the coming direction and made hast to curb the situation to secure the Naira (#) from loosing scalbility

[BIT-BENDER]

https://youtu.be/rPVoaYFiIDg?si=0mVpCoA-1_gfTAIO

In Kibera, located in Kenya's capital Nairobi, some roadside vegetable stands are accepting an unconventional form of payment. Residents in the Soweto West area of Kibera, are using Bitcoin as part of a project aimed at bringing financial services to a community that struggles to get access to traditional banking. However, as is typical, experts have cautioned that this approach could carry significant risks.

This is good. Bitcoin is not for the Porsche, wealthy or urban areas alone anyone can make use of Bitcoin and use it in their everyday life.
But as much as this news is great it would still make sense to teach this rural areas traders how to secure their Bitcoin, ensure that every transaction made is actually received by them and generally how not to lose money while using Bitcoin.

[Cryptohygenic]

It is a welcomed news  and I think the only difference on this transaction system is it technology and decentralizations.
In other words, the technology system serves more convenience than the banks hence you are custody of your funds and there is no going to be officials to regulate how and when you should make use of your money. Moreover transaction fees even across borders is cheap as processing local transactions.

https://youtu.be/rPVoaYFiIDg?si=0mVpCoA-1_gfTAIO

In Kibera, located in Kenya's capital Nairobi, some roadside vegetable stands are accepting an unconventional form of payment.

Maybe I was truly right with the dream coming through as I watch even the common traders using and accepting bitcoin for payments in that video.

I always tell my anticipating friend to calm down, I understand your anticipation and trust for bitcoin in the long run.

There is a dream that somewhere in the future most countries will embrace and legalize bitcoin for legal tenders and I see even the common using bitcoin for payments.

[hyudien]

https://youtu.be/rPVoaYFiIDg?si=0mVpCoA-1_gfTAIO

In Kibera, located in Kenya's capital Nairobi, some roadside vegetable stands are accepting an unconventional form of payment. Residents in the Soweto West area of Kibera, are using Bitcoin as part of a project aimed at bringing financial services to a community that struggles to get access to traditional banking. However, as is typical, experts have cautioned that this approach could carry significant risks.

It's great to hear people are using Bitcoin as a means of payment, this is what Satoshi intended, and they're using LN through the AfriBit platform, which specifically offers free transaction fees so they aren't burdened with additional transactions, even if their payouts are low. The challenges are volatility and regulation, but with time and mass adoption, volatility will diminish and fears of a sharp Bitcoin crash may never materialize and Bitcoin will truly stabilize.

[m2017]

I guess they have a crappy currency, even crappier than currencies like the dollar or the euro, and people get by as best they can. Apart from being extremely useful for the unbanked. That makes sense. From what I see on the forum, something similar is happening in Nigeria.

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.

[Spaceman1000$]

https://youtu.be/rPVoaYFiIDg?si=0mVpCoA-1_gfTAIO

In Kibera, located in Kenya's capital Nairobi, some roadside vegetable stands are accepting an unconventional form of payment. Residents in the Soweto West area of Kibera, are using Bitcoin as part of a project aimed at bringing financial services to a community that struggles to get access to traditional banking. However, as is typical, experts have cautioned that this approach could carry significant risks.

as an African i find this interesting, first this is a rural area that has no major banking system and for a group of young people to Come up with such a brilliant idea of solving their payment issue using Bitcoin, then it's really a remarkable approach. This is another better way of spreading the knowledge about the usage of bitcoin to most Rural communities in that area,  and to also have to spread the good message concerning bitcoin and it investment side too.

[yhiaali3]

I thought it was a local initiative, but with a little research, I discovered it was a "fintech initiative launched by Afribit Africa in Soweto West (a neighborhood in the Kibera slum of Nairobi), offering Bitcoin to the local community with the goal of improving financial inclusion for residents who lack access to traditional banking services".

This is a slum and lacks proper infrastructure, so I don't know if things will be easy there. They will certainly face some challenges, but I hope they succeed in the end.

[Woodie]

And we thought such places had an issue of access to the internet or basically mobile devices and the alike, but to see that Bitcoin I being used this way is a win for BTC because not only does it prevent BTC being in the hands of a few whales but it will be distributed which is a win for decentralization 

Otherwise seeing crypto being used this way is a win as fiat and other banking services have failed to  reach its people, GG BTC .

[Rikafip]

What risks does using Bitcoin as a primary currency carry?
Honestly, I don’t see any serious risks. The only real risk is short-term volatility, but in the long run, those who use and save Bitcoin will have much greater purchasing power

Volatility is not the serious risk only if you have enough money so you don't care if suddenly bitcoin price goes down for lets say 50%. But, if you are dirt poor, like unfortunately many Kenyans are, even a small drop in price could mean that you and your family won't have enough money to feed your family. And what you gonna do then?

Sure, the same thing can happen (and it does) with fiat, but poor people using bitcoin should be aware of all the risks.