Welcome to the jungle — the Bitcoin Jungle.
Bitcoin Jungle is a bitcoin round financial system positioned within the Puntarenas province of Uvita, Costa Rica, the place over 600 retailers settle for bitcoin. It’s additionally the place Francis Pouliot has known as dwelling for the previous three years.
And the Canadian expat and founding father of Bull Bitcoin needs different Bitcoiner expats who go to the area, and Costa Rica at massive, to really feel how he feels within the nation — welcomed.
Because of this, he and the crew at Bull Bitcoin created an internet app that works each inside the Bitcoin Jungle pockets, an open supply, custodial Lightning pockets, and along side different Lightning wallets.
By way of the online app interface, Bitcoin lovers will pay for nearly something with bitcoin over Lightning, no matter whether or not the service provider or counterparty with whom they’re transacting accepts it.
Utilizing the Bitcoin Jungle app or the web app straight, customers will pay with bitcoin and have their invoice settled within the native fiat forex, colónes, over the nation’s nationwide digital fee system, SINPE (Sistema Nacional de Pagos Electrónicos). (That is akin to how Strike, Bringin, and Bull Bitcoin permits customers to pay with bitcoin over Lightning to settle fiat payments through america’ ACH system, Europe’s SEPA system, and Canada’s Interac system, respectively.)
With greater than 90% of the nation’s residents over the age of 18 utilizing SINPE for day by day funds, the Bull Bitcoin app makes it very simple for nonresidents of Costa Rica to take part within the nation’s digital financial system (you have to be a resident of the nation to open a SINPE account) and/or for many who wish to reside on a bitcoin customary.
“This permits individuals to reside solely off of bitcoin,” Pouliot advised Bitcoin Journal. “Each service provider that accepts fiat funds over SINPE in Costa Rica can now settle for funds from a Bitcoiner.”
How the Bull Bitcoin Costa Rica Internet App Works
When customers use the Bull Bitcoin net app in Costa Rica, they make a fee to a Bull Bitcoin Lightning node on the backend. As soon as Bull Bitcoin receives this fee, it makes a fiat fee through SINPE on the person’s behalf.
Bull Bitcoin processes a whole lot of such funds day by day in Costa Rica. From Could 2024 to Could 2025, Bull Bitcoin processed 32,774 bitcoin-to-fiat conversions.
Pouliot prides himself on ensuring the Bull Bitcoin net app is as reliable as a bank card, as a result of he is aware of that many within the nation, himself included, depend upon it day in and time out.
“For those who’re on the gasoline station in Costa Rica and also you don’t have a bank card and also you simply stuffed up your automobile, you want that Lightning-to-SINPE fee to work as a result of in any other case you’re screwed,” defined Pouliot.
“That is how plenty of us reside right here. We don’t use bank cards. We don’t have money. So, if I am going to the gasoline station, this app higher fucking work. In any other case, I simply stuffed up my automobile and I’ve a really offended gasoline station attendant,” he added.
“The success fee is effectively over 99% — nearly 100%. I don’t even bear in mind any Lightning funds failing. And that’s as a result of the Bull Bitcoin is managed by hardcore Bitcoiners that know the best way to navigate Lightning Community liquidity.”
Pouliot added that the toughest a part of retaining the app functioning correctly isn’t working the Lightning node or plugging within the banking API, although. As a substitute, he mentioned the largest problem is sourcing the fiat liquidity in a not-so-widely-accepted fiat forex just like the colón.
“There isn’t a worldwide open market for very low-liquidity fiat currencies and bitcoin,” defined Pouliot.
“Neither Kraken nor Binance or Coinbase checklist the colón — there’s no bitcoin-to-colónes order e-book. We have to promote that bitcoin to another person to get the fiat with a purpose to pay out the fiat service provider,” he added.
Pouliot defined that, as a result of main bitcoin and crypto exchanges don’t checklist the colón, he basically units the alternate fee for it by establishing what he calls a “digital bitcoin-to-colón alternate fee.” To calculate this fee, Pouliot elements within the colón-to-U.S. greenback fee and the USD-to-bitcoin fee after which provides a 1% gross margin fee to assist Bull Bitcoin not lose cash on the alternate fee whereas nonetheless retaining the product accessible to customers.
He careworn that sustaining liquidity is actually the largest problem on this course of, and he tipped his hat to others around the globe who provide an identical service with a comparable diploma of reliability.
“Everytime you see a gaggle of people who have achieved this seamless move, know that whereas it sounds so easy, it may be very sophisticated on the again finish”, mentioned Pouliot. “That’s why, for instance, I discover Tando so spectacular.”
Kenya’s Tando
Kenya’s model of the Bull Bitcoin app isn’t an internet app, however a correct app, although the crew behind Tando was influenced by what Bull Bitcoin has achieved in Costa Rica.
“The Bitcoin Jungle crew posted a video on their X the place they went right into a gasoline station and spent bitcoin whereas the service provider acquired the native forex,” Jason, certainly one of Tando’s cofounders, advised Bitcoin Journal.
“I used to be like, ‘That’s fairly cool.’ We thought that might in all probability work right here if Safaricom [a Kenyan mobile network operator] has an API,” he added.
“And with just a bit analysis, we discovered that ‘Yeah, we are able to do that.’”
Jason and his co-founder, Sabina Waithira, launched the app in July 2024, enabling Kenyan customers to settle payments in Kenyan shillings over M-PESA (Safaricom helped launch M-PESA), a cellular cash system that operates in additional than a half dozen African nations, whereas paying with bitcoin over Lightning.
Utilizing Tando, customers will pay payments, purchase items, and ship Kenyan shillings with nothing greater than a recipient’s telephone quantity and a Lightning pockets. (M-PESA solely requires a recipient’s telephone quantity for cash transfers.)
The person sends bitcoin from the Lightning pockets of their selecting, Tando’s Lightning node receives the bitcoin, and Tando settles the fiat M-PESA invoice for the sender.
All of this occurs inside seconds.
I do know firsthand as a result of I used Tando whereas I used to be in Kenya for the African Bitcoin Convention in 2024.
Whereas in Kenya, I paid taxi fares and restaurant payments over M-PESA utilizing Tando, one thing I in any other case wouldn’t have been in a position to do, since I wasn’t within the nation lengthy sufficient to get an M-PESA account and fund it with Kenyan shillings. As a short-term customer, it was a lot simpler to spend bitcoin into the native financial system with Tando, which doesn’t require a sign-up course of.
Making Bitcoin Simpler To Spend For Kenyans
Waithira wasn’t accustomed to what was occurring with Lightning-to-fiat funds in Costa Rica earlier than Jason introduced it to her consideration.
What motivated her to carry Tando to life was as a substitute her personal expertise of attempting to spend bitcoin in Kenya.
“I used to work for Bitcoin Dada [a virtual Bitcoin education platform and sisterhood for African women] and would typically receives a commission in bitcoin”, Waithira advised Bitcoin Journal. “It was laborious to spend that Bitcoin straight.”
Whereas Waithira got here up with artistic methods to spend her bitcoin, like tipping waiters and waitresses at eating places with it, she ended up going through the identical query from these service staff time and time once more: “How can I spend this bitcoin?”
“We didn’t have an excellent reply to this query”, mentioned Waithira. “So, that is additionally what impressed Tando.”
Waithira added that “Kenyans are very quick learners and really curious”, which makes it simple to onboard them to Bitcoin and Tando, whereas Jason shared that Kenyans have been primed for Bitcoin, as they’ve already gone by way of the cellular cash revolution with M-PESA over the previous decade and a half.
Waithira additionally famous that she and Jason have aimed to make Tando as simple to make use of as M-PESA is — to not scare customers off with a sophisticated interface.
“We needed to imitate the expertise of utilizing M-Pesa”, defined Waithira.
“I don’t like pondering once I use apps, and I don’t suppose our clients do both”, she added. “We saved this in thoughts as we designed Tando.”
Waithira and Jason apparently did one thing proper, as Tando has been gaining traction with on a regular basis Kenyans slowly and steadily. It now processes over 100 transactions per day.
And past simply serving to extra Kenyans reside on a bitcoin customary, the app impressed a developer on the opposite facet of the African continent to create one thing comparable for the residents of his dwelling nation, Ghana.
Ghana’s BitSpenda
Vibrant Kportiklah additionally attended the 2024 African Bitcoin Convention and was certainly one of many attendees who used Tando whereas in Kenya.
Drawing from the inspiration he felt in Kenya in addition to the connections he made on the convention, the pc programmer headed again to Ghana after the convention with the intention of constructing his personal model of Tando.
Inside a couple of months, Kportiklah had the beta model of a Lightning-to-fiat interface he’d created — BitSpenda — up and working. And he did this thanks partly to assist from seasoned Nigerian Bitcoin entrepreneur Bernard Parah, founder and CEO of Bitnob, whom Kportiklah had met on the convention.
Bitnob is an nearly decade-old monetary companies firm that leverages fee infrastructure constructed on Bitcoin and Lightning. Parah and the crew at Bitnob helped Kportiklah hook up with native off-ramps in Africa, together with cellular cash networks in Ghana and Kenya and financial institution accounts in Nigeria. (BitSpenda at the moment serves the residents of those three nations.)
“It’s very troublesome to connect with these native off-ramps through API as a small fintech,” Kportiklah advised Bitcoin Journal.
“After I advised Bernard on the convention that I needed to construct one thing much like Tando, he gave me a contact to achieve out to in Ghana,” he added.
This contact helped Kportiklah join BitSpenda to Ghana’s cellular cash system.
Kportiklah additionally added that Kgothatso Ngako, the founding father of Machankura (which permits customers to ship bitcoin over Lightning utilizing a function telephone), and Onionsman of Bitpension (a bitcoin pension account platform primarily based in Nigeria) have additionally suggested him on the venture.
“I met all these individuals on the convention in Kenya, and so they have been so instrumental in serving to me construct this,” Kportiklah mentioned.
BitSpenda went reside on March 7 this 12 months.
To make use of the online app, senders can search for the recipients they wish to ship cash to by telephone quantity in Ghana and Kenya and by checking account quantity in Nigeria.
As soon as the sender has discovered the recipient they’re in search of and decides to make a fee, a Lightning bill or QR code is generated, and, nearly immediately, the bitcoin the person sends is transformed into the recipient’s native forex and the transaction is settled.
“Inside 30 seconds, the recipient will obtain the cash, and the sender can see on BitSpenda whether or not the cash was acquired or not,” defined Kportiklah.
If a transaction fails, as has solely occurred in lower than 1% of transaction makes an attempt up to now, Kportiklah can manually ship the fee to the recipient and notify the sender that the transaction has gone by way of.
As of late April 2025, the app had processed hundreds of U.S. {dollars}’ value of transactions. Kportiklah claimed that the app has inspired extra Ghanaians to make use of bitcoin not simply because they really feel that bitcoin is a greater cash than Ghanaian cedis, the nation’s fiat forex, however for an additional necessary cause, as effectively.
“Ghanaians are extra prepared to make use of Bitcoin due to the worth it presents when it comes to finance,” defined Kportiklah.
“For instance, in Ghana, in case you preserve your cash in your financial institution accounts, on the finish of the month, the financial institution will cost charges, however this isn’t the case when individuals use bitcoin as a substitute of their financial institution,” he added.
“Some individuals additionally simply see bitcoin as a forex that has extra worth as in comparison with the Ghanaian cedi and select to make use of it for that cause.”
Kportiklah additionally famous that an app like BitSpenda is especially useful in Ghana, the place exterior of the Bitcoin round financial system that Kportiklah serves because the technical advisor for — Bitcoin Dua — nearly no retailers settle for bitcoin.
And he aspires to not solely provide this service to Ghanaians, however to Africans in over a dozen nations.
“A 12 months from now, we must be in at least 15 African nations”, mentioned Kportiklah.
It’s laborious to doubt he’ll accomplish this when, in underneath 4 months, he was in a position to roll out BitSpenda in three nations.
Kportiklah mentioned he’s at the moment finishing the required paperwork to make BitSpenda out there to members of the remaining 12 nations he needs to service.
He’ll need to hurry, although, on condition that the crew from Tando is trying to broaden into Uganda quickly and {that a} new net app constructed by a Senegalese developer — Banxaas — now permits bitcoin-to-fiat funds in Senegal, as effectively.
A Labor Of Love
The irony in what Pouliot, Waithira, Jason and Kportiklah have created is that they’re much less motivated by earning money than they’re by making bitcoin cash.
“This isn’t a worthwhile endeavor”, deadpanned Pouliot about Bull’s Bitcoin Costa Rica net app.
“Really, this has a really excessive value for us — it’s very sophisticated and there’s plenty of overhead. So, it’s achieved with the mindset of ‘Certain, possibly sooner or later it’s going to be worthwhile,’ however we do that extra to be a part of the Bitcoin Jungle mission of sustaining infrastructure to facilitate Lightning”, he added.
“To not say that it’s going to by no means be a worthwhile enterprise. I truly encourage individuals to think about that to be a probably worthwhile enterprise. However at scale, it’s actually laborious to tug off.”
Neither the founders of Tando nor Kportiklah have discovered a monetization scheme but.
“Our enterprise mannequin is we get bitcoin”, mentioned Jason half-jokingly.
He added that he and Waithira have fielded plenty of requests for different wallets who wish to use their Safaricom API, and that they’re contemplating charging a payment for these different wallets to take action. This doesn’t appear to be as a lot of a precedence for them as getting Kenyans to view bitcoin as a medium of alternate, although.
Kportiklah is of the identical thoughts:
“The objective for now could be simply to create a instrument that can assist individuals to spend Bitcoin with ease”, he mentioned.
Towards the tip of my interview with Pouliot, he highlighted as soon as extra how necessary it’s to understand that it takes plenty of work from devoted Bitcoiners to tug off the “with ease” half, noting that initiatives like these are greatest created and managed on the native stage by those that have a stable understanding of the normal monetary system with which they’re interfacing.
“These merchandise are higher constructed as grassroots initiatives, as a result of they require data of the banking system on the bottom”, defined Pouliot.
“That is why we don’t have that many enlargement plans, however I’m glad to help the opposite native initiatives with know-how and recommendation”, he added earlier than noting that he thinks what NostrPIX, one other Lightning-to-fiat fee app, is doing in Brazil is cool.
He concluded by as soon as extra providing reward for his colleagues around the globe who’re efficiently constructing and managing such interfaces:
“Everytime you see a neighborhood group of Bitcoiners pulling it off, make certain that they’re fucking superior and that it wasn’t simple to do.”
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This piece is an article featured within the newest Print version of Bitcoin Journal, The Lightning Problem. We’re sharing it right here to indicate the concepts explored all through the total concern.