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 giant, to really feel how he feels within the nation — welcomed.
Because of this, he and the group at Bull Bitcoin created an online app that works each throughout the Bitcoin Jungle pockets, an open supply, custodial Lightning pockets, and at the side of different Lightning wallets.
By the net app interface, Bitcoin fanatics 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 net app straight, customers will pay with bitcoin and have their invoice settled within the native fiat foreign money, colónes, over the nation’s nationwide digital fee system, SINPE (Sistema Nacional de Pagos Electrónicos). (That is similar to how Strike, Bringin, and Bull Bitcoin allows 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 individuals who wish to reside on a bitcoin customary.
“This permits folks to reside completely off of bitcoin,” Pouliot instructed 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 internet 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 bunch 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 internet 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.
“In the event you’re on the gasoline station in Costa Rica and also you don’t have a bank card and also you simply crammed up your automotive, 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 a whole lot of us reside right here. We don’t use bank cards. We don’t have money. So, if I’m going to the gasoline station, this app higher fucking work. In any other case, I simply crammed up my automotive and I’ve a really offended gasoline station attendant,” he added.
“The success price is nicely 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 how one can navigate Lightning Community liquidity.”
Pouliot added that the toughest a part of retaining the app functioning correctly isn’t operating the Lightning node or plugging within the banking API, although. As an alternative, he mentioned the largest problem is sourcing the fiat liquidity in a not-so-widely-accepted fiat foreign money just like the colón.
“There isn’t any worldwide open market for very low-liquidity fiat currencies and bitcoin,” defined Pouliot.
“Neither Kraken nor Binance or Coinbase record 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 the intention to pay out the fiat service provider,” he added.
Pouliot defined that, as a result of main bitcoin and crypto exchanges don’t record the colón, he basically units the change price for it by establishing what he calls a “digital bitcoin-to-colón change price.” To calculate this price, Pouliot components within the colón-to-U.S. greenback price and the USD-to-bitcoin price after which provides a 1% gross margin price to assist Bull Bitcoin not lose cash on the change price 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 supply the same service with a comparable diploma of reliability.
“Everytime you see a bunch of people who have achieved this seamless circulation, know that whereas it sounds so easy, it may be very difficult 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 online app, however a correct app, although the group behind Tando was influenced by what Bull Bitcoin has finished in Costa Rica.
“The Bitcoin Jungle group posted a video on their X the place they went right into a gasoline station and spent bitcoin whereas the service provider obtained the native foreign money,” Jason, certainly one of Tando’s cofounders, instructed Bitcoin Journal.
“I used to be like, ‘That’s fairly cool.’ We thought that may most likely 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 international locations, 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 capable of 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 aware of 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 an alternative 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 generally receives a commission in bitcoin”, Waithira instructed Bitcoin Journal. “It was onerous 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 dealing with the identical query from these service staff time and time once more: “How can I spend this bitcoin?”
“We didn’t have an amazing 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 via 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 an advanced interface.
“We needed to imitate the expertise of utilizing M-Pesa”, defined Waithira.
“I don’t like considering after I use apps, and I don’t assume our prospects do both”, she added. “We stored 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 aspect of the African continent to create one thing related for the residents of his dwelling nation, Ghana.
Ghana’s BitSpenda
Brilliant 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 number of months, Kportiklah had the beta model of a Lightning-to-fiat interface he’d created — BitSpenda — up and operating. And he did this thanks partially 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 group 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 presently serves the residents of those three international locations.)
“It’s very troublesome to hook up with these native off-ramps through API as a small fintech,” Kportiklah instructed Bitcoin Journal.
“Once I instructed 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 folks 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 net app, senders can lookup 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 searching for 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 foreign money 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 obtained or not,” defined Kportiklah.
If a transaction fails, as has solely occurred in lower than 1% of transaction makes an attempt to this point, Kportiklah can manually ship the fee to the recipient and notify the sender that the transaction has gone via.
As of late April 2025, the app had processed 1000’s of U.S. {dollars}’ price 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 foreign money, however for an additional necessary purpose, as nicely.
“Ghanaians are extra prepared to make use of Bitcoin due to the worth it affords when it comes to finance,” defined Kportiklah.
“For instance, in Ghana, in the event you maintain 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 folks use bitcoin as an alternative of their financial institution,” he added.
“Some folks additionally simply see bitcoin as a foreign money that has extra worth as in comparison with the Ghanaian cedi and select to make use of it for that purpose.”
Kportiklah additionally famous that an app like BitSpenda is especially useful in Ghana, the place outdoors 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 supply this service to Ghanaians, however to Africans in over a dozen international locations.
“A 12 months from now, we must be in a minimum of 15 African international locations”, mentioned Kportiklah.
It’s onerous to doubt he’ll accomplish this when, in beneath 4 months, he was capable of roll out BitSpenda in three international locations.
Kportiklah mentioned he’s presently finishing the required paperwork to make BitSpenda accessible to members of the remaining 12 international locations he needs to service.
He’ll need to hurry, although, provided that the group from Tando is seeking to develop into Uganda quickly and {that a} new internet app constructed by a Senegalese developer — Banxaas — now allows bitcoin-to-fiat funds in Senegal, as nicely.
A Labor Of Love
The irony in what Pouliot, Waithira, Jason and Kportiklah have created is that they’re much less motivated by getting cash than they’re by making bitcoin cash.
“This isn’t a worthwhile endeavor”, deadpanned Pouliot about Bull’s Bitcoin Costa Rica internet app.
“Really, this has a really excessive value for us — it’s very difficult and there’s a whole lot of overhead. So, it’s finished with the mindset of ‘Certain, perhaps 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’ll by no means be a worthwhile enterprise. I really encourage folks to think about that to be a doubtlessly worthwhile enterprise. However at scale, it’s actually onerous 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 quite a lot of requests for different wallets who wish to use their Safaricom API, and that they’re contemplating charging a charge 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 change, although.
Kportiklah is of the identical thoughts:
“The objective for now’s simply to create a device that can assist folks 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 remember the fact that it takes a whole lot 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 strong understanding of the standard monetary system with which they’re interfacing.
“These merchandise are higher constructed as grassroots tasks, as a result of they require data of the banking system on the bottom”, defined Pouliot.
“For this reason we don’t have that many growth plans, however I’m completely happy 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, ensure 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.
