Welcome to the jungle — the Bitcoin Jungle.
Bitcoin Jungle is a bitcoin round economic system situated within the Puntarenas province of Uvita, Costa Rica, the place over 600 retailers settle for bitcoin. It’s additionally the place Francis Pouliot has referred to as residence 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 workforce at Bull Bitcoin created an online app that works each throughout the Bitcoin Jungle pockets, an open supply, custodial Lightning pockets, and together with different Lightning wallets.
By means of the online app interface, Bitcoin lovers pays 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 pays 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 corresponding to how Strike, Bringin, and Bull Bitcoin allows customers to pay with bitcoin over Lightning to settle fiat payments through the US’ 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 economic system (you should be a resident of the nation to open a SINPE account) and/or for individuals who wish to stay on a bitcoin customary.
“This enables individuals to stay completely 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 Net 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 consumer’s behalf.
Bull Bitcoin processes a whole lot of such funds day by day in Costa Rica. From Might 2024 to Might 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, rely on 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 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 a variety of us stay 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 indignant gasoline station attendant,” he added.
“The success fee is properly over 99% — virtually 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 learn how to navigate Lightning Community liquidity.”
Pouliot added that the toughest a part of protecting the app functioning correctly isn’t operating the Lightning node or plugging within the banking API, although. As a substitute, he stated the largest problem is sourcing the fiat liquidity in a not-so-widely-accepted fiat foreign money just like the colón.
“There is no such thing as a worldwide open market for very low-liquidity fiat currencies and bitcoin,” defined Pouliot.
“Neither Kraken nor Binance or Coinbase listing the colón — there’s no bitcoin-to-colónes order guide. We have to promote that bitcoin to another person to get the fiat in an effort to pay out the fiat service provider,” he added.
Pouliot defined that, as a result of main bitcoin and crypto exchanges don’t listing the colón, he primarily units the alternate fee for it by developing what he calls a “digital bitcoin-to-colón alternate fee.” To calculate this fee, Pouliot components 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 protecting the product accessible to customers.
He confused that sustaining liquidity is actually the largest problem on this course of, and he tipped his hat to others world wide who provide an identical service with a comparable diploma of reliability.
“Everytime you see a bunch of those who have achieved this seamless stream, know that whereas it sounds so easy, it may be very sophisticated on the again finish”, stated 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 workforce behind Tando was influenced by what Bull Bitcoin has accomplished in Costa Rica.
“The Bitcoin Jungle workforce 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 foreign money,” Jason, one among Tando’s cofounders, advised Bitcoin Journal.
“I used to be like, ‘That’s fairly cool.’ We thought that will 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 found out that ‘Yeah, we will 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 pays payments, purchase items, and ship Kenyan shillings with nothing greater than a recipient’s cellphone quantity and a Lightning pockets. (M-PESA solely requires a recipient’s cellphone quantity for cash transfers.)
The consumer 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 economic 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 taking place 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 generally 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 employees time and time once more: “How can I spend this bitcoin?”
“We didn’t have an excellent reply to this query”, stated 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 wished to imitate the expertise of utilizing M-Pesa”, defined Waithira.
“I don’t like considering once I use apps, and I don’t assume our prospects 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 stay 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 residence nation, Ghana.
Ghana’s BitSpenda
Vivid Kportiklah additionally attended the 2024 African Bitcoin Convention and was one among 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 operating. 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 virtually decade-old monetary companies firm that leverages fee infrastructure constructed on Bitcoin and Lightning. Parah and the workforce at Bitnob helped Kportiklah connect with native off-ramps in Africa, together with cellular cash networks in Ghana and Kenya and financial institution accounts in Nigeria. (BitSpenda at present 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 advised Bitcoin Journal.
“Once I advised Bernard on the convention that I wished 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 cellphone), and Onionsman of Bitpension (a bitcoin pension account platform primarily based in Nigeria) have additionally suggested him on the mission.
“I met all these individuals on the convention in Kenya, they usually have been so instrumental in serving to me construct this,” Kportiklah stated.
BitSpenda went stay on March 7 this yr.
To make use of the online app, senders can search for the recipients they wish to ship cash to by cellphone 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, virtually immediately, the bitcoin the consumer 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 acquired 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 by way of.
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 one more essential purpose, as properly.
“Ghanaians are extra keen to make use of Bitcoin due to the worth it provides by way of finance,” defined Kportiklah.
“For instance, in Ghana, in the event 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 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 economic system that Kportiklah serves because the technical advisor for — Bitcoin Dua — virtually no retailers settle for bitcoin.
And he aspires to not solely provide this service to Ghanaians, however to Africans in over a dozen international locations.
“A yr from now, we ought to be in at least 15 African international locations”, stated Kportiklah.
It’s laborious to doubt he’ll accomplish this when, in beneath 4 months, he was capable of roll out BitSpenda in three international locations.
Kportiklah stated he’s at present finishing the required paperwork to make BitSpenda obtainable to members of the remaining 12 international locations he needs to service.
He’ll should hurry, although, provided that the workforce from Tando is trying 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 properly.
A Labor Of Love
The irony in what Pouliot, Waithira, Jason and Kportiklah have created is that they’re much less motivated by making a living 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 sophisticated and there’s a variety of overhead. So, it’s accomplished with the mindset of ‘Certain, perhaps someday 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 contemplate 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 found out a monetization scheme but.
“Our enterprise mannequin is we get bitcoin”, stated 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 price 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 aim for now’s simply to create a device that may assist individuals to spend Bitcoin with ease”, he stated.
Towards the tip of my interview with Pouliot, he highlighted as soon as extra how essential it’s to remember the fact that it takes a variety 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 degree by those that have a strong understanding of the normal monetary system with which they’re interfacing.
“These merchandise are higher constructed as grassroots tasks, as a result of they require information of the banking system on the bottom”, defined Pouliot.
“For this reason we don’t have that many enlargement plans, however I’m blissful to help the opposite native initiatives with expertise 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 world wide who’re efficiently constructing and managing such interfaces:
“Everytime you see an area group of Bitcoiners pulling it off, make sure 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 point out the concepts explored all through the complete difficulty.
