Bitcoin Journal
From the Bitcoin Jungle to the Sea, Let Lightning be Free!
Welcome to the jungle — the Bitcoin Jungle.
Bitcoin Jungle is a bitcoin round economic 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 referred to as dwelling for the previous three years.
And the Canadian expat and founding father of Bull Bitcoin desires 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 internet app that works each throughout the Bitcoin Jungle pockets, an open supply, custodial Lightning pockets, and along with 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 online app instantly, 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 corresponding to how Strike, Bringin, and Bull Bitcoin permits 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 each 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 need to dwell on a bitcoin commonplace.
“This enables folks to dwell 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 Net 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 tons of of such funds each 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, rely on it day in and time out.
“If you happen to’re on the gasoline station in Costa Rica and also you don’t have a bank card and also you simply stuffed 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 loads of us dwell 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 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 tips on how to navigate Lightning Community liquidity.”
Pouliot added that the toughest a part of protecting the app functioning correctly isn’t working 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 forex 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 listing the colón — there’s no bitcoin-to-colónes order ebook. 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 basically units the trade price for it by developing what he calls a “digital bitcoin-to-colón trade 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 trade price whereas nonetheless protecting the product accessible to customers.
He burdened that sustaining liquidity is really the largest problem on this course of, and he tipped his hat to others around the globe who provide the same service with a comparable diploma of reliability.
“Everytime you see a bunch of those that have achieved this seamless circulate, 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 internet app, however a correct app, although the group behind Tando was influenced by what Bull Bitcoin has executed 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 forex,” Jason, one in every 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 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 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 economic system with Tando, which doesn’t require a sign-up course of.
Making Bitcoin Simpler To Spend For Kenyans
Waithira wasn’t conversant in 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 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 typically receives a commission in bitcoin”, Waithira instructed Bitcoin Journal. “It was arduous to spend that Bitcoin instantly.”
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 employees time and time once more: “How can I spend this bitcoin?”
“We didn’t have an awesome 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 means 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 considering after I use apps, and I don’t assume 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 dwell on a bitcoin commonplace, the app impressed a developer on the opposite aspect of the African continent to create one thing comparable for the residents of his dwelling nation, Ghana.
Ghana’s BitSpenda
Vivid Kportiklah additionally attended the 2024 African Bitcoin Convention and was one in every 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 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 group at Bitnob helped Kportiklah connect with native off-ramps in Africa, together with cellular cash networks in Ghana and…
