Similar to mobile money services that have grown quite popular on the African continent, South Africa’s Machankura is offering a USSD service that enables users to send bitcoin P2P (Peer-to-Peer) using their phone numbers, the first of its kind in Africa.
According to Wikipedia, USSD also known as Unstructured Supplementary Service Data and sometimes referred to as “quick codes” or “feature codes”, is a communications protocol used by cellular telephones to communicate with the mobile network operator’s computers. A USSD can be used for prepaid callback services, mobile-money services, location-based content services, menu-based information services, and as part of configuring the phone on the network.
A slang term for money used in South Africa inspired the name Machankura. On the lightning network, people can send and receive bitcoin by using the USSD short codes.
As you can see on their website, the service is available in the following countries, Ghana with a short code of ( *920*8333# ), Kenya with a short code of ( *483*8333# ), Malawi with a short code of ( *384*8333# ), Nigeria with a short code of ( *347*8333# ), South Africa with a short code of ( *134*382*382# ) and Uganda with a short code of (*284*8333#)
Kgothatso Ngako, one of Machankura’s developers pointed out that once users dial these shortcodes, they will be presented with a menu where they can select either to learn more about Bitcoin or register an account.
“All you need to register an account is a 5-digit pin, and from there on, you are presented with a different menu – Send and receive Bitcoin,” he said.
Every registered user of Machankura can send and receive Bitcoin to their phone number from other Machankura users or to their Machankura lightning address.
Users can also create a username so they don’t have to provide their phone number in order to receive bitcoin. Additionally, users can transfer Sats (Satoshis), which are smaller bitcoin denominations.
The Machankura team also indicated that the company will be adding payment integrations soon.
During his visit to Nigeria which was part of his Run with Bitcoin tour, Paco De La India was able to try the service. He used it to share some Sats (Satoshis) with a High school teacher in Lagos and he later shared his merriment in a tweet.
Sourced from BitKE