ussd

A feature phone. No data plan, no app, no browser. And yet you can receive bitcoin on it from anywhere in the world.
It seems impossible. It isn’t, but there’s a cost—and that cost is exactly what makes the story interesting.
The service is called Machankura, a South African startup that has been making headlines since 2022. It now operates in ten countries: Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. I broke it down step by step, from the key you press to the Bitcoin network.