What I saw in Kibera turned my head around
I thought I had Bitcoin figured out. After nearly a decade in crypto and Web3, I saw it mostly as an investment, a speculative asset, and I assumed real usage was limited to geeks and traders. Then I watched a field report filmed in Kibera, Africa's largest slum, by Joe Nakamoto: 'Inside the Bitcoin Revolution in Africa's Largest Slum.' What I saw forced me to question everything.
Kibera is home to around 250,000 people packed into a few streets of corrugated iron roofs and muddy alleys. There are no bank branches, no ATMs, no official addresses, and many residents have no identity papers. Yet in this place, you can pay for everyday things in Bitcoin. This is not a theoretical experiment, a Guinness World Record stunt, or a pilot sponsored by a Web3 company. It is their daily reality.
Paying for chips, haircuts, and even toilets in sats
Street vendors selling chips, fried fish, and donuts accept Bitcoin. So do moto-taxis, barbershops, and even public toilets. Payments are made in satoshis — sats — via the Lightning Network. You scan a QR code, the transaction confirms instantly, and the amount appears on the phone screen. I have used the same method to buy orange juice and clothes at a Bitcoin conference in Las Vegas, but here it is not a novelty; it is how people survive.
In the documentary, a man pays 3,917 sats just to use a public toilet. Young people pick up trash in the streets and get paid in Bitcoin every week. Not in Kenyan shillings that lose value, but in Bitcoin. These are real jobs, paid in real money. No bank account. No KYC. Just a phone, a QR code, and a bit of internet.
How the old system excluded the poor
There was once hope for a different solution: M-Pesa, a mobile money system that let people send and receive money with just a phone number, no bank account needed. For millions of Kenyans, it changed everything. But in 2016, centralization struck again. The government imposed strict rules: mandatory KYC, identity verification, proof of address. Thousands of people were suddenly locked out.
Why? Because they live in a slum. They have no official address. No papers. Some cannot read or handle administrative procedures. The system treated them as outcasts. No more M-Pesa, no more transfers, no more money. Imagine working, wanting to be paid, needing to buy food — but the system says you do not exist. You literally no longer have the right to hold money.
Then Bitcoin came back silently. No permission needed. A wallet, a QR code, and people were included again. This time, no one can take it away from them.
Why Bitcoin works when banks and apps fail
In France and across the West, we often hear that Bitcoin is too complicated, too technical, only for geeks. But explain this: in an African slum, street vendors with little formal education and barely able to read can generate a Lightning invoice, scan a QR code, and receive payment in seconds. Women selling bread explain Bitcoin to their neighbors. Young trash collectors are paid weekly in sats.
Meanwhile, we hesitate. We wait for the perfect entry point, watch videos predicting Bitcoin at one million dollars, spend three hours choosing the cheapest exchange, and optimize our DCA strategy. But the best way to learn Bitcoin is to use it. You do not need to understand the blockchain to benefit from it. In Kibera, people do not have the luxury of understanding every technical detail; they just need a currency that works. They found one, and it does.
A real circular economy, not speculation
The most impressive thing is not that merchants accept Bitcoin. It is that they reuse it, exchange it, pass it on. A kid collects trash, gets paid in sats, then buys donuts from a neighbor. That neighbor pays for community Wi-Fi in Bitcoin. An association runs the internet access, also in Bitcoin. It forms a closed loop — a circular economy in a slum with no bank, no card, no authorization. Just local trust and a universal tool.
As you move through the report, you see signs saying 'Bitcoin accepted here' and printed QR codes taped to walls. People learn fast, not through a 2,000-euro online course from someone who has never done anything in crypto, but because their neighbor uses it, explains it, and it works. Nobody there talks about Web3, NFTs, meme coins, tokenomics, or narratives. They talk about a tool that works — because they cannot afford to pretend.
What this means for Bitcoin's future
So now that you know all this, what do you do? Forget it, or dig deeper while there is still time? For me, Bitcoin is for people, not for institutions. What I saw in Kibera reset my perspective. To understand Bitcoin, stop watching charts and ETF filings. Look at the people who use it the way Satoshi intended — as a medium of exchange for those the system left behind.
Bitcoin will not be adopted despite the poor. It will be adopted because of them. The future may be hidden in QR codes taped to tin shacks, far from our Western vision of finance. That is the Bitcoin I believe in.
Back to the roots of Bitcoin
Kibera is not an anomaly; it is a preview. When centralized systems exclude people, Bitcoin does not ask for permission, paperwork, or proof of address. It only asks for a phone and a willingness to transact. The people of Kibera use it for food, work, and dignity — every single day.
I have been in crypto for a decade, but this report reminded me why Bitcoin was created in the first place. It is not a get-rich-quick scheme. It is money for the people the banks forgot. If you want to understand Bitcoin, do not just watch the price. Use it. And ask yourself: if they can do it there, why are we still hesitating here?