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by SideburnsOfDoom 1462 days ago
> fincial freedom tool for billions of people, the likes of which do not browse Hacker News.

Citation needed (to put it mildly). How is Bitcoin improving on e.g. M-Pesa?

Is there much adoption compared to M-Pesa, outside of fantasy?

If you're not familiar with M-Pesa, then you don't know this subject at all.

> Those people get Bitcoin instantly.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/jun/17/jay-z-bitcoin-...

2 comments

> How is Bitcoin improving on e.g. M-Pesa?

M-Pesa only works in some African countries? And it relies on the benevolence of Vodafone Group and governments?

Nigeria, just one country, has 34 million crypto users. mpesa has 30.

34 > 30

is that much adoption?

I'll assume that like me, you googled that. So, this is technically correct, but:

30 or 34 m users out of 206m isn't the whole market, not close.

Nigeria is an outlier, with low M-Pesa adoption as:

> The reason why this incredible product (M-Pesa) can’t be replicated in Nigeria with such success is perhaps due to what you and I as Nigerians enjoy today, the Nigerian Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS)

https://nairametrics.com/2017/09/26/why-the-m-pesa-miracle-h...

https://nibss-plc.com.ng/

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/nigeria-inter-bank-s...

So to sum up, the huge Nigerian domestic market is covered by a SEPA-like product. It's not a bitcoin thing. Omitting that seems intentionally misleading.