Bitcoin Is Quietly Transforming the Economy of Kenya’s Largest Slum

Bitcoin is quietly taking root in Kibera, Kenya’s largest informal settlement (or slum). In July 2025, more than 200 locals now use BTC as a working medium of exchange for everyday transactions, making it an interesting case study for BTC being adopted primarily as a medium of exchange.

At the center of Kibera’s Bitcoin movement is Ronnie Mdawida, founder of Afribit, launched in 2019 to onboard locals and use BTC for access to clean water, small business support and financial planning.

Built without government aid or outside funding, Afribit uses peer-to-peer education to show how Bitcoin can serve as a tool for dignity, daily spending and meeting basic needs within a young circular economy.

How Afribit’s Grassroots Bitcoin Education Is Transforming Kibera

In an interview with CCN, Mdawida explains how Afribit “started by onboarding a few people, less than 20 people. After a while we reached 200 people and then from there we started onboarding merchants.”

In 2025, Afribit is teaching people how to use Bitcoin as a medium of exchange, not just to hold, but to spend, save and circulate.

Top Picks for Bitcoin

Mdawida explains how “we started with the washrooms, we started with the garbage guys, we started with those who sell vegetables, chips, meat. It started growing, people started understanding Bitcoin.”

Everyday participants in Kibera’s Bitcoin economy include:

Garbage collectors
Kiosk owners
Barbers
Community washroom operators
Street vendors
Local artists

Why Bitcoin Education Works in Kibera: Simplicity, Peer Trust, and Everyday Use

Afribit is training people on how to download a wallet, receive sats, and pay for goods and services using apps like Blink and Tando.

Mdawida explains that Bitcoin is actually being used in Kibera to buy everyday needs like food, paying for showers and a way to earn income through local jobs. Residents are learning how to receive, store and spend BTC through peer-to-peer education using mobile phones and QR codes.

“I don’t want to be the only one doing Bitcoin. I want to duplicate myself and the knowledge. Not to be the one leading everything” explains Mdwaida. By teaching others to teach, the model becomes sustainable.

“Now everyone is teaching each other. It’s not about me.”

This decentralized approach reflects the ethos of Bitcoin itself and there is no single point of control, just shared tools and information.

“If someone asks me something, I don’t give them the answer. I tell them, go ask this guy, he knows it now. We’re building each other.”

Bitcoin and Circular Economies: How Football Teams and Everyday Life in Kibera Run on BTX

“We have a football team that we’ve onboarded on Bitcoin. They do everything in Bitcoin. From buying uniforms, to playing, to buying snacks.” He later went on to say that “now other teams are watching and saying, ‘We want to do the same thing,” emphasizes Mdawida.

How the football teams in Kibera are using Bitcoin:

Buying uniforms
Paying for match participation
Purchasing snacks and water
Funding community activities

Current everyday uses of Bitcoin in Kibera:

Local merchants accepting BTC
Young people earning BTC through small jobs
Sporting events and team expenses paid with sats.

The focus is on practical use rather than speculation. Mdawida explains how “most people here don’t care about price. They care what it can do. Can I buy food? Can I pay for water?”

How Bitcoin Restores Dignity in Marginalized Communities

“They say Africa is poor. But we are poor. We don’t have opportunities. But we have ideas. We have talent. We have education,” says Mdawida, pushing back against common narratives. Narratives such as the belief that African communities lack the capacity for innovation or self-reliance without foreign aid.

For him, Bitcoin is not a foreign solution imposed from outside, but a system that fits the realities of the community.

“Bitcoin for me is not just about the money. It’s about being able to think, to speak, to act with freedom.”

How Afribit’s Tumaini Dada Program Empowers Women Through Bitcoin

“We have a program called Tumaini Dada, ‘Hope for a Sister.’ We started teaching the young women how to save in Bitcoin, how to use Bitcoin, and how to build small businesses.”

Mdawida states that “in our society here in Kenya, the women are the ones who take care of the money, they are the ones who run the households.”

Afribit recognizes this and brings women to the center of Bitcoin adoption. Mdawida explains that “we have women now who are saving in Bitcoin. They didn’t even know how to save before.”

Tumaini Dada helps women in many ways, including:

Learn basic saving habits
Build small businesses
Gain independence over personal income
Use BTC as a daily financial tool

Through hands-on training and savings strategies, Afribit and Mdawida are helping women build sovereignty over their income, sat by sat.

Teaching the Next Generation: Bitcoin as a New Financial Language in Kibera

Mdawida explains how Bitcoin is “a generational shift. We want our children to learn this language.”

Teaching Bitcoin early means planting seeds of financial literacy that compound over time.

In a world moving toward digital cash, Kibera isn’t getting left behind. Instead, Mdawida explains how Kibera “is now learning the value of money. The value of saving. The value of time.”

How Local Authorities Are Warming Up to Bitcoin in Kibera

When asked about government interference, Mdawida explained how “the government has started asking questions. The local administration is coming to us, asking, what is this Bitcoin thing you’re doing?”

The organic growth of Bitcoin as a medium of exchange is gaining attention beyond Kibera.

Mdawida explained how “even the government is starting to see. Like, they are not seeing BTC as a threat. The other day, one of the local administrators told me, ‘Can you even come and do a Bitcoin mural here? Paint a wall? It’s good for the youth.’ So the government appears to be open to it, they’re seeing it in a positive way.”

In Kibera, Bitcoin Is About Dignity, Freedom, and Building Without Permission

In Kibera, Bitcoin isn’t just about saving money but more about how BTC is about restoring dignity and enabling freedom. In a place where trust in traditional systems is low,

Bitcoin is quietly returning to its original purpose, being used as money, right where it’s needed most: among the unbanked in places once thought unlikely, supporting everyday transactions, savings and even remittances.

Afribit BTC Education

Finally, Mdawida explained how “we don’t need to ask anyone. Bitcoin gives us the freedom to build what we need, how we need it,” says Mdawida.

For Mdawida and the Afribit community, Bitcoin isn’t theoretical but a working medium of exchange system slowly embedding itself in daily life, used to earn, spend, save and share knowledge.