Kipochi lets you use Bitcoin in Uganda, & elsewhere

I just stumbled upon this amazing feature called ‘Kipochi.’ Kipochi which stands for wallet in Swahili lets you make transactions using Bitcoin, some of you might ask yourself what the heck Bitcoin is? Bitcoin is a virtual currency that you can use to buy and sell stuff on the internet. Bitcoin is non-government managed, secure, transparent and is volatile however its not affected by inflation. However if you are making global transactions or want to send money without being tracked feel free to use bitcoin.

Kipochi is a Bitcoin Wallet, its basically an internet service that works on all internet enabled mobile phones, so you can make transactions using Uganda shilling, Kenyan shilling, USD and the website will use your geolocation or a drop down menu to select your country between Kenya, Uganda or select English, French or Spanish version. It will require you to verify your email address and mobile phone number.

Kipochi shows you the current exchange rate of the Bitcoin with the Ksh or Ugx or US dollar, at the moment the milliBitcoin was worth 311.26 Ushs, the MilliBitcoin is the preferred primary transaction unit because it is easy to manage. A milliBitcoin is about 0.001 of a Bitcoin.

Kipochi however limits the number of Bitcoin transactions to 1 Bitcoin a day. Dont get worried if you think Kipochi is bank, its an open organisation/wallet that lets you use Bitcoins . Kipochi doesn’t charge you to actually use the service however Bitcoin charges you about 155.63 USh in transaction fees.

1 Bitcoin is currently worth 311,264.87 USh. This is way to much to use for normal day to day transactions. The bitcoin currency supports transactions down to 0.00000001 Bitcoin. The Bitcoin community has decided that MilliBit or 0.001 is the most useful unit in the immediate future.

So what can you use a Bitcoin for in Uganda? Well you can exchange it for Uganda shilling, send and recieve money globally, you can also invest in Bitcoin as it fluctuates. Kipochi allows you to send money from M-Pesa to Airtel to Orange to Yo if you are in Kneya. You can actually buy Bitcoin using M-pesa and send Bitcoins using phone numbers. Yeah Bitcoin IDS can be a struggle.