When Tanzania shut down the internet for five days during its October 29 election, Ndege Kereu’s mother was stranded with no cash and no way to reach her son, who was on the Kenyan side. Every attempt Kereu made to send her money through M-PESA or cross-border remittance apps was either too expensive or failed outright. The digital systems that support instant connectivity between families across borders had suddenly gone silent.
“My mother got caught in the protests,” Kereu told . “She had not been paid and had no money. After many calls, we finally reached her when she landed at the Kenya-Tanzania border called Isebania.”
For almost one week, Tanzania’s internet shutdown did more than silence social media. It froze mobile wallets, halted cross-border payments, and crippled fintech platforms like NALA and Wise, reminding everyone just how fragile Africa’s digital finance revolution remains.
Kereu eventually found a workaround. He turned to Bitcoin.
“Luckily, I had taught her how to save via Bitcoin,” he said. “She had some funds via Wallet of Satoshi, and we, too, had something saved. We were able to send her via Tando and paid the guys who helped her move safely [across the border].”
Tando, a Kenyan app that converts Bitcoin into mobile money through M-PESA, became the family’s bridge. It was an improvised fix for a problem that most fintech founders are reluctant to discuss: what happens when the internet disappears.
While mobile money in Tanzania did not completely shut down—with basic services like SMS and USSD still working—calls, however, were down for most of the period. Yet, for cross-border transfers and larger remittances to Tanzania, M-PESA proved too expensive and slow. That’s why Kereu leaned on Bitcoin.
“We turned to Bitcoin mainly to cut costs,” said Kereu. “Transferring 10,000 [Kenyan] shillings through M-PESA can cost up to 20 bob, while Lightning Bitcoin transactions are a fraction of that.”
The Tanzanian outage wasn’t the first of its kind, but it was among the most economically disruptive. For hours, fintech platforms that handle millions of dollars in daily remittances were paralysed. NALA, a remittance startup used across East Africa and the UK, went dark for 18 hours. For customers, it meant no money for essentials. For fintechs, it meant confronting the limits of their own success story.
Benjamin Fernandes, NALA’s CEO, summed up the frustration in a post on X.
“In Africa, it’s not just tweets that stop,” he said. “It’s mobile money, deliveries, jobs, hospitals, startups, tech, and livelihoods. Shutting down the internet during elections doesn’t silence people—it frustrates them even more.”
Mobile money and remittance platforms have thrived because internet access has expanded across the continent, allowing people to move funds instantly between cities and countries. But few systems are designed to function when that access collapses.
The blackout forces a broader reflection. Can fintechs truly build systems resilient enough to survive a political shutdown, or must they accept that building in Africa will always be political?
“It’s a question worth asking because the political scene here in Africa is very unpredictable,” said a fintech industry operator who requested anonymity to speak freely. “But the world revolves around the internet, sadly.”
Yet a few startups are experimenting with building for a scenario like Tanzania’s. Machankura, a South Africa-based startup, allows users to send and receive Bitcoin through SMS and USSD codes, enabling cross-border payments without internet, through feature phones. The service works in ten countries, including Tanzania, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia, Nigeria, and Kenya. For people living in areas prone to shutdowns or poor connectivity, it offers a way to keep transactions going through simple dial codes.
Machankura’s solution, while innovative, still has one critical final lap oversight: people can’t spend their Bitcoins without the internet. This gap creates a frustrating dead end for recipients who have been locked out of other crypto remittance platforms that are too confusing to use.
“The big problem comes when you want to spend,” Kereu said. “You need the internet. The internet in Tanzania was closed. I texted her [my mum] but got no replies.”
When Kereu finally reached his mother at the Isebania border, he encouraged her to try Yellow Card, a stablecoin payments app that operates across several African countries, hoping it would be easier to use. But the lack of accessibility exposed another problem.
“It’s good for tech-savvy people, but old people want simple stuff. Wallet of Satoshi has a direct send and receive, so when I asked her to send what she had, we converted it to shillings. She only needed my LNURL,” said Kereu, referring to a Lightning address that works like an email link for instant Bitcoin payments.
The usability gap is where new opportunities are emerging. Some fintechs and crypto startups are moving away from app-first design and leaning on community-led, agent-driven networks. For example, Accrue has built peer-to-peer (P2P) systems where vetted agents onboard users and help them convert between fiat and stablecoins offline. It mirrors the mobile money model that took root in East Africa two decades ago, bringing a human layer to digital finance.
But even these models depend on the broader ecosystem. Agents need connectivity to settle balances. Users need power to charge their phones. When either fails, the network stalls. The fintech industry operator warned that even seemingly offline systems are not entirely immune.
“There’s nothing a government cannot do,” said the fintech operator. “For SMS, the mobile network provider can view all messages that pass through. Unless a separate, encrypted messaging protocol is created, it remains unreliable. Governments can just as easily order providers to shut SMS services down, too.”
He also pointed to the need for builders to think beyond existing infrastructure and explore alternative ways to access the internet.
“From the newer smartphones, like iPhone 14 and above, there’s already a satellite internet feature that allows people to send small data packets even when there is no coverage,” he explained. “Eventually, other phone makers will follow.”
The technology is still early, but it hints at a possible path forward. For fintechs working in politically volatile regions, satellite connections could offer a layer of resilience where traditional networks fall short.
However, this yet leads to another conundrum. Most of these new capabilities are locked within expensive smartphones that many Africans cannot afford. In a continent where feature phones still dominate, building solutions that depend on high-end devices risks widening the very gap these innovations are meant to close.
