Imagine walking into a large space buzzing with 126 developers, the air thick with coffee, ambition, and the hum of laptops.
- It’s not just a conference—it’s a reunion of strangers turned family, united by a shared mission to reshape Africa’s financial future.
- From July 22nd to 25th, the Bitnob Dev Gathering in Uganda wasn’t your typical tech meetup.
It was a four-day whirlwind of ideas, code, and audacious dreams that dared developers to outbuild borders, currencies, and even governments.
If you missed it, buckle up—we did a recap.
Day 1: Bitcoin and USDT—Africa’s Financial Rails
Nonso Amadi took the stage like a preacher of possibility,
- Breaking down Bitcoin and USDT with zero fluff.
- Forget cryptic crypto jargon—these are tools for real problems: cross-border payments that don’t take hours, savings that don’t vanish with inflation, transfers that hit in minutes.
“Bitcoin is the backbone; USDT is the shield,” he said,
- and the room nodded like they’d just cracked the code to Africa’s financial future.
By lunch, developers weren’t just scribbling notes—they were sketching solutions.
- A fintech engineer from Kampala whispered to another dev, “I’m thinking of building something with this today.”
- The vibe? Electric.
- The mission? Clear: Use these networks to solve problems now.
Day 2: Bitnob API—Your Fintech Rocket Fuel
If Day 1 lit the spark, Day 2 was a rocket launch.
- Samuel Kayandra, the API guru, played pilot, guiding the crowd through Bitnob’s API like a tour of a spaceship’s cockpit.
- From payments to remittances to merchant solutions, he demoed how to build scalable fintech products with just a few lines of code.
Developers fired up Postman, their fingers itching to hack. One attendee, a self-taught leet coder from Jinja, grinned: “I didn’t know one could build this things in a few days.”
The session wasn’t just a tutorial—it was a challenge.
- “What’s stopping you?” Samuel asked.
- Nothing.
By the end, half the room was dreaming up modern alternatives to M-Pesa & PayPal for international payments.
Day 3: Hackathon—Ideas Meet Reality
Day 3 was where talk became action.
- Seventeen teams, fueled by ambition and big ideas, dove into a hackathon to build solutions for Africa’s toughest challenges using Bitnob’s API.
- Mentors roamed, nudging teams to think on scale, user experience, and impact.
- All hands on keys. No one asked: Can you see my screen?
One team built a tool to make sending money to Uganda as easy as sending a WhatsApp message using stablecoins as payment method. Another tackled currency depreciation with a savings app that felt like magic. The energy was chaotic, collaborative, and unapologetically ambitious.
Day 4: The Showdown—Champions League of Code
Picture the tension of a Champions League final, but with laptops instead of soccer balls.
- Day 4 was the grand finale.
- Each team had five minutes to pitch their prototype to judges who cared more about impact.
- Storytelling was key—many could build, but who could sell the vision?
Three projects stole the show:
- Save Sente (1st Place): A savings app that converts mobile money to USDT in a snap, protecting Ugandans from currency swings as easily as topping up airtime. The crowd roared.
- NovaSwap (1st Runner-up): A WooCommerce plugin that enables any small business to accept Bitcoin and USDT payments, powered by Bitnob’s Lightning and stablecoin tech. Shop owners, take note.
- Mpola Pay (2nd Runner-up): A “set it and forget it” payment scheduler for bills, subscriptions, and P2P transfers. Automation never looked so good.
The applause wasn’t polite—it was thunderous. These weren’t just prototypes; they were glimpses of Africa’s fintech future, built in less than 24 hours.
The Takeaway: More Than Code
Over 100 developers left the 4-day hackerspace with more than swag bags—they carried tools to weave stablecoins into Africa’s financial fabric.
They’re now armed to build apps that solve real problems, fast.
And this? It’s just the start.
Ready to join the revolution? Dive into Bitnob’s API and start building. The next gathering’s coming—will you be there?
