I set out to bring one Kisumu merchant onto bitcoin every week. Between 8 and 12 November 2026, eight said yes.

That was the kTown pilot. This post closes it, thanks everyone who made it possible, and opens the next chapter: learning Bitcoin open source in public.

The pilot: 8 shops in 5 days

kTown is a QR code that lets any shop take bitcoin. A customer pays in sats from any Lightning wallet and the shop receives shillings on M-Pesa. Nothing changes at the till.

# Shop Type
01 Mama Jobu Hotel physical
02 Kisumu Explorers online, run by Zone01 Kisumu students
03 Austine Kicks online, run by a Zone01 Kisumu student
04 Lake Basin Mall Hotel physical
05 Mall Café physical
06 Debs Beauty Hub physical
07 Judphil Cyber physical
08 Edu Shop physical

The six physical shops each got a QR poster: designed, printed, hot-press laminated so it survives rain, flour and busy hands, and carried across town to the counter. The two online shops use digital QR codes for now, because the first phase needed physical shops.

Each poster cost me about $1. Merchants paid nothing. I had no sponsor and made no paid posts. At the physical shops I paid first with my own sats, so every owner saw the shillings arrive.

Thank you to every one of these shops. You took a chance on something new, and you move Kisumu's economy forward every day.

Earlier stories: shops 1–2 · shop 4 · shop 5

What the pilot taught me

Shops are ready. Every owner was amazed that it works and asked why more people don't use it.

The missing half is the spender. Kisumu needs people who earn bitcoin, and local builders who make tools for local businesses. Posters can't fix that. Skills can.

The next chapter: open source

I'm now concentrating on open-source skills: learning to review the code that powers bitcoin, alongside my apprenticeship, so I can contribute to open source full time.

My goal is a Btrust Starter Grant to work full time on LND, the Lightning Network Daemon. The bar is clear: at least five merged code pull requests on one project, careful reviews of other people's work, help in the community, a six-month plan, and two people on the project who vouch for me.

Day 4 of 234

I follow a Builder Path: one verified deliverable a day, from 9 November 2026 to the 2027 grant window. Every day is proven by my public GitHub activity. Nothing is ticked by hand. Today is day 4 of 234, in the foundations phase.

  • Nov–Dec: foundations (Git, the terminal, enough Go to read LND, enough C++ to build and test Bitcoin Core), and apply to BOSS or a Builders pathway when it opens.
  • Jan–Feb: tested reviews every week.
  • Feb–Apr: issues and small pull requests, with feedback from two mentors.
  • Apr–Jun: merged pull requests, a proposal and the application.

My week: Monday to Friday, the day's task. Saturday: reflect, do one lab drill, and teach one merchant, so kTown keeps growing. Sunday: rest.

Where I'm learning

  • LND (lightningnetwork/lnd), my focus
  • Bitcoin Core (bitcoin/bitcoin), through the PR Review Club
  • Bitcoin Dev Kit (bitcoindevkit/bdk)
  • BOLTs (lightning/bolts)
  • Bitcoin Optech
  • Bitcoin Design Guide

I've already shipped 24 merged pull requests to Minmo's payment-channels, including African payment corridor schemas.

My lab

A Mac running Bitcoin Core and LND built from source, regtest and signet nodes to break things safely, and a small Lightning node on mainnet. Regtest first, signet next, mainnet last and small.

The honest part

The hard thing right now is understanding a large codebase, reading pull requests and testing them properly. My review routine is simple: build the change, run its tests, try to break it on regtest, read what others already said, then post exactly what I ran and what I saw. Ask, don't guess.

It's slow at first. We all start somewhere.

How you can help

I'm open to any open-source project as I build these skills.

  • Collaborate: building on bitcoin or Lightning? Let's build together.
  • Sponsor: support my open-source time and the next kTown shops in sats: https://altradits.com/donate.html
  • Mentor or review: point me to good first issues, or review my work.
  • Invite me in: if you maintain a repo with good first issues, docs to test, or pull requests that need careful reviewers, I'll show up, test, and report honestly.
  • Have a shop? Register free: https://altradits.com/ktown/

Follow all 234 days: https://altradits.com/tracker/ · GitHub: https://github.com/altradits

Not sponsored. No paid posts.

Watch and follow