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The Bitsacco Template

Jodom Konuko

• 3 min read
This image shows a variant of the Trojan horse on wheels, surrounded by a bold circle.
Bitsacco logo under construction

Bitsacco is a template for how Savings and Credit Cooperative Organisations (SACCOs) and similar financial institutions in Africa, can and should be built on Bitcoin.

Bitsacco on Bitcoin

SACCOs are member owned, community financial institutions. A core committee on behalf of the whole community. The primary mandate of this committee is to secure the SACCO funds. Looking at this structure from the perspective of Bitcoin, SACCOs are Fedimints!

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You could say, all SACCOs should be Fedimints.

Fedimint is a Bitcoin protocol to custody and transact Bitcoin in a community context. It's trust assumptions 1:1 match what we already see implemented as SACCOs.

At Bitsacco, we see Fedimint as the best protocol to deploy as a SACCO, thereby affording members access to Bitcoin through a familiar and trusted financial structure.

An image showing how Bitsacco builds on Fedimint, Lightning and Bitcoin protocols
Bitsacco builds on Fedimint, Lightning and Bitcoin

On trust and safety, the federated security model offered by Fedimint is a significant improvement on similar guarantees offered to members by existing SACCOs.

To prove this case, we are building Bitsacco, and we are building in the open

Bitsacco is Open Source

To showcase and pave the road, we choose to democratise and show how we are building the pieces that make up Bitsacco. We choose to be open source, and to build in public.

You can now see the core elements that power the Bitsacco experience. Our code is hosted on this public GitHub repository.

Bitsacco architecture diagram showing the experience layer and the open source services layer
Bitsacco architecture diagram showing the experience layer and the open source services layer
Swap - this first open source component can be run independently as a service to automate on/off-ramp between any fiat currency and bitcoin eCash within a Fedimint

Bitsacco Recipes

A SACCO offers specific financial products and experiences to it's members. While there are variations across one SACCO to the next, typical experiences include

  • Saving as an individual
  • Saving as a group
  • Borrowing as an individual
  • Borrowing as a group
  • Insurance

Bitsacco open source will contain all the building blocks and example recipes for how to build any of these products.

Bitsacco flagship is a specific instantiation using this recipes on top of a Fedimint Federation instance. It's scoped to serve members in Kenya, and is presently in pilot.
a screen shot of bitsacco.com homepage
a screen shot of bitsacco.com homepage

Support Bitsacco

You can support Bitsacco in the following impactful ways:

  • Provide Feedback: Your insights are invaluable! Share your thoughts on our platform's features, usability, and any areas for improvement. Your feedback helps us create a better experience for all users.
  • Contribute to Development: As an open-source project, we welcome contributions from developers and enthusiasts alike. Whether it's code, documentation, or design, your skills can help shape Bitsacco's future.
  • Spread the Word: Help us grow by sharing Bitsacco with your network. The more people know about us, the stronger our community becomes!

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