In December 2025, leaders from more than a dozen Bitcoin circular economies across Africa sat in the same room for the first time. They met in Port Louis, Mauritius, and each had taken the model Bitcoin Beach started in El Zonte, El Salvador, and made it work at home.

Zack Dorsey filmed the meeting. "We were there with cameras rolling," he posted on X on October 13. By October 19, five clips from the minidoc were out. The fourth introduces Ayobami Atolagbe, founder of BitKwa in Nigeria. The fifth, shared by Bitcoin Beach, introduces Brindon Mwiine, founder of Bitcoin Kampala in Uganda.

Here's who was in the room, how their projects work and where the conversation goes next.

Africa Bitcoin Circular Economies Summit in Mauritius: Who Was There

From Mauritius to El Zonte: Africa's Bitcoin Circular Economies Summit — photo

Bitcoin Beach and the Federation of Bitcoin Circular Economies (FBCE) co‑hosted the Africa Bitcoin Circular Economies Summit alongside the 2025 Africa Bitcoin Conference. It was a working session where project leaders compared notes on onboarding merchants, teaching, running their communities, finding local liquidity and keeping their projects going for the long term. Blink, Fedi and Machankura joined them.

Bitcoin Beach's report names 15 projects from nine countries:

  • Kenya: Afribit Kibera, Bitbiashara, Bitcoin Chama
  • South Africa: Bitcoin Ekasi, Bitcoin Soweto, Bitcoin Witsand
  • Ghana: Bitcoin Dua, Bitfiasi
  • Mozambique: Bitcoin Dombo, Bitcoin Famba
  • Nigeria: Bitcoin Anambra
  • Malawi: Women of Satoshi Cooperative
  • Burundi: BTC Shule
  • Uganda: Bitcoin Kampala
  • Zambia: Bitcoin Victoria Falls

The report also explains why the meeting happened in Africa. Rejected visas, high travel costs, few flight connections and "unreasonable 'proof of reserve funds' requirements" have kept many African builders out of global Bitcoin events.

A second, bigger gathering followed in January 2026, when builders from more than two dozen projects met at the African Bitcoin Circular Economy Summit in Cape Town.

How African Projects Adapted the El Zonte Model

Each project shaped the idea around its own community. Bitcoin Ekasi, in a township in Mossel Bay, South Africa, took its lead from Bitcoin Beach: residents earn bitcoin, spend it locally and spend it again. In Nairobi, Afribit Kibera built on trust it already had in Kibera, created people who earn in bitcoin before signing up merchants, and taught financial literacy before Bitcoin.

In Burundi, BTC Shule has shops and a hotel in Winteko village taking Lightning payments. These are only a few. Other projects use similar or different approaches, depending on what has worked for their communities. No single model fits every place, so each project has to adapt it at some point.

Many of these projects are also part of the Circular Bitcoin Africa Fund.

Next: The Global Bitcoin Circular Economies Summit in El Zonte

From Mauritius to El Zonte: Africa's Bitcoin Circular Economies Summit — photo

The minidoc clips are coming out ahead of the Global Bitcoin Circular Economies Summit on November 19 and 20, 2026, in El Zonte.

Earlier summits there were closed. This one is open to the public for the first time, with workshops, panels and fireside chats on Bitcoin as money, circular economies, merchants, education, adoption and tools.

Seats are limited, and tickets are on Satlantis.

Sources