Inspiration
Across Africa, millions of small businesses, market traders and independent merchants rely on daily transactions to keep their businesses running. However, accessing reliable digital payment tools and maintaining accurate transaction records can still be challenging.
We were inspired by a simple question: What if small businesses across Africa could access the benefits of Bitcoin without having to understand the complexity behind it?
That question led to Soko — a Bitcoin-powered business payment platform designed to make digital commerce simpler, more transparent and accessible.
What it does
Soko aims to help African merchants receive Bitcoin payments, verify transactions and maintain digital business records through a simple interface.
Its core capabilities include:
- Lightning payments: Generate payment requests and receive fast Bitcoin payments through the Lightning Network.
- Payment verification: Confirm actual payment status rather than relying on screenshots or manually submitted evidence.
- Digital receipts: Use Nostr to create signed, portable and verifiable transaction receipts.
- AI business assistant: Help merchants understand their sales activity and transaction history through natural-language queries.
- Business records: Maintain accessible transaction histories and payment records.
Soko follows a non-custodial approach, allowing merchants to connect compatible Lightning wallets without handing over control of their private keys.
How we built it
We are building Soko with a focus on security, simplicity and a lightweight architecture.
Our planned technology stack includes:
- Rust and Axum: Backend API, payment workflows and business logic.
- Next.js and TypeScript: Responsive merchant dashboard and user interface.
- Tailwind CSS: Consistent, mobile-first interface design.
- Bitcoin Lightning Network: Payment requests and payment verification.
- Nostr: Signed digital receipts and portable transaction proofs.
- PostgreSQL: Merchant and transaction records.
- AI integration: Natural-language access to business insights.
Our development strategy prioritises a functional end-to-end payment workflow, beginning with invoice creation and continuing through payment verification and receipt generation.
Challenges we ran into
One of our biggest challenges is integrating multiple open technologies into a single, accessible experience.
Some of the challenges include:
- Connecting Lightning wallets while maintaining a non-custodial architecture.
- Ensuring payment verification is reliable and cannot be manipulated through screenshots.
- Designing Nostr-based receipts while protecting sensitive transaction information.
- Making Bitcoin technology understandable to merchants with little or no technical background.
- Balancing security, usability and feature development within a limited hackathon timeline.
We are approaching these challenges by prioritising proven Bitcoin infrastructure, clear separation of responsibilities and secure handling of sensitive information.
Accomplishments that we’re proud of
We are proud to have developed a clear vision for bringing Bitcoin-powered financial tools closer to everyday African businesses.
Some of the achievements we are working towards include:
- Designing a merchant-focused payment experience rather than another generic Bitcoin wallet.
- Bringing Bitcoin, Lightning, Nostr and AI together around a practical business problem.
- Adopting a non-custodial architecture that respects users’ control over their funds.
- Prioritising genuine payment verification and privacy-conscious digital receipts.
- Building with Rust and open-source technologies to support a transparent and extensible foundation.
Our biggest ambition is to demonstrate that Bitcoin infrastructure can solve practical problems in everyday commerce.
What we learned
Soko is teaching us that building useful Bitcoin applications requires more than understanding the protocol. It requires understanding the people who will use the technology.
We are exploring Lightning Network integration, Nostr event signing, secure backend development with Rust and ways AI can make business information more accessible.
We are also learning the importance of designing for real-world conditions, including limited bandwidth, affordable devices and users who may never have interacted with Bitcoin before.
Most importantly, we are learning to prioritise working solutions over impressive feature lists.
What’s next for Soko
Our immediate goal is to deliver a working MVP that demonstrates the complete merchant payment journey.
Our next priorities are:
- Complete Lightning wallet connectivity and invoice generation.
- Implement reliable, real-time payment verification.
- Generate signed, privacy-conscious Nostr receipts.
- Build the merchant transaction dashboard.
- Introduce an AI assistant for simple business insights.
- Test the experience with realistic merchant scenarios and improve usability.
Beyond the hackathon, we want to explore merchant adoption, additional Lightning wallet integrations, local currency-denominated payment displays and support for more African markets.
Soko — Every market. Every payment.
African-rooted. Globally connected. Open by design.
Built With
- african-fintech
- ai
- axum
- bitcoin
- built-with-rust
- digital-commerce
- digital-receipts
- lightning-network
- merchant-dashboards
- mobile-first-design
- natural-language-business-insights
- next.js
- non-custodial-wallets
- nostr
- open-source-software
- payment-verification
- postgresql
- real-time-payments
- responsive-web-design
- secure-apis
- small-business
- tailwind-css
- typescript
