Avatar
Tando.me
5f66d7d60c4b6e35fbf746b47f26ef228cc324232ced692bc30246648736ffdb
Tando lets you easily spend bitcoin anywhere in Kenya. As easy as M-Pesa, but cheaper! ⚡

Working on it. 💪

Even though you can technically spend BTC anywhere in Kenya now. The goal is even bigger. 🚀

January 3rd, Satoshi created the Bitcoin genesis block citing The London Times newspaper.

The very next day...

January 4th, Tando gets covered in The East African newspaper.

Coincidence??!? 😂

My 2024 review and high-level report. Let's start with some stats for the nostr.build:

- 720 Million media requests served

- 650 TiB of bandwidth consumed

- 8 Million unique visitors

- 85% average cache hit rate

- Improved median CPU time per request from 200 down to 2 milliseconds per request

- 20 requests per second are served on average

- 99.994% uptime for the hosted media

- 98% uptime for the website and uploading servers

- 2.5K daily free uploads on average

Some improvements for the free uploads:

- Increased free upload size from 10MiB to 50MiB

- Increased image resolution from 1980px to 3840px

- Increased per server RAM from 1GiB to 4GiB

- Added full mirror of all uploaded media to the additional vendor (backup)

- Implemented moderation headers (can be used to hide NSFW content if desired)

Now some of the stats of my dev work for the nostr.build:

- 1,333 git commits

- 42 repositories with my contributions

- 10k+ lines of code written, or changed

Some features and completed projects:

- Rewritten nostr.build account page (AI, stats, nostr share, drag-n-drop, variaty of sizes, poster for video, etc.)

- Added AI Studio, onboarded multiple models from SD and Flux.

- Added media statistics

- Rewritten media serving front-end (dropping CPU utilization by 100x) and improving TTFB as well as cache hit rate (from 50%+ to 85%+ on average)

- Implemented variaty of the spam, and other illegal media upload prevention mechanisms (automated AI media scanner, PhotoDNA scanner, etc.)

- Implemented AI Moderation API that is shareable with other nostr media hosts (e.g., nostrcheck.me)

- Implemented upload of pdf, zip, etc., with full virus scanning.

- Various improvements to the PHP code, bug fixes and optimizations.

- Implemented e.nostr.build to allow easy embedding and sharing of the video/audio files for the account holders

- Referal links and account credits

- Onboarded more nostr clients for uploads (e.g., YakiHonne)

Some of the prototyping I've done for nostr.build:

- Semantic search of the media (ML based), multilingual

- Basic search for media using AI Vision

- Video transcoding using serverless and server-based setups

- Video transcoding to DASH/HLS (CMAF)

- Multi-party audio/video chat

Some of the in-flight projects that I'll have to complete in 2025:

- Seamless implementation of the Blossom protocol (70% done)

- Rewrite of the post-upload scanning to utilize workflows (50% done)

- New video upload and transcoding experience, HLS, DASH, VBR video/audio (10% done)

- New NoSQL based data-plane backend with the new API (50% done)

- Full rewrite of the Accounts page (5% done, blocked by new API and data-plane)

- Additional models for the AI Studio (90% done)

- (25% done)

I am sure I am forgetting a bunch, and this is only done from my memory.

You did all that with a thick coat of fur and sunglasses!?! Impressive.

Naomi visited the village last week and wanted to spend some bitcoin, so she went to the nearest shop. Of course, they don’t accept bitcoin directly (yet), but luckily, we have nostr:nprofile1qqs97ekh6cxykm34l0m5ddrlymhj9rxrys3jemtf90psy3nysum0lkcpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduhsz9thwden5te0dehhxarj9ehhsarj9ejx2a30qythwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnswf5k6ctv9ehx2ap0ah540s! Watch how easy it is to spend bitcoin anywhere in Kenya! 🇰🇪

https://video.nostr.build/37e03725173e6299401f44df45bdef28be51c3cdd5d57ab13e61455b93762a57.mp4

A lil something like this perhaps

@nostr:note1rrp9sg8p3yn4vhk0lqcqhrkxt75k4300v5yc4kkw85qa8w907z6svzwepf

Interesting. Can't even search for the item:

nostr:naddr1qqgxvvekvg6nxve4xvckzerpvymkvq3qtand04svfdhrt7lhg6687fh0y2xvxfpr9nkkj27rqfrxfpeklldsxpqqqzzmkq62tk2

#asknostr

Wrote this note/reply using Amethyst

nostr:note16mul53p5qzmqf8dh3s2ugedkekyqz0mld9syznvnw0rgrled6jyqu32mep

Scrolling nostr:npub1yzvxlwp7wawed5vgefwfmugvumtp8c8t0etk3g8sky4n0ndvyxesnxrf8q and the reply wasn't showing (about an hour later) as a comment on the original post:

nostr:nevent1qqs9f3j6tpwswwqsx8cdss5hhf4yl7pswyn3eqer58hl2lpmlfdw9rgpzamhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wd68ytnzv9hxgtczyr88twhzxjvqfj497n0g468hwka4tqf47sfyg8v7xtugus3xchgk2qcyqqqqqqganhsnv

If I search for it using the note ID I can see it. Relays should all be the same, as I'm using the same account in both.

Having flashbacks.

Just Yakihonne'd a video. Curious to see how it shows up in other nostr clients. nostr:naddr1qqgxvvekvg6nxve4xvckzerpvymkvq3qtand04svfdhrt7lhg6687fh0y2xvxfpr9nkkj27rqfrxfpeklldsxpqqqzzmkq62tk2

Y'all have 6-legged goats in TZ?? On my way!

Replying to netoshi

Yes nostr:npub1tand04svfdhrt7lhg6687fh0y2xvxfpr9nkkj27rqfrxfpeklldsp48sax platform as opened more doors for me in business now it is easy to trade

Incredible! Would love to learn more. What are some other examples in which Tando has made trade easier for you, and opened doors?

Merry Christmas Nostr Family.🎄

This festive season, I wasn’t able to travel to Nakuru to celebrate with my family. However, purchasing something for them from the comfort of my home in Nairobi , paying through nostr:npub1tand04svfdhrt7lhg6687fh0y2xvxfpr9nkkj27rqfrxfpeklldsp48sax using my nostr:npub13ljnkd633c7maxatymv3y2fqq8vt3qk7j3tt0vytv90eztwgha9qmfcfhw made me feel connected, as if I were right there with them.

When nostr:npub1ykgzky9fffy5hgl76jfay9ywy5y9j3hmzljxau9sq2z2unmsxn2qpgxf8j did her very first stage presentation introducing nostr:npub1tand04svfdhrt7lhg6687fh0y2xvxfpr9nkkj27rqfrxfpeklldsp48sax during the BITCOIN DADA Cohort 7 graduation, I was eager to ask her questions. In fact, I stood up almost immediately, only to receive Ksh. 200 worth of SATs from Tando directly to my M-Pesa line. That single experience answered all my questions! Tando had provided a solution to a challenge I had been struggling with in my line of work.

As the On-Ground Manager at nostr:npub1hkvzzah92u6j3vu3fv9jfmtjsndzh7ctqz03654duz3glze9nxns0a95ux, I’ve been working on building a circular economy by onboarding merchants to accept Bitcoin as a mode of payment. While I successfully onboarded more than 10 merchants, the most common challenge I faced was their concern about off-ramping: “After I’ve accepted Bitcoin from the mums in your community, how do I convert it to Ksh. so I can restock?” Tando solved this challenge for me.

Thank you, nostr:npub1tand04svfdhrt7lhg6687fh0y2xvxfpr9nkkj27rqfrxfpeklldsp48sax team, for innovating such a sustainable solution for Bitcoiners in Kenya. Your work has made it seamless for those of us paid or receiving grants in Bitcoin to spend SATs. Merchants in our Kimbo circular economy can now restock effortlessly without stress.

Considering nostr:npub12vkcxr0luzwp8e673v29eqjhrr7p9vqq8asav85swaepclllj09sylpugg premium for video uploads, why ya gotta do us dirty like that nostr:npub16c0nh3dnadzqpm76uctf5hqhe2lny344zsmpm6feee9p5rdxaa9q586nvr ? 😂

just kidding. I'm sure it's probably just some 3rd party currency conversion API gone rogue.

$80 USD vs $92 USD/KES