The original note, as written at the time
A digital wallet for small transactions only. Money is broken into small manageable chunks for use especially in situations that require change type cash. Only one packet can be transacted at a time and the wallet can never have amounts above a certain limit. This arrangement isn’t just for ease of transaction, it is also for security purposes.
Ongoing development
A digital wallet for small transactions only. Money is broken into small manageable packets, for the situations that require change-type cash. Only one packet can be transacted at a time, and the wallet can never hold above a certain limit.
The limit is not a limitation, it is the product. A wallet that cannot hold much is a wallet that cannot lose much, which changes what it means to carry a phone in a market.
The packet structure is the more interesting half. Cash works for small trade because it is discrete: you hand over a note and the transaction is complete, with no account, no float and no reconciliation. A digital balance is continuous, so every small payment is a movement in a ledger that somebody can watch, freeze or reverse.
Broken into packets, one at a time, the digital instrument starts to behave like cash: a token is spent and gone, and the record of the rest is not implicated. It is a privacy design disguised as a convenience feature.
The practical gain is change. Half of the friction in small trade is the absence of change, and a packet small enough to hand over without a return is the digital equivalent of a coin in the pocket.
The failure mode is that packets become a currency with its own exchange rate and its own speculators, which is what happens every time a private token is issued at scale. So the packet must be strictly a representation of the national unit, redeemable at par, always.
And the ceiling has to be low enough to be a real constraint. A limit of a few thousand shillings is a wallet. A limit that creeps upward is a bank with a friendlier name.