Bitsacco Moves to Fedi, Reimagines Bitcoin Savings Communities

When Bitsacco launched in January 2025, the idea was to bring Bitcoin into the savings structures that Kenyans already know and trust. Savings and Credit Cooperatives Organizations (SACCOs) and chama groups have been the financial backbone of communities across the region. Bitsacco gave those groups a way to save in Bitcoin using that same familiar model.

And it worked. Within a year, the community reached 500 members, with cumulative savings exceeding 2 bitcoin. Members were using the Bitsacco web app for personal savings, group chama savings, and pooling funds.

Why Bitsacco Left Its Own Platform

Behind the scenes, the team was burning energy chasing administrivia. They realized that the way you save to grow yourself and your community shouldn't be such that you have to keep asking permission to do it.

So they stopped asking.

In early 2026, Bitsacco dropped the SACCO structure entirely. But going permissionless raised a practical question: How do you give every member direct control of their funds while still supporting group savings, community chat, education, and spending tools all in one place? 

How Fedi's Community Model Made the Migration Possible

Using the Fedi app, everything lives in one place: savings, spending, buying, learning, and the community group chat. Bitsacco brings the local context and its members, while Fedi provides the private, self-custodial infrastructure that holds it all together.

"When we migrated Bitsacco to Fedi, what we were really doing was handing power back to each member of the community,” said Collins Mwanga, Bitsacco Community Developer and Educator. “Moving to Fedi meant no single point of failure, no gatekeeper — not even from us, the creators of the community. What exists is trust between people who actually know each other. Now members of our community hold their own money, on their own terms, without asking anyone for permission."

Additionally, the Bitsacco team has developed custom Mini Apps for their community. One such highlight is a Mini App to help their members easily transfer funds from the Bitsacco web app to their personal wallets on Fedi. They also developed educational guides as a Mini App to educate their members on Fedi features and all other tools, and Mini Apps available on the Bitsacco Community on Fedi.

The Power of Community Wallet Services

Underneath all of this is the Fedimint protocol, allowing trusted members in the Bitsacco community (collectively called Guardians) to serve as a wallet service provider that secures the community's bitcoin. There's no central entity holding everyone's funds. Each member controls their own savings, and chama groups can pool and self-govern collective funds without a middleman. This was exactly what Bitsacco needed.

This federated wallet service model also makes Bitsacco censorship-resistant. Since custody is distributed across multiple Guardians rather than held by a single entity, there's no one point that a regulator or bad actor can pressure to freeze funds or cut off access. Members' savings are protected by the wallet service itself.

Bitsacco's model is no longer locked to Kenya. Anyone, anywhere, can join the community. The same savings model that started with M-Pesa and Kenya Shillings can now grow beyond those borders, especially with the use of Mini Apps that help with on and off-ramps.

A Model Any Savings Community Can Replicate

Informal savings circles exist across the Global South under different names but with the same structure. Bitsacco is proving that Fedi can be a tool that can serve as the backbone for any of them: a private, self-custodial community where members save in Bitcoin, govern their own funds, and access localized tools without asking anyone for permission.