Hey Cardano Community - I’m Jeffrey Berthiaume.
I’m a long-time Cardano believer (I even had a stake-pool back in 2021) and I just launched Vendano, a wallet experience focused on regular people and low-friction onboarding. My obsession is simple: if we want Cardano adoption, we have to make it feel as easy as the apps people already use.
What I’m working on
- Education & onboarding content (short, practical, non-hype)
- A “send ADA like a text” experience (email / phone / handle-style flows)
- Gift card / QR onboarding moments (small amounts, low stakes, easy first win)
- UX-first thinking: clearer outcomes, boring-in-a-good-way money
How I want to help the ecosystem… I’m very open to partnering or joining forces. If you’re building something and need:
- UX / product clarity (flows, onboarding, information design)
- iOS help (Swift / SwiftUI, architecture, polish, App Store readiness)
- Messaging / positioning (explain it to normal people, not just crypto natives)
…I’m happy to contribute time, advice, or hands-on work.
If you know projects/teams that are serious about onboarding regular humans, I’d love intros.
If you like what I’m doing, I’d really appreciate help getting the word out, because I’ll have two Fund 15 proposals coming up for a vote in January and I want to make sure the community actually sees them and can give feedback. I’m on X and Instagram as @withvendano.
If you’re interested, more details (articles, some videos) explaining my thinking are here:
1 Like
Hello @jeffreality
First of all, congratulations in advance on this great initiative. The idea of enriching the Cardano ecosystem with a other wallet that enables the community to clearly visualize tokens stored on the Cardano blockchain through Vendano wallet is truly valuable and timely.
Personally, I strongly support this vision. I would be glad to offer my help, whether for integration efforts or other actions related to the expansion and adoption of your idea, and to contribute meaningfully to its progress.
I am based in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where there is a growing and active community using ADA and other Cardano Native Tokens. Many users here would be interested in importing their wallets and using Vendano in a simple and accessible way.
Please keep moving forward—initiatives like this play an important role in strengthening the Cardano ecosystem.
1 Like
Hello Olivier,
Thank you so much for the note … I really appreciate the encouragement! It means a lot to hear that the direction feels valuable and timely, especially from someone seeing adoption firsthand in DR Congo.
And yes, I’d absolutely love to learn from you. I’ll be honest: I know very little about Africa’s day-to-day payment reality beyond headlines, so if you’re willing, I have a few questions to help me understand what “real adoption” would look like in DR Congo:
- Everyday payments: What do people typically use for daily transactions (sending money to family, paying bills, buying groceries)?
My brother mentioned M-Pesa — is anything like that widely used in DR Congo, or are there different services that are more common locally?
- On/off ramp: If someone in DR Congo wants to get ADA, what’s the most realistic path today?
- Can people buy ADA using Congolese francs (CDF) without a lot of friction?
- What do exchanges or cash-in/cash-out flows look like (mobile money, bank transfer, agents, P2P, etc.)?
- And on the way out: is converting back to CDF straightforward, or is that the hard part?
- Actual use vs. investment: When you say there’s a growing community using ADA and Cardano native tokens — what does “using” mean in practice?
Are people mostly holding as an investment, or are there real transactions happening? If there are transactions, what kinds (remittances, paying friends, business payments, saving, trading tokens, NFTs, other)?
If you have a few examples (even just “most people do X, some do Y”), that would help me a lot. I’m trying to build Vendano in a way that works for regular people, and the biggest unknown is always the real-world “how do people actually get in and out” piece.
Thanks again — and if you’re open to staying in touch, I’d love to keep learning from you as I continue building.
Best,
Jeffrey
@withvendano
Thank you very much for these thoughtful questions.
Please find below some contextual clarifications from the reality on the ground in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC):
- Online payment methods
The most commonly used online payment methods in our country include M-Pesa, Airtel Money, Orange Money, and more recently Africell Money, which has just been introduced into the market.
- Access to ADA and cryptocurrencies
In the DRC, accessing ADA or cryptocurrencies in general remains a major challenge. There are no fully functional and widely accessible platforms that allow people to easily acquire crypto, despite strong and growing demand. Many individuals currently reach out to us specifically because they want to obtain ADA.
To address this gap, a project was developed to facilitate ADA ↔ fiat exchanges in countries such as the DRC, Kenya, and Uganda. While exchanges involving USD have seen some usage, the exchange between Congolese Francs (CDF/FC) and ADA has not yet functioned effectively.
Additionally, there are individuals who perform physical, peer-to-peer exchanges between ADA and CDF or USD. However, these actors remain very limited in number. For example, in the city of Goma, I have personally identified only about seven people, myself included, who regularly facilitate or use ADA.
- Cost of acquiring ADA locally
Obtaining ADA using Congolese Francs is not easy. Even when someone is willing to exchange ADA for FC, they typically charge around a 5% fee, which acts as a withdrawal or conversion cost. This further limits accessibility for the broader population.
- Frequency of deposits and withdrawals
Deposit and withdrawal operations are extremely common and heavily used. In cities like Goma, where the banking system is largely non-functional, mobile money services effectively act as banks. Many organizations and businesses use these services even to pay staff salaries. As a result, online deposits and withdrawals are part of daily life for most people.
- Meaning of “CNT usage”
By CNT usage, I mean that some people are able to exchange physical assets (such as laptops or mobile phones) for ADA, while others hold ADA in their wallets as a form of financial reserve.
If this information is insufficient, please feel free to contact me privately or on Telegram at @OlivierMWATSIMULAMO. I believe these insights may help you better tailor the Vendano wallet to deliver an innovative and impactful product for the Cardano community.
In summary, the Cardano community in the DRC and the usage of ADA are steadily growing. However, if products are built that make it easier to access ADA, this could unlock significant adoption and transaction volume. Among blockchain ecosystems, Cardano is already one of the most recognized and trusted in the DRC, particularly in Goma, where I currently live.
As a reminder, my previous post here in the cardano forum highlights some projects integrating Cardano. A closer look will show that most of them focus on embedding ADA into everyday local use cases in the DRC, reinforcing Cardano’s role as a practical and inclusive blockchain solution.
1 Like
