Bitcoin had two problems limiting it's adoption: (1) difficult to use and (2) it had a very low network effect. (1) was solved by lightning.
I've thought about the things I spend money on: my mortgage payments, groceries, petrol, clothing, furniture, ISP, electricity. I can't use bitcoin for any of that. The only place I can use it (ignoring nostr for a moment) is to pay for email service, VPN service (which I almost never use), That's what, $20 worth? Nowhere near enough for me to want to accept bitcoin... if I accept it, I can't spend it directly, I have to exchange it for the local currency first. Nostr zaps improve that situation a little bit, but not by very much. How much am I going to pay out in zaps as tokens of appreciation?
Network effect is slow and difficult to grow when you are far below critical mass, as I believe bitcoin still is. So for those of you desperately wishing for bitcoin to take off, you have a lot of work ahead of you. Getting sellers of basic services to accept bitcoin is the biggest thing that could move the needle. Getting friends to install lightning wallets and zap each other probably won't move the needle much.
Opensource shops for the win
This is a tough one, because this issue of noone else will accept it also true for other merchants. Why would they want to accept bitcoin if they have to directly convert it back to fiat?
I agree with that, with the qualification that 'Bitcoin as a medium of exchange had two limiting ...'. This is as opposed to 'Bitcoin as a store of value', which is a more successful story.
Having more people with some sats on their phone increases the need to do something more useful with those sats, so zapping new people can move the needle just a tiny bit -- very tiny bit.
I expect more significant merchant adoption will happen only (where/when) the merchants are themselves incentivized to accept (and keep!) sats; the desire of the buyers projected onto the merchants is a much weaker force.
Summed it up perfectly. Precisely as I feel. The only thing you left out was Bitcoin as an investment, like buying a stock or doing other currency exchanges. But there is risk doing that, like buying Metro bank stock.
Bitrefill is kinda nice shortcut trying to solve the spending difficulties. But yes, it would be very nice not having to rely on a central third party like that.
Sidenote: set that VPN to always-on, what are you doing? 😬
mass usage will only come with hyperinflation or other fiat crisis
1 - as you explain, there are no incentives to change.
2 - one wants to spend his worst coin. If one has fiat & BTC, the rational decision is to save BTC and spend fiat.
we know fiat will inflate. We do not know what will happen to BTC.
We may probably not witness it in our lifetimes. I think we are just laying the groundwork for future generations.
You can buy international Visa cards with bitcoin using @thebtcco, as well as many store specific gift cards. No KYC. Check em out
that is still trackable by all governments !
Can you use whatever BS name/address you want?
Tested and approved 🫡 Did have hit/miss with the virtual cards working with various vendors though. They have some good tips that are wise to head.
Another pro tip you can import the virtual cards into Apple/Google Pay and shop IRL anywhere that accepts tap to pay
Ya'll know if #X accepts virtual cards?
That's actually one point I had trouble and inconsistent success. Not a power user though so would prob figure it out if I used it more 🤷
No Google Pay on #GrapheneOS AFAICT.
Correct No Google Pay, however GPay works with any compatible smartwatch such as the Pixel Watch as does Garmin Pay on their devices too.
What do you mean by international?
"Terms: The Visa card can only be used in the US and District of Columbia. do you mean by international."
There used to be an international option. Has that been removed @thebtcco ?
There's definitely still international cards. They'll show up when accessing the app from outside the US. If accessing from within the USA only the US Visa cards will display.
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