When living hand-to-mouth, even for the merchants, when any funds come in, they go straight to where they are needed most. So for a merchant that accepts bitcoin, having the ability to also spend in bitcoin themselves saves having to convert to fiat. Though not all their vendors and staff are accepting bitcoin yet -- so the merchant will sometimes need to convert to fiat. But, in Kenya at least, there are ways that is done effortlessly and inexpensively (e.g., with Tando -- which converts sats to mobile money, instantly).

With this ecosystem, there's no risk to the merchant in accepting bitcoin, and they have the growing bitcoin community within their area as patrons. The flywheel spins, needing less and less "grease" over time.

There's something else driving this. In the informal economy, merchant revenue transactions don't always get (i.e., almost never are) reported, many don't even have a KRA PIN (Tax ID number) for their business. That means that there is no "value added tax" (VAT) paid to the government either, nonetheless income tax.

There is a renewed push by the government to force this "informal economy" to buy and use the government mandated terminals that track revenue, to ensure that VAT (Value Added Tax) is getting paid and tax compliance can be monitored.

When the tax collectors visit (literally, quite often, resulting sometimes in violent pushback) cash in the register is at risk of being taken. So bitcoin provides another benefit -- revenues, with little to no physical evidence, even when the taxman makes a surprise visit.