While Bangkok and Chiang Mai have vibrant Bitcoin communities, there aren't any notable merchant communities in the country. The legal situation is confusing, as individuals can buy, sell or make Bitcoin transactions, but you may not be allowed to accept it as payment.

I'm staying for a few days and want to try out PlebQR, an intriguing gateway that lets you pay with Lightning at pretty much any merchant in the country.

Wherever you go eat or shop in Thailand, you will see a "Thai QR Payment" sign by the cashier, or on your bill. The system is relatively simple, the QR code encodes the merchant's bank account information, such as bank account number and routing code. The payer then makes a regular wire transfer, comparable to an instant Sepa or Fed Now transaction. These transactions are free for merchants and consumers.

Tl;dr: PlebQR is a simple web app that allows you to scan these QR codes, define an amount and pay a Lightning invoice. Somebody with a Thai bank account will make the payment for you and get your sats. This works surprisingly well in practice, but fees are high and volume is low.

Step 1: At the merchant of your choice, locate the QR code by the cash register or on your invoice. Open plebqr.com, click on "Pay," "Get Started," enter a Lightning address of yours and scan the QR code. Scanning the QR code can be tricky depending on your smart phone, and you're advised not to use a laptop. I had to download another browser as the app was not working on Safari. The Lightning address is needed for refunds in case your order does not get picked up.

Step 2: Enter the amount you want to pay. It should equal what you owe the merchant. You can send as little as 1 Baht (28 sats), or as much as 1000 Baht (~30 USD). If you owe more, you can make multiple payments. Confirm your fee rate by clicking on the summary and you are presented a Bolt11 Lightning invoice.

Step 3: As soon as you paid your Lightning invoice, the order is placed. You can still cancel it at this point. This creates an "offer" which anybody can pick up through the browser or a bot on the Matrix or SimpleX networks. The other side has about ~240 seconds to pick up the order, although the exact time seems to vary with payment size.

Step 4: Once your order has been picked up, the other side has about ~420 seconds (also seems to depend on payment size) to make the payment.

Step 5: When the payment is made, you are given a receipt, which you can show to the merchant. They may take a picture of it or have a way to see the incoming transaction on their phone.

Fees: If your payment is below 200 Baht, you pay at least a 2 Baht fee, above that, your fee is at least 20 Baht and increases linearly with your payment size to 40 Baht for a 1000 Baht payment. This ~4% - ~10% fee could hypothetically be competitive with credit cards, as many local merchants charge 3-5% markups to those paying with card. For the prepaid Bitcoin debit cards I sometimes reluctantly use, there would be another 2-3% foreign currency fee. Unfortunately, there is another 5-8% fee baked into the Bitcoin exchange rate. For comparison, you can exchange USD or EUR cash for less than 2% fees.

My experience: The system works much better in practice than I make it sound, and most of my orders were filled and paid within three minutes. That's fast enough to pay at a boutique or restaurant, but not fast enough to pay at a coffee shop, convenience store or taxi. Local staff will be used to these payments as instant, so they will likely impatiently hover over you as you make the payment, no matter how often you say that this will take a while. The practice of "pushing" payments to a central bank account appears to be difficult for large businesses, and staff might have to see the receipt. Make sure to screenshot it or else it is gone! The screenshot may contain personal information such as name or bank account details from the person making the wire, so you're asked not to share it on social media.

Volumes are quite low on the app, but it is used every day. On some days I accounted for up to 10% of all payments in the system, or 13% of all volume. It's only useful for large amounts, and only in specific settings, and even then it is not competitive. I never experienced a "refund," all my orders were picked up. I hope that increased volume can lead to faster processing times and increased automation, as well as a better app. A "proper" app would likely not be allowed in Thailand, and I do wonder what the chances are for the authorities to shut down PlebQR. It definitely wouldn't be easy and would have negative spillover effects. The system theoretically works in all places where push QR codes are common. Much more likely is that Thailand will move away from push QR codes, and towards pull systems, as we've seen elsewhere, e.g. in China. A pull system would make it easier for merchants to match a payment to a sale.

Exchanging cash seems to be the most popular way for tourists to cover expenses. You can even exchange rubles at attractive rates. I tried selling Bitcoin directly at forex exchanges, but couldn't find any that accepted either sats or tether.