pull down to refresh
12 sats \ 5 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 15h \ parent \ on: Is increased merchant adoption reducing bitcoin's purchasing power? econ
I agree that usability increases demand for a currency. This was about the short term effects of changing mindsets from hodling to spending.
I'm pretty sure we'll see bitcoin become a significant medium of exchange. There's so little downside for accepting it that I expect most merchants to accept it as payment within the next few years. At that point, orange pilling becomes much easier, since it's easy to answer the "What can I do with it?" question.
I had a conversation with a bartender in Nassau the other day....
I was asking how I could pay and mentioned I'd prefer using Bitcoin if possible. She chuckled and proceeded to tell the following story.
Recently, a group of people swept through the city onboarding merchants to "Bitcoin". It didn't sound like they helped upgrade their PoS systems to use Bitcoin.... it was more like they onboarded them to "invest". Of course, it was a scam, and the group just left with the money.
Obviously, this isn't how real Bitcoin works. But it did highlight for me how far regular merchants and regular people are from being able to properly accept and self-custody real Bitcoin. They have been scammed so many times by groups claiming to be using "Bitcoin". Similar to how most American retail feels after the FTX fallout of 2022.
Ultimately, it's an education issue. Those same merchants, at some point, had to educate themselves to use fiat rails without being easy prey to scammers. It's no different. It's not Bitcoin's fault, it's theirs for being so uneducated.
They will educate themselves when they see others successfully using Bitcoin in commerce without being scammed left and right. They will educate themselves when their suppliers and customers say they will only trade in Sats.
It's not the responsibility of Bitcoiners to educate the world. But it is our obligation to stop using fiat. To set the example. To show them what we think of fiat. To stop accepting fiat for our goods/services. This will create a ripple effect.... and eventually the Nassau merchants will learn.
But this will never happen if SoV is all we focus on. If we don't stand up against fiat, we will get incredibly rich while the rest of the world perpetually suffers under The Creature. Wealthy, but complacent (in aiding slavery) and empty of virtue.
reply
I'm guessing that most merchants will not accept bitcoin until their current PoS service offers bitcoin support.
reply
That sucks, cuz it almost always leads to custodial options.
The merchants who learn to take self-custody will be rare. And the world may not change much, as we'd hoped.
Roger Ver would argue this is the fault of the protocol. But, I think it's the fault of the people. Humans are lazy. Nassau merchants are who layer 3 protocols such as Fedimint are for. Such protocols, while not much of an upgrade from fiat banking, ARE objectively still an upgrade from fiat banking, and should be praised by the Bitcoin community. (that's right @justin_shocknet , I'm still picking at this bone!)
reply
reply
I don't know. I think it's just a starting point. Some will begin trying to understand it further and get into self-custody.
reply