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100 sats \ 15 replies \ @supratic 19h \ on: Is South Africa Really Leading in Bitcoin Usage (Replacing Fiat) for Retailers? bitcoin
Ask yourself how 650,000 South African Merchants get to "adopt bitcoin"?
There fiat middlemen are playing between. It's not P2P... that's not adoption. That's not bitcoin circular economy. Is Bitcoin one-way monopoly.
You're right, it's not adoption, and it's not ideal. But it does provide a fantastic answer to the question we get from almost all people we on-board: "What can I do with Bitcoin?"
It also eases the full on-boarding of merchants accepting MoneyBadger payments (via Scan to Pay, Zapper, etc.), by pointing out that they already accept Bitcoin and are unnecessarily paying the payment processor fee to do so.
MoneyBadger is a crucial catalyst to real adoption. Success for them means going out of business because everyone accepts Bitcoin directly. They have given me no reason to doubt their sincerity.
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Merchants don't onboard with MoneyBadger if they want to accept sats. The vast majority merchants use Blink wallet. A small number use Aqua.
Some print out LNURL QR codes and train staff to verify payments on customer wallets. Some generate invoices in Blink on a phone. Others use Blink's built-in, web based POS.
P.S. Props to Blink. They have shown us a lot of support in many different aspects. They (along with a few other wallets) actually integrate MoneyBadger payments directly into their wallet apps! <3
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Merchants don't onboard with MoneyBadger if they want to accept sats.
No? really? So what your ambassadors are doing out there? Ah yeah, I bet they don't present themselves as MoneyBadger reps, or do they? The important is that they promote Binance or Blink, right?
Anyway, good job, keep it up until it stands.
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Your skepticism is understandable, but unwarranted in this case, I assure you.
My only affiliation with MoneyBadger is as a user, and an ardent supporter of their great work. Their Ambassadors program is far from their primary focus, and I'm not one of them. To be honest, that's the part of their work I'm least happy with too.
I'd rather spend the time on-boarding a merchant directly, rather than on-boarding them to Zapper. My only involvement with Binance is warning everyone against that casino, whenever their name comes up.
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That's not bitcoin circular economy. Is Bitcoin one-way monopoly.
That depends on how you draw your "circle" ;)
While sats paid via MoneyBadger does leave your immediate town, it still stays in South Africa, at least.
By implication you should prioritise vendors based on how far the sats go: first support merchants in your local community who accept sats, then people from the next community over, then district, town, country, etc.
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That's not a circle, that's a semicircle. Or is MoneyBadger paying salaries in sats? Btw, South Africa still a fiat jurisdiction, a fictional entity, a registered business in DC.
Truth is MoneyBadger send merchants to Biance... common, is that really a good option for merchants? Or is just better for those that want to spend bitcoin?
What's the cut MoneyBadger get for onboarding merchants to Binance? Do MoneyBadger get this cut paid in sats?
Not my business, and honestly I don't even care. Just saying, there are better ways to educate people to spend and merchants to do business.
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Truth is MoneyBadger send merchants to Biance
MoneyBadger doesn't send merchants anywhere. Most merchants don't even know that they're "accepting Bitcoin payments". Merchants' invoices are still settled in fiat, transparently. I pay in sats, they receive ZAR.
Don't know what MB's finances look like or what deals they have in place, but I can tell you they've been very responsive to criticisms of this kind, and there's a community keeping them honest. Not that they need much of that, since they're a bunch of maxis themselves.
See my other comment for the catalysing role they're playing.
Just saying, there are better ways to educate people to spend and merchants to do business.
If you have any materials or advice that would help, it would be most welcome. We're trying anything and everything to on-board as many people and businesses as we can. MoneyBadger is one of those approaches, and a very effective one.
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MoneyBadger doesn't send merchants anywhere
If you have any materials or advice that would help, it would be most welcome.
Reach out privately, I'll be more than happy to help
It is not P2P, but it sure lays a foundation of understanding. You don't expect people who may not understand Bitcoin from scratch to jump in and start accepting p2p Bitcoin for payment of goods.
It starts with having firms that are willing to help them facilitate it. With time, their understanding and trust in Bitcoin will grow, and many of them will eventually switch to accepting Bitcoin directly.
You can't directly break away from the Fiat system, especially when most businesses, including raw material suppliers, are still largely living on the fiat system.
So there should be a bridge connecting Bitcoin payment acceptance and the ability to run their Fiat-based business. As the awareness grows, the benefits of directly accepting and holding their Bitcoins will becoke clearer and the switch will happen without anyone pushing for it.
We built a tool that now removes the need to always convert to Fiat, but to hold a stable value asset on the Lightning network.
So merchants can accept Sats, the fiat value of the sats they accpeted will be locked in, and at any point, they can also send Sats worth their locked in Value.
All of this happening right on the Lightning netowrk without creating any new kind of tokens or whatever. Purely a Bitcoin backed stable value asset designed to help Fiat-based businesses confidently accept Sats for payment without worrying about volatility.
This solution is currently implemented on Valet, a lightnweight nSelf-custodial Bitcoin and Lightning wallet. Valet is a fork of the popular Simple Bitcoin Wallet (SBW)
Read more about this here:
https://standardsats.github.io/
https://github.com/standardsats/fiat-channels-rfc
https://github.com/standardsats
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Valet is an open-source, self-custodial Bitcoin/Lightning wallet.
There's no shilling. Simply sharing an idea that we know would help advance Bitcoin's use as a medium of exchange.
Everything is completely open-sourced, built right on the Lightning network. It would've been great to see merchants accept Bitcoin directly without worrying about its volatility, but the reality on the ground shows otherwise.
So it is only smart for those of us in the Bitcoin community to find a solution that'd help this cause without compromising a lot of Bitcoin core ethos, and that is what Valet and Fiat channels do.
I implore you to read it, just for knowledge's sake.
Cheers.
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I think you misunderstood my approach as trying to shill Valet.
I was just expressing a point of view on why merchants may not yet accept Bitcoin via p2p, and then highlighting the need for easy on-ramp solutions that should create a foundation for understanding.
I shared Valet because I think it is a step further than a typical custodial solution or outright constant need to liquidate to Fiat for these merchants.
Respect!!
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