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**BTCmap.org** Have you used it? Do you know of any alternatives?
290 sats \ 4 comments \ @fiatbad 17h bitcoin
I responded to this comment a few days ago, and it got me thinking about creating an alternative service.
In the past, I only work on projects that I wish existed in the world. I use BTCmap.org A LOT and I know I would use a superior alternative. So, I don't care about whether there is demand or not for such a service. But I do care about whether or not there exists a better alternative that I'm not aware of.
I'm also interested in some technical discussion about how difficult such a thing would be. I know BTCmap utilizes the OpenStreetMap API to make it cheap/easy to open-source the database side of things. This removes the need to gather and manage data for whoever manages the BTCmap website. They simply added a few new fields to OpenStreetMap to flag a merchant as accepting Bitcoin. Then BTCmap uses OpenStreetMap, filtering for that flag, and displaying the results. This is smart, because it's easy and cheap. If I create an alternative, I would have to put in a lot more work to do it the "superior" way for a better UX.
After typing this all out I realized I could just copy/paste this whole thing into ChatGPT and probably get all the answers I wanted. But, community engagement is more interesting and rewarding.
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200 sats \ 0 replies \ @fourrules 15h
I have some ideas:
  • pay-to-post: anyone can add a business, but you drop sats to do so, and if the business gets a lot of engagement from other users they're likely to zap you, so you get your money back. Confirm the business details with Foursquare API, same data as OSM.
  • Users can comment in case a listing isn't valid anymore, and there should be a simple traffic light system that indicates whether they still accept bitcoin
  • Add a gift voucher feature with an escrow service. Users can post business who don't accept bitcoin but who do sell gift cards online. User-A wants to spend bitcoin in that place, they drop an anonymous request for someone else to buy a gift voucher for a specific value, giving an email that they should receive the voucher at (can be burner, not displayed publicly). Users-B sees an opportunity to buy a small quantity of non-KYC BTC, so they buy the voucher and add the email they are given for the request (not the actual email of the person selling bitcoin), something like voucher+644775sgg@satmap.org. The voucher is held in escrow at that email. To receive the bitcoin User-B creates an invoice for the amount and provides the payment link (system could do this automatically), and that's what is given to User-A. When User-A pays the bitcoin that triggers the escrow service to send them the voucher email. Some LLM can run a check on the email possibly, to ensure it is genuine and contains the code.
The primary problem to solve would be ensuring people are not spoofing the voucher emails. They can only be claimed once very often, so you can't have someone in background spot-checking that the vouchers purchased by new users are valid. You need some kind of reputation system that encourages repeat interactions, much like classified ads websites and apps. That means you need a request-accept system, so User-B has to request to purchase the voucher, and when User-A accepts then User-B sees the email address to send the voucher to.
Problems: So now User-A has agreed to the exchange with User-B, and the system will know when User-A pays out the bitcoin, but:
  • the system won't know whether User-B has actually taken the bitcoin AND spent the voucher themselves before User-A has had a chance.
  • the system won't know for sure that the voucher received is real
  • User-A might accept, prompting User-B to purchase the voucher, only for User-A to ghost them. In this instance the voucher is still valid and held in escrow, any other user could pick it up by paying the lightning invoice, which would become visible to other users after a holding period for User-A to conclude the transaction.
I can't really identify any other problems to solve beyond basic UX. Each user can review each other once an exchange is accepted, so aside from that you just have the basic cold start problem of nobody having any reputation. Usually the cold start problem is solved by users repeatedly engaging with the site for another reason and eventually a sufficient number of users take the leap and start building their reputations. New users just have to start with very low denomination voucher requests.
Oh, another problem is density. If I want a restaurant voucher I want it now, not in 3 weeks. But in principle I think the system could work with a small number of bitcoin-buyers and a high number of sellers.
If you got that system going then the whole community would be able to identify businesses that Bitcoiners like but that don't yet accept bitcoin directly, so that we can target them through repeat custom and engaging with managers, show them how popular their business is with Bitcoiners and help them to get onboarded as bitcoin merchants.
I think this system would be incredibly popular in Italy where you have a lot of restaurants and bars, lots of tourists who want to spend bitcoin without CGT, or locals who cannot draw down without declaring and paying a huge amount of back tax. In Italy taxes on crypto are brutal.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 16h
The biggest problem you need to solve with services like this are keeping the listings accurate and up to date. The tech stuff is relatively tractable.
Before building a better BTCmap.org, you'll want a much better solution to this very hard problem.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @denlillaapan 16h
Yeah, never seems to work; always outdated
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @chovyfu 16h
https://github.com/profullstack/bitcoinlatte
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