I'm Miles Suter, Bitcoin Product Lead at Block, AMA! \ stacker news ~AMA

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I'm Miles Suter, Bitcoin Product Lead at Block, AMA!

21.8k sats \ 61 comments \ @MilesSuter 10h AMA

HELLO STACKER NEWS!!

Background on me:

I'm the Bitcoin Product Lead at Block, where our mission is to make bitcoin everyday money. I oversee bitcoin products at Cash App, Square and Bitkey.

What questions can I answer for you?

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150 sats \ 0 replies \ @leo 5h

Hi Miles! Congrats on the launch(es). Super cool stuff, very excited for you! I tried some of it out yesterday, despite (only) being in Canada.

One friend seemed to not have a lightning address associated with their cash tag. Is he supposed to? Or does he have to sign up for something else?
I saw in the videos that users have the option to pay from their USD balance. Is this only available when paying to Square merchants? Or to all merchants?
And finally: When Canada!

50 sats \ 0 replies \ @nout 4h

What are your metrics for success? What metric are you optimizing?

6 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b 9h

What were you working on before joining Block?

220 sats \ 0 replies \ @MilesSuter OP 9h

Before I joined Block, I spent two years without an apartment, bopping from city to city as a City Launcher for DoorDash in its early days. I’d basically parachute into a new city and 1) go door to door knocking on businesses' doors to convince them to do delivery 2) sign up and train the drivers, and 3) get the word out to consumers!

In retrospect, this was actually amazing experience for what we are doing right now: building a two-sided marketplace based on new technology, and trying to kickstart a flywheel of adoption through education, marketing but most importantly adding economic value to both consumers and merchants.

2 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b 10h

What's the most surprising thing you learned during the recent launch?

283 sats \ 0 replies \ @MilesSuter OP 10h

I'm actually not super suprised in retrospect, but honestly what I've been blown away by the most is the community response!

I thought the Maps feature in Cash App was pretty cool before we launched it, but seeing the decentralized sales team activate en masse and go tell their favorite merchants to turn on bitcoin payments acceptance was so amazing to see!

6 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b 10h

I know you all have been working toward this for years; there are a lot of moving parts, and bitcoin is literally out of control.

Are there things in particular though that made this take longer than expected?

315 sats \ 0 replies \ @MilesSuter OP 9h

I’m actually blown away by how quickly we got this product to market. When we decided to announce it at Bitcoin Vegas in May, we were in the very infancy of building out any of these features.

Fun Fact: we actually powered the merch store there - the first time Square terminals were ever accepting bitcoin payments - with a completely different implementation. Every terminal at the conference was actually receiving payments non-custodially and had a wallet within the hardware. Basically doing our first test run on EXPERT difficulty 😂

It all went super well though, besides Jack immediately saying the 2026 timeline that was announced was out of the question - we were shipping this later this year!

The effort to get the Square Bitcoin Banking and Payments suite out to our four million merchants was the most impressive I’ve seen in my whole career, so massive shoutout to the entire team.

6 sats \ 1 reply \ @jakoyoh629 10h

What's the hardest part about getting Bitcoin adopted for everyday use, in your opinion?

250 sats \ 0 replies \ @MilesSuter OP 10h

Ultimately we are focused on education and accessibility - to remove any of the complexities underlying bitcoin. We want it to just work seamlessly for everyone, and we are building products across the ecosystem with that north star.

Merchants immediately get it when they hear they can save 3% on every sale. It’s a no brainer to turn it on.

Everyone is feeling the pinch right now with inflation and everyday necessities being so expensive. Local economies are struggling. For merchants, eliminating that fee is impactful when it could make up a significant amount of their profit.

50 sats \ 1 reply \ @Scoresby 9h

In the next five years, do you think spending bitcoin at places like grocery stores, gas stations, and restaurants will become common (odds being better than not that I can spend bitcoin when I walk into an establishment)?

107 sats \ 0 replies \ @MilesSuter OP 9h

Yes, it's more common today than it was yesterday, and it will continue to become more common every single day moving forward - thanks to the amazing work of the community and everyone building to make it happen (including my incredible team!).

6 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b 10h

What's something you wished was included in the launch but didn't make the cut?

129 sats \ 0 replies \ @MilesSuter OP 9h

We’re currently building auto-sweeps to self-custody, but this will roll out later. I’m excited about deeper Bitkey integration for self custody, for the funds you receive as payments or convert from daily card sales.

166 sats \ 1 reply \ @_ds 10h

No question, just a big shoutout to the Block team!

Really impressive launch. A lot of marketers our world should take notice.

Enabling bitcoin for four million more merchants. Awesome.

101 sats \ 0 replies \ @MilesSuter OP 9h

Thank you! I think the last four days have been the most fun (and busiest!) of my career.

6 sats \ 2 replies \ @billytheked 9h

In your experience, what is the main reason more people are not using bitcoin as a MOE?

66 sats \ 1 reply \ @MilesSuter OP 9h

If bitcoin only lives in ETFs and custodial exchanges, it fails its long-term mission. Our focus is on transaction velocity. We need payment infrastructure and custody (especially self-custody) solutions. Customers need places they can spend their bitcoin, and merchants need customers who want to spend their bitcoin. We’re uniquely positioned to serve both sides of the counter and help grow a two-sided marketplace.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @billytheked 7h

Thank you for the response, but, in fairness, it had already been clear to me that this is your company's mission.

I was asking more from your personal point of view as to why MOE is not more prevalent seeing as the tools are gradually being made available.

Anyway, thank you for all you have done to help bitcoin adoption.

6 sats \ 1 reply \ @fishious 9h

What will be the best way to market to merchants about the benefits of handling transactions over the bitcoin network instead of the credit card network? I have no idea how small businesses make these kinds of decisions like which POS to use. How do merchants decide on which POS to use and how does Square position itself for that? Is access to the bitcoin network going to be a major selling point?

1031 sats \ 0 replies \ @MilesSuter OP 9h

Reinforcing no or low fees, instant settlement, and more of their profit back in their pockets. Spiral put out some materials aimed at everyday merchants which is worth taking a look at: https://www.bitcoinmerchantcommunity.org/

6 sats \ 1 reply \ @benwehrman 10h

Personal question - I would LOVE to have you on my podcast sometime to chat about the importance of Bitcoin adoption worldwide, and all the exciting products you've been building to forward this mission!

I'm sure your schedule is insane, but if you're keen on this, drop a line so we can make it happen!

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @MilesSuter OP 9h

Why not??

126 sats \ 0 replies \ @justin_shocknet 9h

When CLINK?

Would allow users to use CashApp as a funding source for Stacker News, doesn't require a webserver setup like LNURL

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b 10h

What do you like to do for fun? (when you aren't working)

206 sats \ 0 replies \ @MilesSuter OP 9h

I actually live a super simple life. Pretty much all I do these days is surf, lift weights, cook healthy meals, work super hard and repeat.

I have the coolest job in the world, and it's such a privilege to be able to drive products at scale that have a meaningful impact on what I think is the most important mission in the world: making bitcoin every day money.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @benwehrman 10h

Do you have any plans of implementing NOSTR more deeply into this suite of Bitcoin products you're leading?

Seems like it would be such a slam dunk. Using the Square BTC payment rollout as just one example...there's a whole ecosystem of Nostriches that would love to shoot them some sats to support them being early pioneers in Bitcoin acceptance at their businesses!

716 sats \ 0 replies \ @MilesSuter OP 9h

I’m active on NOSTR and think there’s a lot of potential!

I love the Bitcoin Maps project, and we recently gave them their first donation to expand their work. Nathan has written about the intersection of their project and nostr, and I’m excited to follow its evolution: https://habla.news/u/nathan@btcmap.org/2uBWmmKOqd-09vQVMH8X0

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @benwehrman 10h

What's the craziest conspiracy theory you believe is true...and one you think is not true?

6 sats \ 0 replies \ @MilesSuter OP 9h

There’s no rabbit hole I haven’t been down lol

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @anon 10h

Did Cash App explore Bitcoin native options for the stablecoin product? What is the bar that needs to be reached for those solutions (Spark, RGB, Taproot Assets) to be included in Cash App?

68 sats \ 0 replies \ @MilesSuter OP 9h

We’re a bitcoin company first and foremost - and always.

When it comes to stablecoins, I really view them simply as an improvement on our current TradFi rails. We’re looking at all possibilities, intend to be coin and chain agnostic to give customers as much optionality as possible, and remove as much friction as possible.

Customers can already bring USD into Cash App via paper money deposit, ACH rails, debit rails, and wires - and if customers want to bring in stablecoins, we’ll happily turn them into bitcoin.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Coinsreporter 10h

Hi miles, What's your stand for core vs knots debate?

1183 sats \ 0 replies \ @MilesSuter OP 9h

I support Bitcoin Core.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Ge 31m

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @BitcoinIsTheFuture 1h

Huge week, congrats! What excites you and scares you the most over the next year?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @spiderman 2h

Any plan of expansion to APAC (particularly, Singapore and Hong-Kong)?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @brentkearney 2h

Will Cash App and LN payments for Square merchants come to Canada? If so, any estimated timeline? 🙏

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @AdolfoSuarezMadridBarajas 6h

When do you expect most businesses to accept bitcoin as a payment method

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @anon 7h

I’m sure it was discussed, but why not have BTC payments on by default received as USD and have the toggle instead be for receiving/holding Bitcoin?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @BlokchainB 7h

When will Bitkey and Cash App merge into the Bitcoin super self custody spending app that works with apple’s tap to pay?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @OT 7h

When are you rolling out bitcoin payments through Square in Australia?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @anon 8h

Is there a way to add businesses that accept Bitcoin directly onto the Cash App's Spend Bitcoin tab and does it scrapes data from BTC Maps?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Atreus 8h

How's your brand narrative, marketing, & copywriting going? ✍️

Are you encountering a lot of resistance to adoption at the street level? All the 2022 CeFi crashes (Celsius, Voyager, etc) seem to have terrified people, and now that we're (apparently) back in a bear market, I expect it'll worsen—but maybe your experience is different?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @nout 8h

Are you going to support accepting bitcoin payments (over LN) for the online shops too?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @nout 8h

Where can we find a map of all Square merchants that don't accept bitcoin yet? :)

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @nout 8h

Is the Square POS capable of accepting the Lightning payment via NFC in some form? I.e. I want to flash my own NFC card and use it to pay on the terminal (maybe LNURL, or similar). "A credit card that you can make at home from a hotel keycard..."

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @benwehrman 8h

Is the Earth flat or a ball?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 8h

If you do interview him please concentrate on asking relevant things that he might know and that viewers might not.

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @Taj 8h

I notice that k00b the OG of SN has asked multiple questions to miles and not been zapped at all, and miles' responses have been zapped. Tells me everything i need to know

42 sats \ 1 reply \ @nout 8h

That's a fair game, no? The person answering is providing the value to the person asking (and other people having the same question), so they receive value back in the form of sats...

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Taj 8h

Yes, I can see your point 🙏

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 8h

What do you think you know???

Maybe some of us believe in hospitality - it is fascinating and valuable to get responses from someone working at the coal face of adoption.

Zap where you see value.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 8h

Will Square Bitcoin payments capability be available in New Zealand anytime foreseeable?

Is there a plan for global roll out?

Keep up the great work by the way - long time supporter of what you guys are doing.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 8h

Will the tax implications on MoE use of Bitcoin be changed so that we are not forced to record every cup of coffee in order to comply with CG tax obligations?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @cleophas 8h

I'm very excited about the new chain code delegation feature for Bitkey.

But I was surprised by this sentence in the announcement post:

While a wallet’s UTXO set is temporarily exposed to Bitkey’s servers during a wallet recovery, this data is never logged.

Seems like it defeats the purpose of chain code delegation.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @wackster 9h

Is there a place where we can see what percent of Square terminals have opted-in/turned on receiving bitcoin payments?