Block, Inc.’s Square has auto-enabled roughly 1 million U.S. merchants to accept Bitcoin payments via the Lightning Network, letting customers pay in BTC while merchants automatically receive USD settlements with near-instant conversion in the background.
At its peak pace, a new business was activating the feature every eight seconds. The rollout is powered by the Lightning Network, enabling near-instant settlement while merchants receive U.S. dollars by default, removing currency risk from the equation.
In other words, customers can pay in Bitcoin via Lightning while merchants still receive USD settlements, with the system handling conversion in the background and allowing sellers to opt out if needed.
... Block’s growing adoption metrics, revealing at the time that there were more than 800,000 Square merchants who now have BTC payments auto-enrollment enabled. This number seems to be above According to Suter, a new business activates the feature every eight seconds. The company is also rolling out a tap-to-pay BTC feature using NFC hardware and the Lightning Network, eliminating QR codes and offering zero processing fees through 2026.
Honestly, I'm kinda skeptical. We've had a number of reports on SN of merchants who are advertised as accepting Bitcoin not actually accepting it.
#1460651, #1471241, #1467535
Key word:
enabled. That doesn't mean that it works, it means that it could work.s/optimism/skepticism/I used my non custodial wallet today here in California... At a coffee shop with square and it worked.
So that's the good news.
The less good news is that I had to ask 3 other square merchants if they 'took bitcoin on their square terminal' and they didn't or couldn't find the bitcoin option.
But hey it worked beautifully and square uses blinded paths too so we are making progress.
sounds like my story
i asked to pay in bitcoin and the cashier didn't know what to do... then the owner said something about how "they didn't get that update"
@Car mentioned how some of the latest updates may not work with older hardware, which prevents some merchants from accepting bitcoin: #1471328
Yeah what it looks like to me is that the underlying issue is that although the terminal is enabled for receiving Bitcoin, but the merchants aren't properly enabled to accept it.
To take this over the finish line, basic education is needed. Doesn't have to be a book, can be a flyer.
My understanding is that it should be enabled 'by default' regardless of opt in by the merchant... But I'm not sure the software is fully up to date on all terminals.
What surprised me is how nice the employees have been about it at least in California. They know of bitcoin even if that's the limit of their knowleege... They want to accept if its good for business. I told them I want to buy such and such but I want to pay in bitcoin via square.
Going out and using a lightning wallet in the wild is really cool, it opens totally new possibilities for medium of exchange.
I have a square terminal and you do have to opt in to accept it and convert it. You can manually convert it or have it auto convert.
The merchant will still need to understand how to operate it, I think. I was trying to figure out some Square things for a client earlier this year and the docs - across all the Block services tbh - can be a bit confusing and hard to navigate: they have hundreds of features.
Since a lot of merchants seem to be of the "don't know how" posture, maybe effort spent towards helping them understand are better spent at the moment than reporting how many millions of unused terminals are enabled to bitcoiners. Doesn't need to be Block-initiated even.
This gives me an idea for a long term SN reporting project. A phone call or email to every business listed on BTC maps. Asking just a few questions like:
Do you accept bitcoin?
did you know you are hosted on BTC maps?
If no to question one, are you interested in accepting bitcoin?
Any question suggestions for this short survey?
It would be cool to compile long term results for this and start to develop some stats based on geographical locations
I didn't even look on btcmap I just went to a shopping area with... Small merchants. There were many using square and of the 4-5 I asked one took bitcoin and paid with it.
Square: over one million merchants enabled for Bitcoin payments
If they do not pay their employees with BTC, is all in vain. All those BTC are going directly to Saylors...