Another day another coffee, another Square terminal accepting bitcoin...

Lightning is such an amazing, remarkable addition to bitcoin and the options and opportunities it provides are great. Every day I use lightning I am more and more positive about its future and integration with day-2-day life. We now have non-kyc markets with lightning (hodl hodl and robosats), merchants that are rolling out lightning acceptance everywhere (I can attest to this) and better tools and wallets on a phone...

That do more things and make lightning more seamless and easy to use. In addition, the privacy lightning affords is significant while still leaving the 'base chain' transparent to verify supply and macro-activity throughout an economy.

Overseas travel, overseas merchants, VPNs, software products, social media and forums (of which stacker news is the best), physical capital (satscards and opendimes) lightning swaps and ecash... Its a remarkable growing ecosystem you can do more and more with.

I don't know anyone in person meaningfully interested in bitcoin... Much less anyone else who knows what lightning is... but I think it is just a matter of time before we have a significantly greater number of people "come to Jesus" and when I say Jesus I mean Bitcoin.

The fact that I can send and receive sats here on stacker news, and then take those same sats and buy a coffee, use them to open a lightning channel, rent a lightning channel, donate to a developer, pay for an on-chain transaction almost instantly all the while leaving L1 for verifiability and security...

Is nothing short of remarkable. I have said this before but one day lightning will come to YouTube and sites like it... And eventually people will love it once they experience it themselves the effect will be overwhelming and vast.

'Crypto' and the speculation around it has slowed bitcoin adoption significantly, confusing the public on the difference between "better money" and "more money" as bitcoin is not a get rich quick scheme and the other "Cryptos" are 99.9% a scam...

However the public will eventually figure it out. It should be obvious the significance of having private-sector money without an issuer (which is what bitcoin is).

I think a major reason bitcoin adoption has been "slow" among the general public is that people are lazy... They don't want to put in the work to appreciate proof-of-work, they don't want to accept that something cannot come from nothing, and they want something free from government.

However as many governments go deeper and deeper into debt... What is the alternative?

I was in a busy shopping area in the pacific northwest recently... Looking for square merchants for a coffee or a place to get lunch. So I stepped into a busy coffee shop, walked up to the counter after I saw the Square terminal and asked...

"Does your square terminal accept Bitcoin?"

One would think that people would grasp the remarkable ability to actually pay in non-state money for a coffee, transact in it, hold it yourself in a way that promotes individual sovereignty...

"No the terminal is off. That isn't enabled, that is off, it doesn't work we don't take that..."

And they frowned at me. Frowned. it was as if I asked them something rude or inappropriate.

So I said "thank you very much, perhaps next time" and left being as polite as I could.

Fast forward a few days...

I'm in the American south, and once again go Square-hopping looking for coffee shops.

Aha they have square...

"Yes do you have nitro cold brew?"

"Yes we do."

"Do you accept Bitcoin?"

"Accept what? No I don't think we take that, sorry..."

"Can you check please? All the square terminals are accepting Bitcoin now."

"OK... Actually we do take that I see that."

The QR code appears on the screen after I select a nice tip... Which I scan with my NON CUSTODIAL WALLET.

And 10-15 seconds later I have paid in bitcoin, in a private-sector money which the Fed cannot manipulate, in a random coffee shop in the American south, with many Lightning hops to Square's (what appears to be) blinded Lightning invoice.

Once again I am amazed. Not because of a QR code... But because of the growing ecosystem and possibilities for freedom that sound, digital money provides.

I think there will eventually be another major financial crisis, not because of the Fed specifically (I actually think most of the people that work at the Fed are good people, well-meaning individuals) but because the United States congress is completely incompetent.

Eventually foreigners will figure out that buying treasuries is a terrible idea and there is a new Risk Free rate and the closest one can achieve to that is Bitcoin in Cold Storage, on-chain.

Then all the risk in financial markets will be repriced, it will be terrifying and glorious, and it will be a big deal.

I talk to my friends not about Bitcoin (it is too much for them) but about Gold which is something they can understand and I highlight how the interest payments alone on a growing debt... are unsustainable.

They nod their heads and agree with me, after I explain the numbers simply don't work over the next 10 years (larger and larger interest payments, higher interest rates, borrowing 7% of GDP a year) on an already very large Federal Debt.

But I don't think they understand how this problem will effect all Americans and quite seriously and soon.

All we can do, and are doing, is support developers and businesses who give people a monetary alternative which is what Bitcoin is.

I am so glad that I "found" stacker news, I think many of us will look back at this "in-between" time with amazement...

I do.

History is in the making and I am proud and humbled to be a part of it.