Cash App just gave millions of users a reason to spend bitcoin at the shops they already visit — 5% back for Lightning payments to Square sellers, no prior bitcoin ownership required.
That was the headline signal in this week's Bitcoin Payment Adoption Brief. But the week went deeper: Bitcoin Pizza Day on May 22 generated spending events across Kenya, Bolivia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and South Africa. Bootlegger Coffee brought Bitcoin checkout to more than 100 locations nationwide through PeachPayments. In rural Uganda, Starlight Elementary reported that its school — 100+ children, four classroom blocks, 22 staff — was paid for almost entirely in sats.
On the infrastructure side, Lightning Enable showed how an API can accept Lightning payments in 10 minutes with no accounts or card rails, and Blink's batch payment feature is powering weekly disbursements to families across three countries.
The full brief covers merchant adoption, payment infrastructure, and ground-level proofs from Zambia to Mozambique to El Salvador.