Yes! Living in El Salvador taught me the importance of spending (and replacing) bitcoin instead of just holding it. Moreover, if you always replace a little bit more than what you spend, you can increase your stack, which is a win-win situation

Agree 100%

A small thing I do at stores is to regularly ask "do you accept bitcoin payments?" Or if it's an online merchant where the payment options at checkout are known I will email them asking if I can pay with bitcoin and give a little pitch about the benefits to merchants and customers. I also recommend that they either use BTCPay or OpenNode, and I explain in basic terms the differences between those. I've converted a couple of merchants this way, then I spend BTC when I shop there in the future to show them the effort was worth it.

The more people who do this -- ask about accepting BTC, educate about the options, then follow through and spend BTC if they convert -- the more merchants will be willing to make the effort to accept BTC. Depending on the checkout system they use, it's not always trivial to accept BTC so it really helps with morale when, after they've put in the effort to do it, they get a consistent stream of BTC business.

#SpendAndReplace

Seems that the dilemma is in BTC moving from being an alternative, sound store of value to meeting the other criteria of money through mass adoption. No doubt the lightning network will be invaluable in this process over the coming years.

Cool.

I can help a little....

Share in the FIAT value of the Bitcoin you receive with those who spend it with you...some % and over some time period... we can all do this... for instance...

I have a resident who pays me rent in bitcoin...lets say its 1000 USD value per month... I allow them to tell me at any time over the next 6 months when they want to "realize" 50% of any price appreciation of that bitcoin.

That's the basics... they currently will receive it in the form of a USD rent credit but in the future I plan to provide it as a return of bitcoin equal to that FIAT value...

Amen.

And as a freelancer I always give my clients the option to pay in bitcoin. Even if they don't take me up on the offer, it makes them think.

I kinda disagree. Couple of thoughts:

First,

Stackers and hodlers should cause this to happen naturally, right?

What’s the main reason people don’t take bitcoin seriously? Volatility, right?

As more and more people save more and more bitcoin, the price should go up AND stabilize.

And those are the two things that will get more and more people’s attention. From there, bitcoin is a brain worm. People start looking into, start seeing it’s serious, and start listing it as a payment option.

Second,

The idea that spending bitcoin is the way to get it to take over sounds a bit Keynesian.

Bitcoin is primarily a way to store value. That’s what today’s world is missing. There is literally NO WAY to TRULY SAVE MONEY. You’re either watching it melt away to inflation, or you’re investing it, which inherently involves risk.

Bitcoin is the answer to this. Bitcoin is how we get out of the “spend to save the economy” BS cycle. You do this by hodling.

“Bitcoin fixes X” via hodling.

PS - don’t get me wrong, spending is important to, but saving is the thing that makes bitcoin win.

Agree with small purchases. It isn't really feasible to spend and replace all of your spending and many things like your mortgage you want to use melting ice cube fiat for.

100% agree. The hodl culture is very detrimental to the adoption, however, it can be overcome with time.

That said, I think the main issue when it comes to adoption is that in many countries if you ask someone to spend bitcoin, you are bascically asking them to perform an illegal activity unless they report the gain/loss from that purchase to the tax office. And let's face it, who'd bother reporting a gain on the spent bitcoin while buying a coffee to the tax authority.

In my opinion, this is the biggest issue. That is why the usage is limited because as much as we might not like it, most people do follow the law and are afraid of getting into trouble.

Here's maybe a controversial take: accepting bitcoin is good and asking merchants is fine, but it's the off ramps into fiat that really matter for now.

I think people pick up new technologies when they realize they are useful to them, when they allow them do something new or something old easier, faster, better.

Bitcoin does a lot of things better and faster than fiat (remittances, quick final settlement online...) and some things that fiat has never done (micro payments, true ownership, finite supply...).

And I'm sure that people will flock to these use cases, probably before they start doing the transactions that fiat already does conveniently (buying stuff at stores, paying your run of the mill bills).

But when the unwashed masses want to take advantage of money that cheaply crosses borders or let's them start collecting micro payments instead of those empty little hearts called likes, their eye is still on converting those sats into money they can use - and that usually means an off ramp.

Bitcoin is a no brained for remittances...if you could be sure your family could convert it cheaply to local money wherever they lived.

Everyone would accept bitcoin tips on social media if it converted to a fiat balance that was a nice little passive income stream.

What hinders the really obvious use cases for bitcoin, where people would flock to adoption, is the friction of jumping back into fiat.

I have a general distaste for fiat balances, but the more I talk to normies about all the problems bitcoin solves, the more I run up against the reality that at the moment, bitcoin doesn't solve the problem for people if they can't easily turn it into fiat.

As much as I want to see people holding and accepting bitcoin, I want to live in a world where people are using it to solve their problems.

So, I think in the near future, one of the most important factors impacting bitcoin adoption is low-friction on and off ramps.