I tried to make a directory of bitcoin-accepting online businesses and it is a surprisingly hard list to build. I have only been able to find 5 non-software ones (and I'm one of them) that meet some basic criteria:
  • bitcoin only, no shitcoins (other than fiat)
  • actually bitcoin, provably not KYC fiat auto-conversion
  • products not made for bitcoin e.g. if you make very nice wool socks because you want to make a better sock, I'd list that, but not a generic cheapo sock you slapped a bitcoin logo on.
I asked for help finding more businesses and only got 20 sats on the post. Not a ton of engagement on twitter yet. https://twitter.com/CircularBTC/status/1697725848097616071
So going to add bounties:
20k sats: online store with beef 20k sats: the guy on twitter sanding down cast iron pans, but only if he is still doing it. 5k sats: any other store I deem fitting the rules
I will be reaching out to all the IbexPay merchants and let them know that if the publish an attestation on their website that they do not autoconvert bitcoin and use IbexPay in a nonKYC way that I will add them.
Yes, yes, I know hodling is using, and I have even written some rather vehement threads against the medium of exchange LARPing, and I do not think this is all that important, but it still seems worthwhile. Unlike medium of exchange maximalism, which is dumb, the criteria set forth here make it easier to Buy Bitcoiner, which supports the market cap, whereas the IbexPay, StrikeCommerce, CoinbaseCommerce, BitPay, and OpenNode are primarily LARPer-centric products for businesses thinking they will get a boost from the LARPer bitcoiner consooomers.
E-commerce side businesses is not just about the circular economy, but seems like a good way to increase bitcoiner exports into fiat land (hence non-bitcoin-specific criteria). Think historically about silver vs gold holding nations. Yes, most NGU is new adoption, but that can be augmented if the buying pressure of existing base can be increased. E-commerce is also a more sovereign stream of income than the jobs most people have.
I'm not religious, but the Old Testament advises 33% land, 33% gold, and 33% in your business. Of course, land and gold are shitcoins, but many bitcoiners are on 0 business-wise and opt to purely work for large corporations -- being an employee mathematically means you agree to take a loss on expected value in exchange for higher expected utility -- this literally means a lower bitcoin price in the aggregate. The more bitcoin entrepreneurs (in areas outside of bitcoin, more LARP startups not needed), the faster NGU. Ironically, the opportunity cost curve of bitcoin means a bitcoiner is MORE incentivized to be a wage cuck than a fiat/stock/re NPC.
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Unfortunately, there is a lot of stale, outdated information on BTCmap.org.
I've been to several places listed on BTCmap.org and unfortunately the experience so far has always been the same when you ask to pay with bitcoin: they have no idea what you're talking about.
When I approach the management of the store, the response is some version of "Yeah, we experimented with it, but there isn't really any demand, so we sort-of abandoned the idea."
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My experience even in the places that do, when you ask to pay with Bitcoin it's always an awkward procedure where the person serving you has to go find "the Bitcoin person" who knows how to accept the payment.
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It is non-existent in my country Nigeria right now. We have a government over here that will not approve anything that takes their depreciating claws off our lives. But they can reject Bitcoin on paper but the people have embraced it and it is a part of our financial lives now. You can't ban Bitcoin, you can only try.
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Are you saying that Bitcoin is adopted on day to day basis in Nigeria. That would be awesome.
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Of course. The citizens have found a way to incorporate the use of Bitcoin for financial transactions. However, the banks are barred from getting involved. You can't transact Bitcoin with the local banks, which has brought about the establishment private channels which facilitate the use of Bitcoin. So, the average, savvy Nigerian has a crypto wallet.
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Really awesome you guys find your way around and been able to lift citizens. That will pay off. People from the “1st world” will be learning from you experience.
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When you live in a country where survival of the fittest and most corrupt is crippling everything legitimate for those who just want to do the right things and live their lives, you'd surely find a way out of the matrix. Bitcoin ownership and transaction is a beautiful way out.
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Someone was telling me there are fiat-bitcoin markets that are just large WhatsApp groups.
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There are large WhatsApp and telegram group, also we have the more integrated ones, an example is binance. And there are other ones just like binance. It is left for the citizens to find a way.
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iVPN silent.link These accept Monero too so maybe doesn't count toward what your looking for but its safe to say if they only accept only Bitcoin and Monero they are on the right path.
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Accepting Monero makes them stand out even more for me as a privacy respecting businesses. Maxi or not everyone can benefit from using Monero for payments, the divergence comes that maxis believe Monero is not for holding as it will always lose value in bitcoin terms
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Lol, no, Monero is a shitcoin
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That everyone needs oddly enough, even more so on high threat environments i.e. darknet markets, no wonder it's the most talked about and most subscribed coin on Dread
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Yep, I also found a beef bar site that accepted Monero. Maybe if my site gets any traction, it will motivate someone to drop Monero. Especially when there are very few sites, if it becomes a good source, companies could easily be the only player in their market listed for a little while.
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There are very few where I live TBH. The only BTC cafe was using a muun wallet. Not ideal for small payments.
I just think the infrastructure needs to be built out more.
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The reason few business accept BTC is because their expenses aren't able to be paid in BTC. (Chicken and egg dilemma).
A typical ecomm biz makes 15-40% margins on any sale. This means they have to take 85-60% of the money you give them just to pay off their suppliers, employees, hosting bills, shipping, etc.
Early stage ecomm is typically reinvesting profits so they don't even keep the 15-40% profit, rather it goes into the next purchase order for inventory, etc.
Even when they do decide to keep profits, they're gonna owe 15-30% corporate (or self-employment) income tax on those profits. And that tax is also not payable in BTC.
Truth is a business has almost zero need for BTC unless that business is able to pay expenses in BTC.
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Actually, bitcoin is highly liquid and can easily be converted into dollars for payment. There are specialized companies all over the world that offer these services, often with fees that are a fraction of a percent! If you get paid in dollars, you then have to convert your profits into bitcoin, yet bitcoiners still accept dollars in most of their businesses.
Moreover, a non-bitcoin-product business taking bitcoin will see a tiny fraction of their revenue as bitcoin so begone with your FUD.
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So your pitch to businesses is:
  • BTC will be a tiny fraction of your revenues
  • converting to dollars incurs fees
Business people are trying to invest small to get big growth. This pitch seems to them like a big investment for tiny growth.
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Actually, accepting bitcoin requires an extremely small investment of time/money because of how easy it is run what is called a bitcoin "node".
You clearly have never heard the phrase Buy American or understand what that means. 😂
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Stronhodl Spirits --> https://www.stronghodl.at/
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I suppose they are probably not converting to fiat given all the branding, but on desktop their product links are broken so site accessibility needs to improve.
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Yikes! I guess you're right, what's with all that crypto nonsense? I withdraw my recommendation.
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The Nostr Marketplace is coming
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it's already here, magicwebstore.xyz
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Yes, I'm definitely bullish on all sorts of marketplaces over Nostr, including services such as Airbnb, Instacart, Taskrabbit, etc. -- those things are impossible to do in a sovereign way whereas the tech exists for fairly sovereign e-commerce today.
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#asknostr you may get more results.
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100 sats \ 0 replies \ @xz 2 Sep 2023
Well, I just mean that as opposed to twitter, you may reach different results. I think that particular hashtag is corresponding to https://swarmstr.com/
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but seems like a good way to increase bitcoiner exports into fiat land
The thing is, almost all Bitcoin-businesses target Bitcoiners and have no selling point besides "you can pay with Bitcoin" as a gimmick. They're in business for the sake of using Bitcoin not for the sake of the business.
I'm not religious, but the Old Testament advises 33% land, 33% gold, and 33% in your business.
This made my bullshit-radar ping. Please give a source for that, sounds like something made up by a conservative grifter and not like something the bible would say
Ironically, the opportunity cost curve of bitcoin means a bitcoiner is MORE incentivized to be a wage cuck than a fiat/stock/re NPC.
Speak for yourself. Maybe it's because you're a lower class poor person. Projection.
Also using "NPC" unironically is indicative of being an NPC yourself
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Ok, debooonker. Sounds like I struck a nerve because you have a well paying job (are a well paid slave)?
Ironically, only the lower class poors randomly try to call other people poors, but you wouldn't know that since you have never been around people other than that. 🤡🤡🤡
You have probably never done anything in your life that matters. There are days of my life that vastly outperform the sum total of everything you will ever accomplish in your pathetic life.
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I have my private practice that only takes cash, check, or Bitcoin and Bitcoin Lightning.
Then our computer moment website only takes Bitcoin and Bitcoin Lightning.
We use BTCPayserver self-hosted on our Sovran Pros on all sites.
It is nice to get gifted in Bitcoin for services. :)
I can DM the website links if that sounds like something that fits your criteria and what you are looking for.
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Yes, please do. As long as it is something that is widely available to ship as a product, not consulting services or the like since I am focused on scalability. There are also already sites focused on physical places on a map.
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Sovransystems.com seems to be a fit.
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Yep, thank you. Personal server is not bitcoin-specific so I will add this and Start9.
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Much appreciated and good idea. Thanks for the heard work to put it together.
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yep, have him on the site already
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Online store with beef: https://www.bramleigh.co.za Just select Pay With Bitcoin when you get to the payment part of checkout. It applies to anything in the store, not just beef. Although, promo code BTCBEEF applies for a discount on beef. Only shipping inside of South Africa atm.
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Looks like they are close then, but not quite enough. I checked and that gets to a population of 60mm.
Will make a note of them regardless in case I ever add country based stuff.
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I'm from South Africa and, yes, you're correct; that's our population size. Close enough to what? The OP says nothing about borders. This is a Bitcoin forum, after all.
Okay, see your edit only now.
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Actually, decided to just add a more compact list at the bottom that relaxes constraints. They're listed now.
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Ideally, global shipping would be available since that keeps the list from getting too long at this point. It makes sense though especially for food that it would be more local... just considering that now, so we will definitely want to expand the site with that in mind at some point. For now, products with higher margins per lb of good might need to be more of the focus.
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I was going to link kandc cattle and beef initiative but both of them don't offer Bitcoin as a payment method through their online order flow.
Probably have to reach out manually to do that, but that's quite surprising to me. I get Bitcoin isn't the easiest integration but put your money where your mouth is Slim & Cole.
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Yep, I have gone through the websites of a bunch of companies, including going through everything on BTCPay Server's directory, and it was very obvious no one has gone through that in a while to purge inactive sites or businesses that stopped accepting bitcoin.
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As a person who was hired to create an accounting system for a large company dealing with ether payments, I can tell you one thing: It's fucking hard to make inherently pseudonymous payments work business-wise.
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Large companies are able to do all sorts of tax shenanigans while small businesses have been crushed under the transition away from cash, on top of differential money printer access. This is a way small businesses can return to cash and I see no issue with the fact that it's harder for large companies.
Of course, I do not condone any unlawful activities ;)
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Forgot to mention the guy I get my maple syrup from
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You have Plebeian Market (https://plebeian.market/).
A lot of products there, and we'll be migrating to Nostr in some weeks/month.
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Liquidity.
Bitcoin is a good store of value but not a good currency because of its volatility.
Businesses need credit for flexible liquidity (IOU's)
Accounting for Bitcoin price flux is....annoying. Having to pay taxes on something that was 69k but is now 26k.
It's why stable coins are popular.
People need to have a real physical presence, with real accountability to the state (aggression/taxation) in the real world.
This article by a bitcoin dev i recently came across does a good explanation :
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Unfortunately, does not meet my requirement of being not-bitcoin-specific. There are tons of bitcoin knickknacks, stickers, apparel, etc, but that can't bring in revenue from fiat people to bitcoiners, which is part of the overarching objective of this project.
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I missed the non-bitcoin specific requirement, you're right.
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Most businesses run on borrowed money, which means interest must be repaid in fiat currency. In addition, government regulations are not friendly to companies that charge bitcoin, and banks are not friendly to bitcoin. If it becomes a bank rejection account, it means that it is difficult for the company to obtain financing from the bank, and most companies are unwilling to take the risk of offending the bank.
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Margins on eCommerce businesses can be an issue, while you might save on fees versus credit card fees and banking the business has to deal with managing that capital versus their fiat cash flow and liabilities
Then there's dealing with refunds, handling taxes, and managing custody do you do it yourself or use a 3rd party provider
For some I've spoken to it is just not worth the headache, they have enough work on their plate running their business, and for the most part fiat payments works and is already enough of a pain to manage
It's why I think consulting, freelance, info, and software products go Bitcoin early the margins are higher, and you can afford to handle drawdowns, if you're making 3-5% on a sale isn't much.
If I were to look at physical products i'd say tobacco and alcohol also have decent margins that wouldn't be too disruptive to manage on a Bitcoin standard right now.
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I take some issue with this statement
Ironically, the opportunity cost curve of bitcoin means a bitcoiner is MORE incentivized to be a wage cuck than a fiat/stock/re NPC
because if you've ever played Kiyosaki's CASHFLOW game, you know we all start in the E category.
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I haven't played that game.
Here is how I think about it: a salary has a roughly constant value in dollars so it's cumulative savings function is linear in dollars. A startup can offer a hockey stick growth, but the reality is it may be 0 for years, and then a lump sum (maybe) at some indefinite point in the future. If the expected value of the startup were only 2x higher in dollars, adjusting for dollar-time-value (S&P 500 opportunity cost) but if it were say, 5 years out, most bitcoiners would expect the 2x value is negative yielding in bitcoin terms.
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TBH, it's just my assumption. I guess this has to do with bad bitcoins(I mean those from tumbler!) And transaction fees, but yeah, stats is a popular choice for most and how well it will go!
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No such thing as "bad bitcoins", but if you don't like yours, happy to atomically swap you 1 "good" bitcoin to 1.1 "bad" bitcoins.
Transaction fees are way higher on fiat payment rails and have been going higher. As they fake fintech companies are finding their pumped up ZIRP ponzi valuations can't hold, they are raising prices -- I have 4.5% fees on international card payments over Stripe and about 3% domestically.
LN has maybe 1% cost and Phoenix just dropped their fees so it's getting cheaper. The Ordinal scams died down and onchain fees are low enough that for something that costs $100+ it may be cheaper.
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I wish I could downvote this. There are zero companies on that list that meet the basic criteria.
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BTW was surprised not to find good beans on your directory. Have you checked them out? https://thegoodbeans.com/
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Unfortunate, was hoping there would be at least one.
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There is something like a downvote: flagging. Click the three dots next to a post/comment; at the bottom is "flag".
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I will go through list in more detail later and zap as appropriate. All the major companies up top fail to meet criteria.
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This is the guy I remember selling cast iron pans for Bitcoin but it doesn't appear he is actively selling right now: https://twitter.com/CalebHolt4
I'm looking forward to going through the list you put together. These companies have definitely been a struggle to find.