From some merchants I've talked to, they seem to not want the accounting mess with receiving bitcoin payments, which I can understand. Like @siggy47 said, there's just a lot of BS in the way, though there are the noble few who take on the challenge.

Yes, the hardest part in convincing a merchant is their misconception of BTC "volatility". Very few really understand the part where BTC is the "savings machine" and not the "get rich" one.

I always explain them that we are still early and even if the would have 10% from their income in BTC, is still a good thing to keep them as savings.

Later in time, they could start spending from this reserve, when is really needed, on employees salaries, paying a local supplier, paying a handy-man for a repair etc things like these, that do not affect too much their cash-flow but in the same time are slowly creating that Bitcoin circular economy.

Saying that you must convert your BTC instantly for fiat, is a clear message that your business will not survive anyways in such a rampant inflation ball-rolling. In other words they are really dumb and don't even know how to run properly a business.

Later they will regret it. ALL THE TIME they regret it. I had dozens of them calling me back after years, saying that they regret selling their BTC.

I have no more other words for those than:

Here in the U.S. paperwork is a big hurdle, in addition to the usual general ignorance about bitcoin. Many businesses deal with sales tax issues, conversion capital gains tax, etc. It seems that only merchants with a strong commitment to bitcoin are willing to address the challenges.

As most people agree... is the fiat mentality with all the TAX related bureaucracy, so you need to understand first that you are accepting bitcoin to don't give a shit about a government, you are building wealth.

What I heard?

When you accept that you are building your wealth, you as a merchant only want btc to stack, and in (we hope) near future spend in circular economy, all the other things seems irrelevant and a compliance with the actual system that... it's just fuck up.

I have a local cafe interested in accepting bitcoin. The problem is everything that comes with doing lightning properly like opening a channel, then swapping some out.

The other issue of converting back to fiat or splitting the payment up is not that easy either. There are some wallets that can do that, but are not optimally designed as a point of sale.

They really need to learn about bitcoin first. Or they can just use wallet of satoshi

In Spain is not easy for the merchant if they want to do it legally... From a fiscal advisor (José Antonio Bravo):

"This is what a business needs to do to accept payments in BTC. You can create the invoice in Euros (which is what the tax authorities care about) and include the conversion to the equivalent in BTC. However, you must consider that this will be the acquisition price of the BTC so that, when you sell them, you can calculate whether there has been a gain or loss.

In addition to the above, you must account for the BTC in an accounting entry in accordance with its future destination.

If you are planning to convert them into euros within a period of less than a year, you should record the entries in an Inventory account (since they are not money, nor financial assets), and maintain this inventory account by the speculative method. That is, the inventory enters at the purchase price and exits at the selling price at the time of its conversion to euros, or its exchange for other goods or services (including exchanges for other cryptocurrencies). At the end of the year, a regularization of inventory is performed based on the remaining units at that time at their value (this can be done, for example, through Cointracking), and the difference, positive or negative, is taken to results.

However, if you intend to hold the cryptocurrencies as an investment, you should record the entry as Fixed Assets, with the particular characteristic that, being assets without depreciation over time (as could happen with land), their value cannot be amortized. It would be advisable to detail them by batches of different prices. When it is decided to sell these assets in exchange for money or other goods or services, it would be convenient to change their categorization to Inventory."

Aside from all the usual obstacles to adoption, one specific concern from one business owner friend of mine was about the risk of receiving stolen bitcoin as payment. Specifically, he was worried about law enforcement coming to retrieve/confiscate those UTXOs later. Liquidating all received bitcoin would be one way to handle this concern. I also asked him if the same risk doesn't exist with dollars/cash, because I have no idea.

I got encouraged by Darthcoin to talk to half a dozen merchants where it would be really really valuable to me if they had Lightning ⚡

Didn't recieve an answer yet. I fear that all these customer support Email adresses go straight into "JIRA ticket closed”.

Very unfortunate, idk what to do... 😔

I have never embarked on this journey personally

Getting the right price conversion between fiat and Bitcoin

Telling them to leave fiat is the major bottleneck

In my country Kenya 95% of adults don't know or understand bitcoin. Talking to merchants about bitcoin here is a waste of time.Me and my friends are creating a couple of online forums to make more people bitcoin savvy.

The biggest barrier I've encountered is knowledge. People don't know what bitcoin is. They also don't know what to do with it. They usually link it with pyramid schemes and other "get rich quick" scams.

This is mostly related to the frequent news related to cryptocurrencies in general and how the press "paints" this stuff to the public.

My experience is that the following prevent businesses from accepting bitcoin payments:

In my experience it's always come down to a combination the below 4 things (to varying degrees):

One concern is that the merchants we onboard get their bank accounts shutdown for being listed on btcmap.

Even just the threat of it by the notnilc system is enough to scare people off.

When chatting with merchants, their concerns often revolve around the practicalities of integration, security, and potential tax implications. They're curious about customer demand for Bitcoin payments and the tools available for smooth transitions. Some wonder about the infrastructure needed to handle crypto transactions efficiently and securely. How do you see businesses adapting to these concerns in the near future?