We don’t need more bitcoin merchants \ stacker news ~bitcoin

2333 sats \ 50 comments \ @saunter 13 Oct bitcoin

I was fifth bitcoiner that visited this coffee place in San Salvador today, but first one to pay with bitcoin.

We have more bitcoin merchants now than Bitcoiners willing to spend.

We don’t need more merchant adoption, but spenders adoption. Without spenders we will not reach any substantial adoption.

There’s only so much Bitcoiners in the world and only a small fraction of us want to spend it.

How do we change that culture?

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274 sats \ 13 replies \ @k00b 13 Oct

The incentive to hoard good money and spend bad money is too high. You have to get rid of that incentive by:

getting consumers on a 100% bitcoin standard
or getting merchants on a 100% bitcoin standard

If people have bad money and merchants accept bad money, only the good natured mission driven types will spend good money.

304 sats \ 0 replies \ @nout 15 Oct

I think it's important to realize that if you want bitcoin to become the global currency, you will have to start spending it at some point, so why not start today. Spending bitcoin is actually how you can directly support bitcoin.

There are couple approaches and tricks that can be useful to mitigate some of the worries that newbies may have:

spend-and-replace: Buy stuff with bitcoin, but then immediately buy the same amount of bitcoin with fiat. This has nice side-effects: you are adding more value to bitcoin economy (hopefully the merchant keeps it) - NgU - and you are incentivizing the merchant to continue supporting bitcoin.
use app like Strike that has "use fiat to pay any lightning invoice", which then means that you are not responsible for any taxable events, completely avoiding any headache around that. The benefits are the same as with spend-and-replace.
join a community of bitcoin spenders. Every country now has a community of folks trying to add more merchants and spend everywhere. They organize in chat groups and fill things into https://btcmap.org/ (example is https://einundzwanzig.space/ )

I have been spending bitcoin literally every day recently for electronics, home supplies, etc. and it's starting to feel normal.

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @rheedi0 14 Oct

This is has been the main cognitive dissonance in bitcoin for several years now: stacking vs spending. There really is no practical incentive to spend.

There is also a network effect that bitcoin just doesn't have yet. It's easy to critique tradfi platforms like Venmo or Paypal for being closed systems... but bitcoin is not all that different right now. If you don't have any bitcoin it is just another payment platform you don't have access to and doesn't work with anything you have. Someone may as well be asking you to Venmo them and sadly, you don't have Venmo.

17 sats \ 0 replies \ @Kontext 13 Oct

Discounts on payments with Bitcoin is the answer IMO

1 sat \ 8 replies \ @saunter OP 13 Oct

Spend and replace, it's not hard

If noones spending, what's the incentive for merchants to accept this if one person per year comes and pays

214 sats \ 0 replies \ @wingalt 13 Oct

Not that easy, if you DCA P2P the premium that you pay keeps you from spending BTC too easily, unless a BTC discount is provided

42 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 13 Oct

EARN in sats. That is the first important step. After that, spending is coming naturally.

I live using bitcoin only from 2018: earn in sats, spend (wisely) in sats, hold in sats. No more fiat here.

But people should understand one important thing: once you start living in a Bitcoin Standard, you will NOT spending so much as in a fiat standard. You are spending only on things you really need. Forget about your lazy fiat life spending all around your money.

That's why you will not see so many bitcoiners spending:

because not all are still EARNING directly in sats, they still DCA
because those that earn in sats appreciate more each sat and they will spend it only when is really need it.

What really need those merchants is to start PAYING their employees and suppliers in BTC. Then you will see the magic... of bitcoin circular economy. So saying that we don't need more bitcoin merchants is stupid. Bitcoin circular economies start by circulating the money (sats), not by stagnating them.

As I explained here: #576140

111 sats \ 5 replies \ @k00b 13 Oct

People aren't spending and replacing though. So either reality is wrong or it's harder than "not hard."

IMO The tech is like AOL-era-internet-levels of bad right now - not to mention all the KYC and legal garbage when going in and out of fiat.

1 sat \ 4 replies \ @028559d218 13 Oct

In my opinion...

Bitcoiners should think of it this way, 2% of what we save we should try to spend to help merchant adoption. Ie if saving 100$ then maybe find a productive way to spend 2$. 2 dollars/euros will buy a lot of sats on lightning.

Nostr, Stacker news, a cup of coffee every once in a while... a few sats goes a long way when it's spent on others and they appreciate it. If nothing else it's proof that the tech still works, it's a great demo and it shows to people that Bitcoiners are serious.

Just my opinion.

Edit: I don't know why text appeared italicized not intentional lol

1 sat \ 3 replies \ @k00b 13 Oct

It’s a bug. We mistake anything between two dollar signs as a math equation.

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @drlh 13 Oct

Wait SN has support of LaTeX math mode?

$\frac{21 000 000}{\infty}$

Noiice never knew!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 13 Oct

Only a week old or so. :)

23 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 13 Oct

dollar signs

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @standard_sats 13 Oct

It is not like that. All these merchants may be instead of using CEXes just do something and sell something for Bitcoin.

14 sats \ 1 reply \ @standardcrypto 13 Oct

Target point of sale hardware/software providers.

Then all vendor has to do is check a box to accept bitcoin. Payment still arrives in fiat if vendor doesn't care about bitcoin.

Convenience and familiarity beats almost everything, except in a money is dying scenario and sometimes even then.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @dtonon 14 Oct

Agree

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @south_korea_ln 13 Oct

I was fifth bitcoiner that visited this coffee place in San Salvador today, but first one to pay with bitcoin.

This is surprising to me...

Are those really Bitcoiners then? ;)

I would spend Bitcoin without hesitation whenever I end up in such a place. Replace them as soon as possible, but still, pay in Bitcoin.

84 sats \ 3 replies \ @siggy47 13 Oct

I really think those of us who hang out on SN have a warped sense of the willingness of bitcoiners to spend their bitcoin. I have made an effort to meet local bitcoiners, and they have all looked at me as crazy when I say I want to spend my bitcoin. It's understandable. Sats are precious, while dollars are unlimited.

65 sats \ 1 reply \ @kepford 13 Oct

Its something I've been saying and many have been saying for a while. Saving is the more important feature of bitcoin for most people. That will the case until it isn't. At a certain point it won't be. When? No one knows.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Taurus 17 Oct

Saving is ok. But what do you do to eat? Or buy anything that you really need? Do you still use $ ?

43 sats \ 0 replies \ @Taurus 17 Oct

Sats are precious but paradoxically there always be enough of them to pay for things. Even if it’s a fraction of a sat we can still use it for payment, only the price will go up.

11 sats \ 0 replies \ @rebel_nomad 13 Oct

Culture is built by large groups of individuals as well as internal groups managing the real, ever changing world.

Until the internet came around this was largely bound to geographic areas, so far we've only seen subcultures developing on things like political fronts, and now especially since 2020 as a global, cross-cultural freedom movement.

Its very concerning that there are signs like this of the Bitcoin culture failing to deal with the needs of the real world, that is for sure!

However, most of the early adopters, and especially those who buidl on Bitcoin certainly know that something big is about to hit, be it financial, geopolitical, or an escalation of WW3.

Personally I'm still watching for yet another black swan event daily, both geopolitically as well as in how Bitcoin develops. I'm sort of prepared for a deep dip, especially if this triggers real adoption on the other end.

I've already met actual refugees who've managed their situation with Bitcoin (and by derivation "cryptos"), in previous times they would have ended up in a far worse situation, or might not have been able to get out in time at all!

In reality I'm in this category myself. Yeah I could return to the WEF/WHO hell that my home country has conjured up, but besides the spiritual defeat and annihilatory inflation I actually regard that as more dangerous than even the rear portions of a war zone. Why this is the case is complex, but I'll get around to explaining why as time passes here.

This is then also the reason why I will certainly spend, and especially use some of the Bitcoin I hold once we get to the right point of time!

What I will choose to do then is something I cannot know now. If things develop in benign ways with a prospect of WW3 winding down I might invest in starting a company that gives me a realistic way of building revenue streams within BRICS, maybe even both spheres of influence.

Now if things go real bad I'd have to invest in getting to the right country instead, and maybe even start a new fiat business there, survival in order to fight another day will always be the top priority of course.

I do see a real, very easy to spot difference between the Bitcoin users who have these sorts of experiences and priorities to deal with and those who for now at least have fiat jobs. There will also be a marked difference in how those two cohorts think about spending, especially since its about staying free and even alive...

What might be the conclusion to all of this? Maybe we'll get another sharp V drop and surge, which kickstarts adoption for real?

Or maybe the amount of people who need Bitcoin as a tool will simply keep on growing, and especially exchanging into fiat or using it as a not so visible internal market, effectively making for a floor for the next bear market?

These are things I will be watching. The one thing that could make me get real concerned is of course if we get well into 2025 with no sign of a new wave of adoption shaping up...

If digital gold becomes the only function of Bitcoin and Lightning is marginalized, then something else will "steal" the end user adoption. That should be pretty much clear!

143 sats \ 2 replies \ @adam_coinos_io 13 Oct

Get more people earning in bitcoin so they have some in pocket to spend and also get merchants to offer exclusive deals and discounts to customers that pay in bitcoin.

171 sats \ 0 replies \ @teemupleb 13 Oct

And vote harder for politicians that will remove the cap gains tax from spending bitcoin for small purchases!

1 sat \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 13 Oct

THIS!

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @fiatjaf8 21 Oct

I can't find a single place that accepts Bitcoin anywhere 100mi around where I am, so yes, we need more merchants.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @saunter OP 25 Oct

Move to a place where there are plenty of merchants. They don'y see bitcoiners paying often

22 sats \ 2 replies \ @evankaloudis 13 Oct

We do need more bitcoin merchants. But existing bitcoin merchants need to also incentivize customer to part with their bitcoin by giving them a discount.

5% off should probably do it.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @anon 20 Oct

Hi, I'm the coffee shop guy. Look about the discount, I personally don't think it'd make a difference at all.

I've heard so so many times "oh it's going to be a million dollar cup of coffee in the future so no" and variations of that. Would it being a $950,000 cup of coffee in the future make it better for those people? Probably not.

I have a talk at Adopting Bitcoin this year called "You can't buy coffee with Bitcoin" about this, and a few other things.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @evankaloudis 12 Nov

Have you tried it or are you just speculating?

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bitcoiner1 13 Oct

One way to change this culture, will be offering a discount to the people who pays in SATs.

1 sat \ 0 replies \ @JesseJames 13 Oct

Not sure if we need to do anything, let it rip, leave it alone. Few incentives will help (3-5% discount) and the time will do the rest. imho.

1 sat \ 0 replies \ @OT 13 Oct

We need more merchants that are also bitcoiners.

1 sat \ 0 replies \ @Rothbardian_fanatic 13 Oct

Why aren’t the merchants offering some sort of incentive to spend the bitcoins. What most people seem to be talking about is Gresham’s Law, “bad money drives out good”. The bitcoin, in this case, is the good money. Why use it now when it will be much more valuable in the future. If doing things by force, in this case, was available you could do the same thing that fiat money does in most countries of the world: legal tender.

1 sat \ 0 replies \ @000w2 13 Oct

There is no need to change anything. Business owners who want bitcoin will accept bitcoin.

Thinking bitcoiners need to go against their natural incentives for Bitcoin to be adopted is nonsense.

1 sat \ 0 replies \ @OriginalSize 13 Oct

Think of it this way. Merchants are buyers. Ask them if they're stacking or selling immediately for fiat. Keep the stackers in mind for when you need liquidity and want to diversify away from exchanges.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @anon 20 Oct

maybe bitcoiners get comfortable spending mostly after hodling for 4 years? maybe it's just time for a given cohort to actiivate?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Taurus 17 Oct

Bitcoiners paying with something else than Btc are not Bitcoiners

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @7e6e393a56 13 Oct

Hard to say. Many are just speculators and don't see how revolutionary bitcoin is

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @standard_sats 13 Oct

It is a country with officially recognized Bitcoin. Of course there will be more merchants.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @AG 13 Oct

This all circular economy will take time, merchants struggle to trust the technology because there are not many customers paying with it. So even if many does the initial investment to accept BTC, then they stop because there's not enough inflow to maybe pay the service provider offering the POS.

I agree with you, stackers should contribute more to the ecosystem, having maybe setting up a spending budget or donations amount?

In the ~AGORA we don't see much activity from sellers, nor from buyers. We try to incentivize with our Spending Sunday ... latest one today #721244

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @TheBTCManual 13 Oct

Why be bothered with how others use their Bitcoin? We have a clear savings problem, and bitcoin solves that, we don't have a medium of exchange problem with fiat, if you want to spend your Bitcoin cool, if you don't you allow others to access the available liquidity

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @028559d218 14 Oct

Eventually Bitcoin will have to (and should) transition to a medium of exchange. It has properties that government money cannot/will not have... so it will fill that niche.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undergotten 13 Oct

Maybe you'd get more customers if you stop setting up these shops in the middle of 3rd-world nowhere, and set some up in the actual western world? Bet you get more Bitcoiners in a demographic that actually popularized it in the first place.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @KLT 13 Oct

Yea I don’t get this. I have fiat bills so if I’m able to buy bitcoin and spend that instead, as the price of bitcoin rises, I save more sats.

My haircut back in January costs 35k sats, now it costs roughly 25k sats. I could pay my barber in fiat but my haircut priced in bitcoin is actually getting cheaper so I’m saving sats long term whenever I denominate all of my life expenses in sats, which of course is the much stronger currency.

It feels good to to give value to get value, knowing the merchant I’m paying has been given a money that will be worth more in the future than it is today.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @sangekrypto 13 Oct

So what system do you use for payment?

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @byzantine 13 Oct

here is a scenario:

prices in fiat keep going up and eventually you run out of fiat so you just spend the bitcoin.

until then it will be slow going

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @TheBTCManual 13 Oct

This!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @User21000000 13 Oct

I know if I found a place that takes bitcoin I’d think that’s cool and talk to them about it but then I’d still just use fiat money to pay

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @jtraub91 13 Oct freebie

it's a political problem more than anything else