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I still go to BTC Map now and again hoping to see a new shop or business around my area accepting bitcoin.
I still have never seen a new addition. We are much more unique than we recognize, in the larger scheme.
In 'my area' there aren't any places accepting Bitcoin. There are a few places in big cities... but they're not really for things that I actually need. 'pest control', 'chiropractor', 'home design' small family medical offices things like.
I would love a coffee shop it would be awesome
Lightning is supposed to allow ONE person to open a lightning channel and leave it open for months if not years... resulting in ONE maybe TWO on-chain transactions and thousands of Lightning transactions for that individual.
This keeps blocksizes relatively small, keeps fees sustainable for miners, and results in Lightning transactions which are instant, cheap, and sustainable for as many people as possible.
Lightning works, and in my experience does a great job increasing the 'privacy' of Bitcoin while making transactions cheap and instantaneous.
So if there is so little 'merchant adoption' and so little "onchain activity" to *open those Lightning channels...
What is the reason for this?
The real reason is the simple one: because it just isn't used that much.
The demand for baselayer Bitcoin usage/blockspace is just low.
What's left after all that? A few stackers to cold wallets. A few channel openings. Some people/merchants that haven't updated their Bitcoin setup since 2013.