Bitcoin Jungle needs buyer adoption, not merchant adoption \ stacker news ~bitcoin

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Bitcoin Jungle needs buyer adoption, not merchant adoption

7625 sats \ 33 comments \ @nout 16 Feb bitcoin

Buying groceries with bitcoin rocks! I have been using bitcoin to buy food and stuff in Uvita over the last two months and what a wonderful experience that has been. There are so many places that accept. I went to the local farmers market literally every time it was open (twice a week) to buy veggies, meat, spices, juice, coffee and even clothes. You pay with bitcoin at every stand, payment fully settled sometimes under 1 second. I used bitcoin definitely more than I used fiat.

What is in the basket is what I bought with bitcoin

As is my nature (and nostr job description), I was complaining about the UX to the folks involved across multiple companies/groups here in Uvita, with some issues already fixed and some new features/ideas being worked on. Overall the people working on these projects are amazing. This was so much fun and I hope the folks don't hate me for giving them feedback, feedback, feedback - I always tried to make it as actionable as possible (also I'm hard to argue with when I'm right :P).

My focus has always been on getting more merchants onboarded, getting more people to accept bitcoin, but after a couple weeks in Uvita I realized that at this point the problem here is the opposite. People are not paying with bitcoin.

I talked to many of the sellers, asked them how many people pay, how often. And in reality it's fairly rare for them. In the restaurants they only have a couple times per day when someone pays with bitcoin. At the market only around 10% of people pay with bitcoin, while 95% of the sellers accept. That made me feel a bit sad and surprised. This is a buyer education problem, not a seller problem.

Only a small portion of the folks in the picture will pay with bitcoin…

The word of mouth approach is (imo) a solid strategy to onboard merchants, but it doesn't work for ephemeral tourists. As an example consider a "family with young kids coming for 3 days". This family doesn't have many chances to receive word of mouth. They come from elsewhere, they don't make many connections or interactions with locals.

Sidenote: Physical bitcoin office works like a charm! I would have not guessed that, but I witnessed it being the spot where people meet, where merchants come to ask questions, where new folks ask how to get onboarded. The Bitcoin Jungle team did an amazing job here. If you are starting a circular economy in some town and already have some office space - consider making it into a "Bitcoin Office" (even if your business isn't exactly bitcoin). It will bring you visitors, great friends, bitcoiners will come hang out, etc.

Tourist education

We can assume that in "touristy" areas the restaurants, markets and shops will be mainly visited by tourists, so the solution here is tourist education. Now think about the journey that tourists go through - they come to the area in a car, maybe stop for lunch/dinner and then they check in at their hotel/casa. The next day they go to the local grocery store/market to get supplies and then do touristy stuff - go surfing, beach, hike, drive somewhere, chill, pool, drinks, etc.

The main touch points for where paying with bitcoin could be introduced are:

when entering the town,
at the restaurant,
at the place they check in (hotel, casa),
in the grocery store/market,
in whatever they use to find attractions,
the tour guides, drivers and other folks working in the tourism sector.

Here are couple ideas to make the situation better:

Printed brochure at merchants and hotels/casas: a little printed brochure with the same content available at every merchant - so when someone asks about bitcoin, they can just hand this brochure to them. Doesn't need any technical background or price talk - literally "You can pay with bitcoin here. You need a bitcoin wallet, here's QR to get it. Then you need to get bitcoin, here are the options. Then just pay by scanning the QRs that sellers show you" when you tell them "pagar con bitcoin por favor".
Billboard when entering Uvita: There could be a nice billboard when entering Uvita saying something like "Pay with Bitcoin in Uvita! Welcome to Bitcoin Jungle" and maybe add a link to bitcoinjungle.app and WhatsApp number.
A billboard at the market: a nice printed billboard on the side of the market that shows QR for how to download BitcoinJungle wallet (and some US available wallet), how to get initial sats on it (e.g. ask a specific person at the market, install Strike…).
Discounts: One thing that always attracts an eye is seeing some discount. This could be e.g. included in the brochure - "5% discount when you pay with bitcoin", or "pay with bitcoin, get XYZ for free". Someone may suggest wording "paying with fiat = extra 5% fee", but just from a psychological standpoint that is imo less effective.

And of course having bitcoin signs "SE ACEPTA AQUI" helps…

Good luck! nout

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156 sats \ 0 replies \ @teemupleb 16 Feb

What has stunned me sometimes is that some Bitcoiners go to “orange-pill” a local business and then never go there themselves to spend sats.

Then after 6 months, during travels you find that business on BTC Map, but the place has stopped accepting Bitcoin because nobody wanted to pay with it.

114 sats \ 0 replies \ @IamSINGLE 17 Feb

I think unless people aren't out of the SoV mentality we aren't gonna see "Bitcoin as MoE" in general. People are more into hodling for getting rich than using it for the purpose.

87 sats \ 1 reply \ @Coinsreporter 16 Feb

Thank you so much for putting this here. I'm very much motivated from such on ground level developments happening in Latin America. There's hardly anything as such in India and this has made me think of travelling around here first then around the world on a Bitcoin Bike which will advertise Bitcoin to people wherever I go. In the journey, I'll try to onboard as many people as possible. "The Bitcoin Jungle" or a Bitcoin Office seems like a very good idea. Let's see if I can find some people here to serve for the cause. It's still about 1 month before I begin, I'd like to keep in touch with you for suggestions.

120 sats \ 0 replies \ @anon 16 Feb

scammer

87 sats \ 7 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 16 Feb

Today I went to a small bakery in a small town here in New Zealand- it accepts Bitcoin. Tutaki bakery in Murchison.

www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinNewZealand/comments/1iqmjm8/next_time_you_are_in_murchison/

There are LOT of tourists who travel through this town and the bakery has excellent food and excellent value and is very popular from what I could see with both tourists and locals.

But when I ask the owner how many people paid with Bitcoin he told me since offering Bitcoin payment (LN) two years I am only the third customer to pay with Bitcoin!

This is our problem- the few businesses who offer Bitcoin payment do not get the support they need to make it worth offering!

I have become a Bitcoin tourist- now whenever i travel I choose anywhere that accepts bitcoin before other alternatives- I have found every time the Bitcoin accepting businesses are very good value.

Why are we not supporting them? Because Bitcoin has been slyly shifted from a P2P payments protocol into a speculative commodity narrative. FUCK THIS! We need to get back to using our sats to pay for the things we want. Bitcoin was built to be a P2P payments protocol -we need to use it or lose it.

Support Bitcoin accepting businesses!

0 sats \ 6 replies \ @itsrealfake 16 Feb

Why are we not supporting them?

alternatively, why arent they supporting us!? probably because they're here for the money, not the comrades.

if the business wants my bitcoin more than my fiat, they should offer a (steep) discount because sats are hard to come by in the real world. fiat is everywhere.

p2p network is great and all of us want it. i offer a discount when I settle trades in coin because I understand the value of the coin.

If you don't understand the value, that may explain why you're spending sats on groceries during a bull run.

0 sats \ 5 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 16 Feb

How much of a premium do you pay on Bitcoin when you buy it with fiat? I pay world market price and zero fees. If you are paying more its because you don't understand how useful and central P2P is to Bitcoin.

Businesses who offer payment in Bitcoin face numerous risks and costs for doing so including hostility from ignorant customers and suppliers especially threats of debanking from fiat banks, the tax/reporting implications and its price volatility with fiat. That's a lot for any business to take on (for a still tiny market segment) and then you demand a steep discount on top of all that.

You do not understand Bitcoin and the obstacles to adoption.

If Bitcoin continues to be seen as and used as a speculative commodity it loses its functionality as an alternative to fiat monopoly money. This is what the fiat monopolists want and this is what they are achieving and your rhetoric is proof they have captured you already with their narrative of Bitcoin as a speculative commodity as opposed to a P2P payments protocol.

0 sats \ 4 replies \ @itsrealfake 16 Feb

How much of a premium do you pay on Bitcoin when you buy it with fiat?

Why should I discount my bitcoin by spending it on baked goods, or groceries?

I'll occasionally buy a portion of a cow with bitcoin. It support the ranchers who I want on my team. I want farmers and craftsmen and geniuses on my team.

If a middleman grocer wants to be on my team, that's great... he can go pay a premium on the exchange, or he can pay me a premium. It's my money, I get to decide how I spend it. And I don't spend it on things I can get with fiat, unless it's deeply important to do so or I can get a discount (which proves the recipient of my sats understands what they're getting, see also: Alby, Mullvad, etc...).

risks and costs

Oh yeah... you mean that whole "self sovereign" condition of owning bitcoin. Yeah, the grocer can play on the same field as me.

you do not understand Bitcoin and the obstacles to adoption

Is this "adoption" in the room with us right now? the only thing I see in the room is 24 US states and a handful of nations talking about strategic bitcoin reserves and giant ETFs talking about buying billions and billions and billions of USD worth of bitcoin.

Bitcoiners have spent the last 16 years telling everybody who would listen that bitcoin could save them. The time for early adopters has passed. Everybody else will have to get their bitcoin at the price they deserve. If you're still out there shilling it, cool... good for you... I hope you have success, because that tide will lift all our boats.

But until businesses are offering a discount to encourage me to separate myself from my money, they can continue to pay 3% to a card processor and I'll get 3-5% back in points because I'm principled and I don't want to waste my time or money on somebody who's gonna sell my sats back to a bank.

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 16 Feb

You don't understand P2P or you would be able to obtain Bitcoin at market price with no need to use rentseeking KYCing state surveillance CEXes.

The more you accept and follow the legacy fiat powers imposed narrative of Bitcoin being primarily a KYCed speculative commodity, not primarily a P2P payments protocol, the more you miss the whole point of Bitcoin.

Have you ever read The White paper? Seems not.

Your assertion that retailers must offer you a discount for Bitcoin payment is absurd. You ignore the multiple obstacles that retailers face in accepting Bitcoin and seem to only think of your own narrow self interest- in doing so you miss the point of Bitcoin and are blind to its true value.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @itsrealfake 16 Feb

seem to only think of your own narrow self interest

I suspect that you vastly underestimate the breadth of my self-interest, Solomon.

Are you familiar with "How to make a mint" ?

It's not really much concern to me whether Satoshi intended to make a peer-to-peer cash on a chain without the space for 8 billion users to get a UTXO, or if it was cover to instead build a system that could sneakily replace the USD on the world stage without any negotiation step for the bickering nations of the world to somehow eek out an advantage over the US.

At this point, the tide is going in a direction of hoarding the better money. I'm not going to swim against that tide.

I don't have enough sats to waste them at businesses that don't want them enough to demonstrate that they understand the value of what I have.

You should feel free to spend all your sats on groceries if that's what you want to do, please don't let me stop you.

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5 sats \ 12 replies \ @saunter 16 Feb

We have too high supply of merchants compared to the number of bitcoiners that are willing to spend bitcoin.

That applies to almost all bitcoin circular economies. What we need longterm to do is to kill the "hodl don't spend" meme. There are bitcoiners living in those communities and not spending bitcoin at all, see #721082

Short term, each of the communities needs to find a way to create or bring supply of spenders, otherwise merchants will start to drop the acceptance with time.

31 sats \ 11 replies \ @nout OP 16 Feb

If a bitcoiner doesn't pay at a place that accept bitcoin then there should be a device that slaps them with a wet trout.

7 sats \ 0 replies \ @jerrybature 16 Feb

🤣 Agreed!

6 sats \ 9 replies \ @aljaz 16 Feb

Its almost like you are saying bitcoin should be a cbdc where you could control what ppl do with it?

100 sats \ 8 replies \ @nout OP 18 Feb

Oh no, people can do whatever they want with their bitcoin. I'm just suggesting there's a complimentary device that slaps them with a wet trout if they don't use it.

50 sats \ 7 replies \ @aljaz 18 Feb

Savings is a use case. Its economically irrational to spend the hardest asset you own instead of shittier when possible.

I understand the sentiment but I think its also very contradictory to everyone being free to do as they please without people trying to bully them into spending their hard earned sats.

1111 sats \ 6 replies \ @nout OP 18 Feb

"Keep the hardest asset and spend the softest" is economically irrational in the world of bitcoin where you can easily exchange fiat for bitcoin in seconds to minutes (and minutes to hours without KYC). If exchanges would not exist, then you are correct - "keep the hardest asset", but in the world with exchanges that just doesn't make economical sense. Just buy however much bitcoin is your target to have. You can buy it right now, in the next minute, you don't need to wait until you spend all your soft assets.

Really think through this - you are not talking about your house or gold in vault. These assets are very illiquid. Bitcoin is extremely liquid.

You are saying "I want to have as much as bitcoin as possible, e.g. 1 BTC by the end of year and I'm going to get it by spending $100k fiat on my usual expenditures". Why would you do that to yourself? :) You can literally just buy the 1 BTC right now and then still pay your expenditures the same way. You can have your target today.

Again, everyone is free to do whatever they want with their bitcoin, the same as I'm free to highlight the illogical approach they take :)

@hynek makes the same point here: #15797 . DCA is a trick to make people better, but it's just a trick.

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312 sats \ 2 replies \ @userbob6 16 Feb

We are going to experience an unprecedented supply shock because the big wigs like Saylor and Fink are actively trying to buy and hold as much of it as they can. And they dont care about the price, they know what time it is. They know exactly what's happening and they are positioning themselves accordingly. They are not going to spend it. Many people who own Bitcoin are behaving the same way.

It's possibly another clever attack on Bitcoin, convincing everyone it's useless as a medium of exchange, and funneling them towards the 'store of value' services they offer. It leads to a scenario where they have all the Bitcoin, and we get promissory notes to trade for goods and services. Sound familiar?

10% of the people in that picture would pay with Bitcoin if 100% of them own Bitcoin. Not stating as a fact, just food for thought.

55 sats \ 1 reply \ @Solomonsatoshi 16 Feb

IMO you are absolutely correct. There has been a deliberate and very sly strategy to shift the perception and use of Bitcoin from that of a P2P payments protocol to that of a speculative commodity plaything. This narrative suits the suits- the bankers and governments- Bitcoin as a speculative commodity is not a significant threat to the fiat powers- and they are determined to maintain their fiat payments hegemony- by allowing Bitcoin as a speculative commodity they achieve their goal of preserving fiat payments hegemony. IMO this is a certainty and very slyly adopted strategy to effectively capture and control the Bitcoin protocol. At current rates of acquisition most Bitcoin will be held in the custody of US domiciled institutions within much less than a decade.

75 sats \ 0 replies \ @userbob6 16 Feb

If anyone is going to be spending Bitcoins in places that will also readily accept any fiat, there Blackrock will be, buying it. I know a lot of large companies have "embraced" Bitcoin, but none of them are exclusively Bitcoin.

The only way Bitcoin's true purpose will ever be realized is through coordinated mass non-participation in fiat currency. And not only fiat but crypto as well, because you know most of them absolutely are attacks on Bitcoin's utility as a medium of exchange.

We are swiftly approaching a bottleneck in terms of time and abilities. Every day we continue like this, the minds of those falsely led to believe the store of value racket are further sundried in concrete.

5 sats \ 0 replies \ @SpaceHodler 16 Feb

Of course. People want to get paid in sats, not spend them. Because they want to have more corn, not less.

Buyer adoption will come when people have no more toxic fiat to dump.

For example, when I have no more fiat income (which may happen in retirement, or before, if my fiat income sources are replaced with bitcoin paying ones), I will have to spend my sats, for lack of a worse thing to dispose of.

In the meantime I may also pay with sats for things for the buying of which I wish to remain anonymous.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @anon 17 Feb

A great success story

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @nout OP 17 Feb

My point was that this is not a success story... It's good, but it really needs bitcoiners to actually spend.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @DarthCoin 17 Feb

People will not pay with bitcoin because most of them do not earn in BTC. And many of them are trapped into fiat mentality and consider BTC as an asset (selling it back for fiat or using damn stupid VISA cards).

People should demand to be paid in BTC,. to earn in BTC and then the mentality will be changed and will spend easily in sats.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @nout OP 17 Feb

No side of this is going to be amazing immediately - so the more people pay on their own the better, the more people accept the better, the more people demand to be paid the better.

You don't think the suggestions I made in the article would help? These are some low hanging fruits really. The team already has couple billboards in the farmers market and so this is just expansion of that work.