No, I wasn't asked for any ID. I think the limit is about HK$12,000

I also wanted to share this!

The Bitcoin Association of Hong Kong (https://www.bitcoin.org.hk/) is mainly a networking club that evolved out of the Hong Kong Bitcoin Meetups. It's been active for over 12 years already!

First, congrats on what you have built already. It's incredibly impressive to see your teams push and pull Bitcoin forward in all directions.
I have only been able to experience the magic of Lightning payments in Square a few times and desperately hope you can bring the feature to Canada very soon.

Re: Your ask. I'm wondering why you haven't yet closed the obvious mental Loop between Cash App and Square? Do Cash App users even know they can pay with Bitcoin? Do businesses that accept Bitcoin even know that ~40 million Cash App users can pay them?

I'm wondering if we just need to brand this differently. We don't commonly advertise we accept currencies, we advertise payment methods. You never see a store saying "We accept USD" or "Pay us in Euros." You see signs promoting cash, credit cards, wire transfers or cheques, all of which are currency-agnostic.

Pay with Lightning sounds great, is easily translatable into all languages, there is already a widely known, easily recognizable and trademark-free symbol that people generally have positive associations with: ⚡
it doesn't introduce a new currency and nobody needs to explain that it natively runs on Bitcoin. Cash App users just need to know that they can pay everywhere they see the yellow bolt, and businesses need to know that when they accept Lightning, millions can pay them, cheaply and securely.

You already solved a huge piece of the chicken-and-egg problem, you just need to market it in politically neutral language. Of course other payment processors want to tap into the network effects of Cash App. Of course other mobile banking apps want to tap into the network effects of Square.

Because network effects matter, and I will definitely build systems that bridge the dollar and Bitcoin, because I believe it helps expand the Lightning Network's network effects. It's also why I applaud Strike and Cash App for doing similar things, for a different audience. I personally want to only own and receive Bitcoin, but the more people I can transact with, the more people will follow in my footsteps

nice!

Billions of people can't "just open a USD bank account"

I can't tell you exactly why, but even some of the most hardcore Bitcoiners I've met don't like to hold Bitcoin in a Lightning wallet. They do however like to pay Lightning invoice through Strike or Cash App. Taproot Assets provides a similar experience, but for a different market

Yeah I don't know, people seem to have a very strong psychological barrier to use Bitcoin, the asset. They are demanding the properties of the Lightning Network (fast, cheap and global), combined with the properties of the U.S. dollar (depreciating at ~3-5% per year)

Haha

There isn't much to buy yet over the Lightning Network, but people do very much love its properties: Fast, cheap, global. I hope that having easy options to transact over this network without holding its native asset allows the Lightning Network to grow beyond die-hard Bitcoin users like us. Taproot Assets does this in a similar way that Cash App and Square have done, just for a very different audience

I will continue to work to bring fiat normies into the Lightning ecosystem, strengthen the network effects of the Lightning Network and ultimately make the transition to Bitcoin as the world's currency seamless

Even Bitcoiners are highly resistant to using Bitcoin for payment, even when given big discounts. I personally will always hold and spend sats directly, but everyone around me seems to demand the properties of the Lightning Network, but with dollars

There is always a custodial aspect in stablecoins, but with Taproot Assets, the trust is limited to trusting the issuer. You don't have to trust the wallet, the exchange, the channel peer or anyone else, just the issuer.

Any Lightning wallet can be used to by pop from this vending machine, as long as it supports LNURLs.

The operator can sell their satoshis in any way they want, but most importantly in the above example, they could get a USDTL channel as well and just receive USDTL instead of sats. But still anyone with a Lightning Wallet would be able to buy from the machine

What Speed has today is similar to what Blink or Cash app offer. You can hold a USD-denominated balance and pay and receive over Lightning. The financial mechanisms how they achieve this are very different, but none of them let you hold your own stables in your own node. Only the setup above does that today

Hm, to me Steak Tartare is deeply French, despite the alleged origins of that dish. What did you have in mind, or what would you have ordered? If I were to go back with friends, the large escargots would definitely go on the table

Yeah fascinating. I hope I get the chance to visit sometime, would love to see it and test how Bitcoin performs on low data connections. And of course we need stablecoins on Lightning!