Got myself a new laptop, of course paid with sats! Even I’m surprised at the smooth Bitpay experience. Lightning’s success appears pretty inevitable once you start using it
Sometime I feel like I really need a break from it all, but then I conclude it’s a better idea to work harder to make #Bitcoin adoption actually work. We’re getting close to a Schelling point, I suspect
Prepaid debit cards purchased with #Bitcoin are no substitution for merchant adoption, as I’m currently painfully reminded of. They are unpredictable, usually non-reloadable, not widely accepted, have close to zero customer support and may cause serious loss of funds. Be warned!
Tonight @Anasosadances organized an incredibly cool dancing performance and party. Sats were accepts for tickets online, at the door, at the bar and there was a small clothing shop on location that took sats, too! Vancouver is leading the way!
This Saturday, @Anasosadances is organizing a fantastic dance performance and party in Vancouver! You can get tickets directly with sats here, the bar will also take #Bitcoin!
I don’t use a bank account, but I did experiment with various debit cards in the past months, including on trips to the U.S.
Coming from a Lightning background into Fintech, it’s shocking to see how bad user experiences can be in the “legacy” world of payments, how much interfaces differ, how many systems exist and how poorly they interface. Already today, despite all its shortcomings, I’d say the Lightning user experience is already better than that of debit cards, and will within two years surpass legacy networks in a way that’s obvious to everyone.
Got a Bitcoin debit card from Bitrefill, can’t add it to Apple Pay, can’t use it online. Bitrefill customer support tells me to talk to the card issuer, who tell me to contact the vendor (Bitrefill). Not sure what to do next? Merchant’s error is interesting: “Error: credit card validation failed: country of the provided card does not match the country specified on registration.” 100% sure it’s a US card, registered to a US address, used with US merchants.
Any ideas, nostriches?
The next frontiers for #Bitcoin communities:
1) Make Bitcoin a central part of your community. Only meet in venues that take sats, and only take sats yourself for tickets, drinks and swag. No more free stuff!
Consider your community to be part of an elite beta testing unit tasked with finding bugs and issues. Report back to your favorite projects with improvements, ideas and code.
2) Turn around and work with the community around you. Be humble, listen and think about how Bitcoin can directly improve the lives of those around you. Introduce them to your community, invite them to your great experiment, give help, be supportive and again, report back to your favorite projects with improvements, ideas and code.
The masses won't adopt Bitcoin before we do! Let's get Bitcoin ready for the big day!