On-chain zaps and silent payments don't solve the problem that Nostr is a marketplace completely starved of liquidity and monetary velocity because the money it uses is so hard that nobody wants to spend any of it.
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but we still can make nostr the railway for payments. once it's there, who knows
Posers.
Oh my Miss Laeserin, did you just velocity of money on Bitcoin Forum where we donβt believe in that?
And it'll always be that way because nostr merchants are unlikely to spend 100% or even most back into the nostr economy, so it'll always be draining out. Maybe a solution is to integrate with some easy option to convert fiat to bitcoin.
It's not early. Bitcoin has been around for long enough that it's being used for oil cargo tolls, backing some of the biggest funds on the planet, financing huge conferences that I can't afford the stage tickets to, and getting mined by national enterprises, **but we can't get people to use to for anything much smaller than that** because it's cheaper and easier to use cheaper and easier money for smaller purchases.
Even most of the guys proselytizing on here about Bitcoin haven't injected any into this market. They've created their own little sidecar economies, where they invite their little friends to hobnob on Nostr Island with them and fly to Oslo and wax ecstatic about The Poors while doing a bit of vibing.
Yo, man, The Poors are right in front of you and you just zapped them 42 sats for 4 days of engineering labor, so fuck you all.
I think that's how taxes are volunteerely would go down.
Here's 42 SATs go build road.
Allow currency competition. Free the Nostr market from the Bad Bitcoin Boyfriend.
they spend it on goods and experiences that feel like they equal its value. like all the producers around here who make high quality handmade goods.
i've never regret a sats purchase from @Leathermint @Oshi @SoapMiner @Great Ghee @Bitcoin Beans @rare (ββ _β )γ£β¨ or any others.
for instance, every time i put on my leathermint belt or shave with soapminer, i actually can't believe the deal i got because they improve my quality of life so much more than anything else those same sats would buy me today at a shopping mall, no matter how much the sats/dollar ratio changes
Fiat zaps... LFG
Gang
Survivorship Bias is real.
A rail line that not even the people who built it want to use? Have fun with that.
The deflationary aspect is a factor, but I think tax reporting is the real problem. Spending BTC on everyday things means asking people to report every cup of coffee purchase to the government, or risk legal jeopardy.
Most people aren't willing to do either and they'll just pay with their super-convenient Fiat option.
I really think that once that problem is solved, BTC for purchases will significantly blow up.
I'm sold. What's your favorite soap, so far? I usually buy Amish soap, but there are zero reasons not to be supporting our own.
Much love V, appreciate you!
The problem isn't the currency. The purchasing power is going to be used regardless of the currency and nothing transfers that value better than zaps.
We just don't have enough users.
Maybe we should have more resellers selling standard goods? π€·ββοΈ
@vinney...axkl - weren't you working on a service to build trust in the marketplace?
The way I see it, #nostr is the new Internet. As such were going through the same pain as the early 90's. No one trusts enough to purchase from a random marketplace store. Maybe a web of trusted store fronts selling similar goods to what you would see on Amazon.
We need merchant adoption.
I like the pine tar for the shower. something about it feels "extra ablative" lol.
but i also get the goat milk tallow for everything else, including shaving. it's luxurious for shaving, with a proper cup and brush. i drop a chopped-off chunk in the cup and leave it in there until it's gone and reload it.
to be clear, these are the only two i've tried, so i'm not sure about the others! i bet they're all excellent.
I also exclusively use @SoapMiner deodorant.
there is literally no other brand in my bathroom for any products except toothpaste :)
Yea, you're probably thinking of 
- which is a "metaprotocol" on nostr specifically for gig work, bounties and open source crowd-funding.
I also work on #WoT, which is a necessary building block for the above and everything else we're talking about.
for what it's worth, the #catallax reference/demo client has had a small number of actually successful transactions. real work delivered, real payments, etc. Like you said, it's a scale and adoption issue. The same processes with 100, 1,000 or 1M more users would be an unignorable force in the market. As is, it's "just" an encouraging experiment.
Catallax - A Protocol for Pseudonymous Contract Work Economies
Catallax is an open protocol that enables pseudonymous contract work economies. It runs over Nostr, Bitcoin and Cashu ecash for censorship-resistan...
Doubt. Germans can spend Bitcoin tax-free.
But they don't.
You are missing a "bot" tag on your profile.
Love it! I'm not smart enough to build the market place on nostr, but I think we need that type of service as well. Instead of random storefronts, a one-stop storefront with vetted sellers.
If it's so hard and desirable, why do they hold anything else?
Because they earn something other than Bitcoin and would get eaten up in fees; converting it back and forth. Or because they leverage their Bitcoin to get softer money for spending.
Lmao, such a salesman. Alright...will try goat milk tallow and the lavender.
No, it is not just the number of users. It's also the constant microzapping. That communicates "There is no real money being spent here."
People aren't going to set up shop among people excited about getting 1 sat. That sets the tone.
Also, the microzaps are one reason why we have so few users. This is an economically dead space full of faux transactions. People can tell everyone is just pretending to be economically active, but there is effectively no money moving.
There's more real economic activity at our village farmer's market, and there are hardly any people in our village.
Agreed and I think you mailed. I just bought some soap for 30k sats based on a trusted review. The economic value offered will need to be more than dank memes if people are looking for more than 21 sats.
We need more merchants offering real goods. Just like your farmer's market. A group of vendors selling together brings crowds with diverse needs and interests.
the protocol is sound.
I'm one of the few people on here receiving more than homeopathic amounts of money. But I am not a market and if a larger market doesn't form, I am screwed.
It's a train that only travels in one direction.
have you done any surveys of net sales of all the known merchants on nostr? to put against your "hardly any people village farmers market"? nostr is more than zaps - you know this.
There is more economic activity than on any other social media
Yeah, lez dooit. Zapd can be anything, right?
We're all adding payment targets to our profiles. And some of us already integrated it into the zap interface. π
Check it out on 
Just try clicking on the zap button on one of my notes. π It's legit cool.
Imwald
Imwald
Imwald β a user-friendly Nostr client focused on relay feed browsing, publications, and relay discovery.
Aho!!
Real money for real value!
Of course, I know that. If it were only zaps it'd be nearly nothing.
π± Heresy!
I love buying things with bitcoin. Highly recommend picking up honey and maple syrup from @SweetSats.
In the US weβre lucky cause we have access to @River. You can pay for mostly everything with a credit card and then pay the credit card bill with bitcoin using River. They donβt charge any fees when doing this.
wouldn't you agree that the total economic activity of nostr-native vendors who take bitcoin is roughly on par with a farmers' market in a small town?
Are you buying things off nostr merchants?
Do you have data from merchants that supports your position?
I have been looking for the optimal deodorant for 4 years. @SoapMiner 's deodorant is the one π―
I took a break for a few months to level-set finances, shuffle utxos, and open lightening channels. I am back at it.
I don't value memes anywhere close to good & services (wait...are memes services? idk who gives af) π€·ββοΈ
Bitcoiners are the worst thing to ever happen to nostr
I am glad you support the merchants on Nostr, but I can tell you don't know anything about me.
No, we aren't. But Bitcoin is also not so horrible that we have to force people to use it. I make it a comfortable option, but allow people to use whatever they like.
Mine is also the most future-proof and data-safe pattern for the workflow, as the client then doesn't need to know anything about the payment target, doesn't need to contain a wallet, and doesn't have to communicate with the node. It's an architectural air-gap between payment and receipt.
There are thousands of euros exchanging hands at our market, so not on the daily average. On the weekly, yes.
I asked you 2 questions that you completely ignored.
Am I supposed to know something about you? Are you Nostr famous?
No, I receive no grants or VC money. I am a completely normal Nostrich and hardly anyone knows I am here.
But I found your questions pretty rude because they assume that I am just talking out of my arse.
We've looked into River for ourselves, yes.
You're assuming I have ill intent. They are honest and legitimate questions.
I am going to guess that you are buying things from Nostr merchants and that you don't have data to back up "...Nostr is a marketplace completely starved of liquidity..." -@Laeserin
Me over here in jeopardy
Lol
Thanks dude π hope youβve been well!
Just got some!
πππ―