I didn't look on btcmap, didn't 'call ahead' just... Went to a shopping area and looked at businesses to see if they had a 'square' sticker in their window. Asked 3 of them if they accepted bitcoin and if they did I wanted to buy a cookie, buy a soda or coffee... Just something.
The first 3 didn't see the bitcoin option on their terminals, even though they said they had looked for it which... they probably did.
But the 4th did. I said to just select Bitcoin as a payment option...
"We don't have that... Oh wait we do."
"How does that work?" They said.
"You select bitcoin and it gives me a QR code" I said.
They selected bitcoin on their end and the customer facing screen showed the amount in SATs with a QR code which I scanned with my non-custodial wallet.
Tapped pay and sure enough the payment went through, I think there were 5-6 'hops' along the way and in addition square is using blinded paths which improves their privacy significantly.
My takeaways?
I asked square-enabled merchants if they accepted bitcoin and the vast majority don't (yet). They don't understand it, they don't know what it is or their terminals don't have the latest software that enables bitcoin payments.
At the coffee shop that did accept it... The employee didn't think it was a big deal although it is a big deal in my opinion. Because the ability to exchange bitcoin non-kyc broadly across large parts of the economy (which is coming) is a massive improvement for privacy and the education as to what bitcoin is.
And that is overwhelming and so cool.
Lightning's sender privacy is very good, and there are a huge number of privacy preserving ways to open and close lightning channels and to accept payments especially small ones to your 'lightning node' whether that be on your phone, Linux device at home or via custodial means (temporarily). No kyc means no ID required, and the last time I checked ID is not required to purchase a cup of coffee.
Should Bitcoin Lightning become widespread as a medium of exchange across large parts of the economy... The vast majority of 'normies' using it won't have any idea how it actually works any more than they know how email works, or how HTTP/ipv4 works or the fiber-optics installed in their homes or businesses.
My guess is that users won't even know 'the blockchain' exists at all... or won't even know a mempool exists or what it is...
They will just use it and know what to do when the app prompts them.
On-chain will be for opening lightning channels and generally speaking for institutional usage only or large transactions. As a matter of fact... Normies may 'buy' channels already opened for them that they then self-custody or 'rent'... In order to mitigate the demand for on-chain which will be very high due to the small blocksize (which is good).
Bitcoin in my humble opinion gives regular everyday people investment-grade capital... that they can interact with directly... Hold, spend, and use which can't be easily censored, shut off or seized. It makes money "money again" without having to use your brokerage and buy stocks that you know nothing about...
Just to keep up.
And humbly speaking I don't think that has been recognized by the general population although one day it will be.
The really sad thing, in my opinion, is just how good bitcoin is relative to all the shitcoins out there that almost nobody uses for anything or uses in the real world. For example I don't know any equivalent to nostr or stacker news where you can send and receive sats instantly... Much less move that same 'crypto' and go buy things instantly around the normie population in the real world.
Seeing stacker news functioning as well as it does, even in a 'bear market', warms my heart and the technical ability to string together so many privacy tools, anti-censorship, and personal sovereignty to buy a cup of coffee...
Is really remarkable.
The last thing I want to say, just from my "lightning advrntures" is that as more normies 'come to bitcoin' it is really important to emphasize that bitcoin isn't "more money".
It is better money.
It is not a way to 'get rich quick'... Although I think it will appreciate significantly over the next decade for a multitude of reasons.
Better money and more sound, censorship resistant money derived from energy is the focal point, not necessarily "having more of it". Sats aren't free but once you have them they are yours and no single entity can unilaterally change the Rules of Money or make more of it out of thin air.
We owe lightning developers a huge debt of gratitude for the tremendous progress in Lightning UX... That it all 'comes together' and that all these apps are starting to speak the same language. The normie at the coffee shop next to you may not know it...
But we are drinking the same coffee and that make me proud.
And excited for the future.
I used to think Nano was the shit… then Lightning came out.
Bitcoin adoption may not be as far along as we want, but stories like this still get me excited. It may be the case that we really do have to build an entire parallel economy, and if that's the case, it will be brick by brick and merchant by merchant.
👏👏
What was the fee on the transaction?
Do you know if there are particular channel partners that will help reduce the fees at Square merchants?
The transaction fee according my wallet was ~ .25% or 1 quarter of 1 percent.
I don't know. Lightning fees can vary wildly. In my experience the sweet spot for lightning is 5$ up to maybe 600$. Much beyond that and the fee will rise as a percentage, it becomes cheaper to use on-chain.
Bitcoiners do not use bitcoin to reduce fees....
But yeah a fiat maxi like you cannot understand that.
I’m not using it to reduce fees. I will open a lightning channel if it will reduce my fees, though.
Why wouldn’t I?
This might be your dumbest criticism yet.
When you really understand "why bitcoin" we can talk.
Until then... please STFU.
You know I won’t
should I care? fiat maxis opinion have ZERO value for me.
wrong again. You do not open a channel to reduce fees. You use a payment channel for INSTANT settlement.
But I do not expect anything else from a fiat maxi that is gambling with his sats... then crying hard for fees.
But non-bitcoiners might.
Gotta start somewhere Darth. Although I agree... The amount paid in fees is so negligible.
Hope Square can get this done in Australia.
Out of interest, did you pay with Zeus? Was there an awkward 30 seconds of waiting for the payment to go through?
idk why people have 30 secs to pay with Zeus.
I use various nodes on Zeus (LDK, LND, remote) and all of them are under 3 seconds.
I think you guys don't know how to use it or you have really shity channel peers.
Tried it again today with square... After the express graph sync it took only 3 seconds. Amazing!!!
It's pretty common TBH. The OP and I aren't the only ones.
Yes I used Zeus. Yes there was about 30 seconds... It warned me that my express graph sync needed to update which I ignored so that didn't help, and there were 5-6 hops plus the blinded paths which took longer.
But I attribute this to growing pains of the lightning network imo the important thing is that it worked.
Expect the calls for 'think of the children' to become commonplace... Should lightning-based medium of exchange to ever become popular in a place like Australia.
Is square just a hoover vac for non kycsats? I worry in 5 years there will be way less non kycd sats in individual hands as a result of this merchant adoption.
Not saying it isnt cool also but its worrying imo.
I think its still a good thing. Merchants might want to start saving some of them sats. Then they might go further and set up their own BTCpay server. Bitcoiners get to spend freely instead of on gift cards.
In my opinion bitcoin adoption comes from education, personal dynamics, personal background, experience and necessity.
What the square experience does (at least for me) is show that bitcoin isnt this big scarcy thing for big scarcy criminals. Its for regular people who need better money in their day-to-day lives. And its also a technical demonstration of what's possible.
true, except these merchants never needto learn about btc custody even with a CEX the way we all had to at the beginning of our journey, so will choose the least frictioned path and never touch btc. So i think few will make the jump but i suppose some will and thats good.
All we can do is put it out in the wild and let people decide for themselves.
I don't know how we even distinguish kyc from non-kyc in the age of lightning...
For example kyc sats 'spent' to open a lightning channel, or spent to open or buy or fill up another lightning channel...
They aren't even the same 'sats' and there was literally no on-chain transaction in many cases. In fact you could say the new lightning channel since it isn't the same utxo, is no longer kyc at all. Its just some random utxo there was no 'transferring' of SATs. Its why among other reasons that ordinals was such a dumb idea.
If you send 5$ to a friend worth of sats to their lightning channel, and their channel has increased outbound liquidity... Are they are same sats? The sats on-chain never moved.
i understand that but the sats are going into cashapps custody and unlikely to return to circulation in the peer to peer way you are talking about. Over time it will concentrate btc ownership, that is not good imo
Thank you for sharing your experience with Bitcoin. Bitcoin is still largely unknown to many people, but as you emphasize, it's a process that will unfold gradually. When I read the title, I thought you were talking about a circular economy with Bitcoin, but now I see that it refers to random businesses receiving Bitcoin even if they don't know what it is.
We barely have it available in Vancouver
The friction of explaining Lightning to a Square merchant who's never thought about it is so underrated as a data point. Most adoption conversations happen at the register, under social pressure, with a line behind you. That's a hard environment for a nuanced pitch. Curious, did any of them ask follow-up questions, or was it mostly polite nodding?