Bitcoin Forum

I thought I would take a trip last week to the west cost and see what the BTC community is doing. I do this a lot when I travel and I'm always surprised to see how rapidly adoption is taking place world wide. San Fransisco and Los Angeles did not disappoint.

In SF I stayed with friends who live in high rise across the street from Twitter.  I found about 10 places I could walk to and spend my BTC. There was also a huge billboard on a building downtown that said something about bitcoin and appeared to be paid for by PayPal.  Anybody know WTF that was?  Additionally, most every person I talked with knew what BTC was and had considered using/taking them. It was as common as the smell of weed in SF.

Next I flew to LA and found the same thing. The in-flight magazine had a piece on BTC and the "Winkelvi" I visited a friend who works in the movie business and lives in an art colony called “the brewery”. He has some BTC and said that an increasing number of his neighbors are hip to it.  I found bars, shops and all sorts of places. For example the day spa in the picture below near Hollywood and Vine. The perception of people who had heard of bitcoin was very positive even if they had not used them.

I flew back just in time to watch Wisconsin beat Kentucky in NCAA basketball. I had to get a T-shrt to celebrate and when I asked the street vendor if he knew what a Bitcoin was he said “Oh yes, that's that money from the future. We will all be using it then”,

These are good times brothers!

http://i58.tinypic.com/2hg4t8p.jpg

Nice story. Thanks for sharing.

Out of curiosity:


Have you found those places randomly, just by walking around the town, or did you look them up (ie on CoinMap)?

I saw that Braintree Bitcoin bilboard, SF certainly does have a number of places that accept BTC. (Not quite enough to randomly walk around and find them)

Was this basically what you saw: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CBdk1zAUsAEllD9.jpg:large

I think their are two or three of these located throughout SF. I know their was one on Lombard Street for a few months. A number of the food Trucks around Market District also accept Bitcoin.

I haven't been down to LA or San Diego this year, but I imagine they are probably further behind SF in regards to adoption. I get a strong feeling that SF is quickly becoming the first/official Bitcoin hotspot. Almost every reputable Bitcoin Startup hiring is looking for people in SF. Kinda funny but I was having lunch about 4 Months ago and saw Gavin + several other Bitcoiners stop in for a bite to eat.

You didn't know that about SF? It's kind of been ground zero for Bitcoin since the beginning. The first time I put names to faces for the people on this forum was at The Future of Money & Technology Summit in Feburary 2011 at the Kabuki in SF. I still have the pictures somewhere. I got to meet Tony Gallippi, Jered Kenna and all the big names at the time. I hope you got to go to Cup and Cakes bakery for some of the best cupcakes in the world available for Bitcoin. Coinbase is located over near AT&T Park. Too bad I didn't know you were going I would have taken you to The Boulevard on embarcadero for lunch (I get a discount because my brother-in-law works there lol).

Thanks for info. It's nice to know some places are more advanced than others. California has always been quick to adopt new technologies... But it can be as fast forgetting them.

Well, guess you lived the dream :D I wish it was like that around Europe... Not many places accepting Bitcoin, except in Holland and some in France, for example... But it's not an utopia anymore to think that many places will accept BTC soon :)

It seems that only a few places are as OP stated. It is disppointed that many countries are banning bitcoin. 

I was in LA last fall and a quick search revealed a lot of places to use it. San Francisco in the US and Vancouver in Canada are the hot spots in the west right now. Tampa Bay in Florida is starting to catch on as well.

Wow i didnt know BTC was that common in the west! Nice!

Ah yes. I used coinmap. And I did not visit all them. But it was cool to walk down the street and know that if I need dry cleaning I could pay with BTC.

That is not the exact one, but it is surely related. Thanks! It was black and the same font. I was in an Uber cab and so I did not see it very well.
Damn, I missed a free lunch? lol Thanks anyway.
I did know SF was a leader. I was at the San Jose conference in 2013, but was still shocked at how it has grown. I was waiting for someone to ask me if I had any spare Satoshi instead of change.
Sadly, I had neither cup nor cake.

Congrats!  ;) The only places that accept bitcoin in my area are e-cigarette shops.  :-[

One Front Street (AKA 444 Market Street) I believe.

I hear they love people randomly stopping by.

Well this is exciting news, I hope more and more stores that accept bitcoin.

Nope, they're in this condo building on 1 Bluxome street near AT&T park. The other address is a drop box for mail downtown. I went to both addresses to check it out.

https://ssl.cdn-redfin.com/photo/9/bigphoto/378/422378_2.jpg

The pictures that they have had on twitter are most definitely from a office on market Market Street.

That building right there isn't anywhere near high enough. Comparing the pictures from Brian Armstrong twitter pictures (that have since been removed.)

https://blog.coinbase.com/2014/04/15/weve-moved-to-a-new-office/

The address that is a drop box is 548 Market Street #23008, San Francisco, CA 94104  which is very close to One Front Street.


Edit:

That is their old office.  This new office is "hidden" cause they don't want the community to know. That is the One Front Street (444 Market Street) address possibly.

When I went to the Bluxome street address there was a guy from Zillow real estate showing a condo. We talked about his listing and then Coinbase. He verified that they were in that building. I looked at one of the condos and they're huge. They could easly run a small office from there. Maybe they moved. My wife is a property manager for Jones Lang LaSalle. Let me see if she can locate them in a JLL building. I think One Front street is managed by JLL. I can probably get a tenant roster if I really wanted to. I also know a few people that work for Shorenstein at the Russ Building, I've met many CB Richard Ellis and Tri Commercial managers and have attended a few Boma SF parties with the wife. I'll do some digging and see what I can come up with. If they rent commercial real estate in SF I bet I can find them.

Godspeed :)