Bitcoin Forum

People use Bitcoin in various ways. For some, it’s a long-term investment. Others use it for trading to ultimately increase their fiat bags. Using crypto as a payment method to purchase goods and services is also popular, or it can be an instrument that protects you against inflation.

But, it’s very rare to come across people who have integrated Bitcoin into their daily lives in such a way that they don’t use fiat at all. It’s not that easy to do.

I accidentally came across a YouTube video of a guy from Canada who claims to live on Bitcoin. So he decided to share his experience. If you are interested to hear what he has to say, this is the link: I Live On Bitcoin! Here's How You Can Too… (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0IvkMKY5S8)

It’s a rather long video that lasts over 44 minutes, so I will try to sum up some of the most interesting points:

• Benjamin has lived on Bitcoin since September 2020.
• He lives in Canada, where he spends most of his coins.
• Benjamin is a Youtuber who gets paid exclusively in Bitcoin, no fiat.
• He claims that he values his privacy and uses mixing services and CoinJoins to mask the origin of his funds.
• Benjamin uses a Canadian online service called Bylls (https://bullbitcoin.com/sell-bitcoin), which allows customers to pay utility bills with crypto.
• He does his daily shopping by purchasing gift cards from Bitrefill (https://www.bitrefill.com/buy/?hl=en).
• When he needs USD, he deposits his Bitcoin as collateral and takes out a loan in fiat.

If you want to know more, you will have to watch the entire video. It’s difficult to explain everything in one post.

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This YouTuber lives in Canada, a country in the West. So, naturally, it’s easier to do it there than in many poorer regions of the world. But it’s still an intriguing and courageous live choice. If all of it is true, of course.

With this thread, I would like to know how many users of Bitcointalk have tried something similar, or are maybe living only on crypto as we speak? Has anyone tried it for a day, a week, or just a few hours?

Please share your experience, and if possible, include the names and locations of shops, websites, and services that made your BTC spending easier and more comfortable. How easy or hard is it to live only on Bitcoin in your city/country?

If you are concerned about your anonymity, you don’t have to mention any names if you believe someone could use that info against you. 

I have seen bitcoin more as an investment rather than for spending. Although, I have used bitcoin for payment online before, when I saw crypto as one of the means that can be used for payment, but bitcoin is not in my everyday use, maybe likely because people around me, stores, shops are not accepting it. But above all, I can buy and hold bitcoin which is all that matters most to me because it is a deflationary asset that its value will increase over long term period.

I can easily still make use of P2P and exchange my bitcoin to fiat, make use of the fiat for spending. The only time I have prefer to use bitcoin are for cross border payments, especially if fiat is not accepted.

I have always have to think that all can not be based on bitcoin, if there is no more fiat again (which is not possible though), then what would be use to compare bitcoin, fiat do depreciates in value, it is depreciative asset, another reason we see bitcoin to be helpful as a hedge against fiat declination. So I am not even bother to make use of bitcoin for everyday use, I use fiat because I want the continuation of fiat everyday use. I hold bitcoin which is a hedge against inflation is what that matters most to me.

Some people that are concerned about their privacy will not like the above idea in a way you can used bitcoin in a way your identity can be revealed through bitcoin transactions.

I think everyone would love to live their daily lives on Bitcoin,it would not only mean investment opportunities but it would also make transaction and payment very easy.although to be honest this may be hard to achieve, there are hardly any place that solely accepts Bitcoin as a means of payment offline, also employers are not willing to add Bitcoin as a means of payment to their employees and this are all little hindrance in terms of that which the government poses.
I think we have a long way to go if we want to live on Bitcoin all through

Pmalek, I really haven't tried it even a day without fiat "only with bitcoin". Living without fiat in a country that doesn't legalize bitcoin as a means of payment is impossible for me because it's so hard to do. But of course the story would be different if one could use it in a country where bitcoin is legalized as a means of payment especially since there are so many services and shops adopting it.

In the future, if my country's government changes the rules regarding the legality of bitcoin and starts accepting bitcoin as a means of payment then I might try it "as often as possible". But of course not for now.

This is really difficult to achieve, highly improbable but might not be impossible. The possibility though depends a lot on where you live and how you earn/receive your income. For example i come from a region where there is a sort of ban on Bitcoin, and even if Bitcoin adoption is pretty high in my region, people are only adopting it as an investment method/option and not as a medium of exchange just yet, so trying to live on just Bitcoin here would more or less be impossible. As regards how one receives his income, i believe someone who earns in fiat would prolly not consider using fiat to buy bitcoin for spending, especially when fiat is the most popular medium of exchange, on the other hand, someone who earns in Bitcoin has a chance of doing this if it is possible in their region.

Having said that, personally i perform my daily transactions with fiat, if i choose to live on Bitcoin where i live, then i prolly would die of hunger, lol, that is cause i would struggle to get all of my basic needs. I use fiat and i hold Bitcoin, i only use Bitcoin when i get the rare opportunity to do so.

Though I have not experienced exclusively living using BTC at this kind of caliber (due to the lack of BTCs that I earned and received), I have tried using majority of the BTCs that I owned as part of my living experience with my family.

As someone who currently lives in a third-world country, snatching a job opportunity is like going to war. The opportunity of earning money is so hampered by the economic struggle experiencing due to the ongoing corruption that has been continuously happening for years.

Growing up with a single dad who raised 3 children alone (eldest), the priority in terms of expenditures were more focused in my brothers so I had to hustle and look for opportunities to at least make my life tolerable.

I stumbled upon this forum last 2017 when my friend introduced to me BTC and showed the potential of earning BTC weekly through participating into campaign signatures, which I was fortunate to participate on. Though what I received were only a handful amounts of BTC (~$10-$20/week), it got me through most difficult times as I used all of my earnings to purchase school materials and educational books.

Its impossible not to use Fiat at all, I tried and I failed, I paid many bills using crypto like electricity bills, TV subscriptions and gaming services but when it comes to food or Gas 😤 I cant use crypto because sellers aren't ready to accept crypto as means of payment, God knows I try.

At first I thought that he is paying everything directly with Bitcoin, no 3rd party services included and that would be extremely hard to do but then I saw that he is using services like bitrefill which makes it easier so yeah, I don't think that is impossible at all but kudos to him nevertheless, its certainly not an easy thing to do and is still very rare.

If using payment processors like Paycek (https://paycek.io/), crypto debit cards and BTC ATMs counts as living on bitcoin then I can say that I lived many times for days in a row while max was ~2 weeks (went on a holiday and everything was paid with previously mentioned methods) and I know some people irl that lived much longer than that. If we exclude those methods and count only direct bitcoin payments with no 3rd party involved, I don't think that something like that is possible in Croatia.

What about you, have you tried living on bitcoin?

Even the family that lives in a bus who sold his business to live fully in BTC I think doesn't live and spend BTC only. There is no way without using 3rd party, not all stores that sell everything we need for our daily use are accepting BTC.

But I would live to do it if there is a way. Maybe if they also accepts ETH and other altcoins. So far I have partly live in BTC, buying some groceries with BTC using 3rd party I wouldn't be tired as long as I can earn BTC. What I'm fed up is the 3rd party keeps updating and every time they do will once again ask KYC documents.

Going by the first three ways, i think it is very easy to realize such achievement if your business transactions is solely on bitcoin but going by making use of bitcoin in all participatory aspects of the economy without involving the significant role of fiat may be uneasy to achieve for now, come to think of buying commodities from the conventional markets, commercial merchants and other menial purchase you could wanted within your reach which doesn't require bitcoin for now in their payments option. although bitcoin is heading to that stage of globalization adoption, fee payments and daily market transaction and also, considering that the location in Canada is concentrated with bitcoin adopters whom he transact business with on daily basis.

I have financed parts of my holidays with Bitcoin. Sites like Travala accept crypto for hotels and airline tickets. They even accept LN payments. There is also a great resource on the forum that has a list of airline companies that accept Bitcoin > Overview of all airline & flight ticket sites that accept bitcoin. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3078815.0) It hasn't been updated since 2019, but it's still a good reference point.

Except the occasional purchase here and there, I haven't tried living on it exclusively. I don't own a crypto debit card, which adds additional limitations to where I can spend my BTC. And like you said, Croatia and the Balkans aren't really the places for that. I have had more luck when I am in Germany, but lately I find it much easier to convert whatever I plan to spend to fiat and just use that.

Very interesting story, thank you for sharing it with us.
I think this experience is generally not applicable to most crypto users who don't receive a salary in crypto but invest in crypto.
In fact, my long-term goal is to live solely from the crypto, but that will not happen until the crypto grows even higher in value and I gain enough funds to achieve financial freedom.
Only then will I be able to afford to live only on bitcoin but it will be based on bitcoin savings and not bitcoin salaries like the man in your example.
So far I've been buying some technical stuff with bitcoin but mostly I don't spend my crypto and I'm waiting for a certain price level which will be my exit strategy from crypto.

I heard about Travala but never really bothered to check it out as I don't know anyone irl that used them and didn't want to risk buying airline ticket and then finding out that something is wrong at the check in, but good to hear that they are legit. I just compared the prices with skyscanner (which I usually use when buying airline tickets) and Travala is on average 10% more expensive. Not a big difference for cheap flights, but when you are buying round trip ticket that costs $500+, its noticeable. Since I travel a lot I will try to use them this year to see how is it going on.


While situation may be better in Germany, I don't think that you could live solely on Bitcoin (excluding 3rd party) there either and probably nowhere in Europe for that matter. At least not normal life, without serious constraints. I don't really know what's the situation in Bosnia and Serbia regarding crypto adoption, but Croatia ain't bad at all, especially if we count all the merchants that are using Paycek and other payment processors. Slovenia is probably far ahead the other ex-Yu countries, but they don't count themselves as Balkan anyway. :D

Everyone who lives in a first-world county can easily live and grow his/her income using only Bitcoin. I live in a third-world country which is India and in my country from 2018 to date you will not even survive if you are only using Bitcoin. Not a single store offers Bitcoin transactions to date. There were a few who try to implement Bitcoin-based transactions in early 2018 but they were shut down. I do not think living on Bitcoin would be possible now as the government of India has imposed a 30% tax on every crypto transaction and starting July 1%TDS would get activated.

Maybe I am wrong, but it seems to be like the first part of your reply contradicts the second part. You would like to live solely from crypto, but you are waiting for the value to reach a certain target, so that you can sell. Looks more like you are looking to take your profits and than live from the fiat you get when you empty your crypto bags. That's the most common way.

That's true. I used it a time when I made some good profits, so I didn't pay that much attention.     

OK sorry, you're right, I didn't express my opinion the best.
What I actually wanted to say is that my plan and desire is to make a living from crypto earnings exchanged into a fiat when the right time comes. To live solely from the crypto I would have to live in a country where bitcoin is accepted as regular money everywhere and I'm not optimistic about that issue and I don't expect that. So, the only option for a long time will be to exchange the crypto into a fiat and live from it and, when possible, spend the crypto directly in those few places where it is possible.

for people who can use Bitcoin well and are supported live in a country that accepts Bitcoin then it will be easy. as told that Bitcoin can be used for purposes and daily life. That's a good thing, isn't it, that means Bitcoin can be relied on even without fiat. but for people who are not yet qualified to do that like me, then I think it will be difficult and prefer to invest or trade. but honestly the story is cool and motivates many people to make good use of Bitcoin because currently crypto technology is growing and accepted by many countries so it will facilitate the development of the crypto world as well.

Many of them folks here will say investment, hurdling which I find very untrue, most at times I do wonder if it is hype or flattering though.
The ways I have seen this happen is send Bitcoin as a birthday gift to someone else, this is the only I have seen with my eyes.
It'll sure take time, as a whole lot of folks are tied down to their local fiat- bitter truth, but a lot will lie.
Taking for example Nigeria, They simply do convert their Bitcoins to Alternative Coin's and then to local fiat for profits.
This will take a long period.

If partially and indirectly living on BTCitcoin counts, then I did it back in 2019 ^{[for 3 months]}... My plan was to live only on BTCitcoin, but it took me less than a day to realize it's not going to happen! Before I went back to the Philippines, I managed to persuade one of my previous landlords to accept BTCitcoin, but when I arrived at the building, I found out there's been a misunderstanding between the landlord and the tenant, so I had no choice but to look for another place and pay with fiat money.

• I used "coins.ph (https://coins.ph/)" to pay the bills and cash out some amounts.
• Back then, "Bitrefill (https://www.bitrefill.com/)" didn't have the same number of options for my country, so most of the time I had to pay in cash.
• FYI: Based on my findings ^{[at the time]}, I couldn't rely on any of the crypto debit cards!

Currently it is still unthinkable to live on only bitcoin without having to trade to Fiat.
Another reason is because my country does not fully regulate bitcoin or cryptocurrency to be used as legal tender. Regulation is only limited to commodities and nothing more.

But if you imagine trying to live on only bitcoins, it might be an amazing experience. I have also made a Domain purchase transaction using Bitcoin.

Now Fiat is still the main currency I use and Bitcoin or cryptocurrency is just a commodity asset that I trade every day.

Yeah that's the thing about the fees, they are not a problem until you start buying something regularly. Let's say that you are making 8-10 round trip flights per year, 10% higher price adds up and it's not like you can remain anonymous when buying the airline ticket. But it's a good thing nevertheless, to have that extra option as you never know when you could have issues with your card. That reminds me of the article I read recently about bunch of Russian tourists that got stranded in some country as their credit/debit cards and flights home got cancelled due sanctions. That's why I always try to have few hundreds of dollars on my mobile phone bitcoin wallet as you never know when you gonna need it.



Not the only option; you can move to Salvador and freely spend your bitcoin there :D. Joke aside I agree, still a long road ahead for bitcoin to reach the point where we can spend it directly on majority of places and some compromises will have to be made. What surprise me though is are people that are complaining about adoption  going slow, while bitcoin has been around for only ~13 years which is nothing really, and so much has been done already.

I got curious about this and did some research on a couple of sites to make this possible in our country. Well, I think I can live with using bitcoin for a few months because I can buy food using a wallet here in the country (I will elaborate below) and also top up a card for my transportation to go to work, but I can't go far with this. With regards to rent, I am not renting a house since I own one, so no problem. With the bill, I can use the same wallet to pay bills and also top-up my phone.

Coins.ph for Food (https://coins.ph/scan-and-pay/) - I can use this to buy food since there are supported food stores on this wallet, which is a scan to pay, so I just scan it using the wallet and pay my food.
Coins.ph for Bills (https://coins.ph/online-bills-payment/) - I can still use this to pay my electric, water, and internet bills. I can also top up my mobile with this wallet.
Beep Card top up by Coins.ph (https://coins.ph/beep/) - This is a card for transportation, which I mainly used to go to work, so I can still use this to pay for my transportation, which I top up using bitcoin.

In food this is really expensive since you cant choose low prices foods on the store that accepts bitcoin so I really need a lot of bitcoin but to others like bills and transport it is still usual expenses.

But there are other wallets like Gcash and Paymaya that will start integrating crypto into their systems with which anything is possible to live with only using bitcoin because Gcash is widely used in stores to accept payments, so if this was integrated, I am pretty sure that I could live as long as I want because even small stores accept this kind of method, even taxis or food delivery services.

It isn't difficult now to spend your bitcoins or live with only using bitcoin now because we can now see a lot of stores accepting it, unlike a few years ago when most people said that bitcoin was a scam and people didn't know what it was. But now, as you can see, a lot of people want to get into bitcoin, and because of COVID, I saw a lot of people doing research on it and getting curious about what bitcoin really is.

Like others I have occasionally paid for goods and services with Bitcoin but living
solely from it is not an option for me currently. My weekly wage is paid in FIAT and even
if I could convince my employer to pay my wages in Bitcoin I couldnt spend it in
my city or pay my mortgage with it.

Unfortunately the vast majority of people are tethered to the FIAT financial system more
or less consciously or subconsciously.

AFAIK or remember Franky1 was able to live solely on  Bitcoin....I might be wrong tho.

Depending only on Bitcoin for living and daily spending is subjective to your country acceptance of bitcoin and as well as that of your immediate environment.
Taking the instance of the youtuber who is a resident at Canada is understandable and somewhat practicable but I doubt it's wholly achievable.

In development and technogical adaptation, Canada is at the front line, which makes it not totally impracticable.
If we talk about a society where trust has collapsed, I mean a society where the citizens does not trust the government let alone to trust his/her fellow citizens, you will have to prove first that  you are not fraudulent before talking about Bitcoin transaction. This is because, immediate you mentioned Bitcoin, someone has already tagged you a scammer in his mind.
Again, the level of bitcoin acceptance is a factor. Many people leave in places where bitcoin cannot be used for daily groceries purchase. Infact, companies accepting bitcoin are more online base than offline, which makes it difficult to buy everything you need with bitcoin.

This statement below should prove that even the youtuber needed or needs fiat at some points.
For what purpose does he need USD. We are yet to advance to the stage where bitcoin is used for daily activities and I doubt it will ever happen. Many people are seeing bitcoin as an investment asset instead of a currency.

Damn it. I thought we found the first person who managed to do it based on your first sentence, but then everything changed with the second and so on.   

In what way couldn't you rely on them? Didn't they support your country or was your gut feeling telling you not to trust them?

Nice explanations, thanks for that. Judging by the Coins.ph site that keeps popping up in your reply, I can safely assume you are from the Philippines. What about taxes? Each of those transactions and conversions from crypto to fiat would be creating taxable events. What does the law in the Philippines say about that?

Yes, I am from the Philippines, which has many beautiful beaches but also has the worst traffic. Lol. With regards to the tax, I could probably say that the tax when it comes to cryptocurrency is not that strict here. As long as you haven't declared it to the Bureau of Internal Revenue (this is an agency of the government where you need to declare your assets), they will not know. I don't know how to really explain this, but we are like evading this because recently BIR announced that people who are earning money from online like Bitcoin or NFT games should pay tax. They just need to go to their office and declare this, which has caused a lot of debates here because with regards to paying taxes, it depends on how much you earn, and crypto and NFT are very volatile, so your income is also not stable, which the agency hasn't answered. Based on what I observed, I haven't seen anyone that is paying taxes or declaring that they are earning from crypto as far as I know.

With regards to the conversion from crypto to fiat, there are no hidden fees that you will pay and the details are just pure fee transactions. They usually charge you when you cash it out of your wallet to banks or third-party services to get your money.The only time we are involved with the tax is when we are buying things like food, because the VAT is already included in the price of the item you purchase.

I am also curious in your country if we are in the same situation in tax or if you have a strict law implementation in your country about paying tax that involves bitcoin.

I would be careful. I am not sure how reliable Coins.ph is as a service, but it seems that the majority in the Philippines are using it. Since you are paying bills with it, there is probably a requirement to undergo KYC. They store that data somewhere. If the local tax office decides to pressure Coins.ph to share with them the data of those who use crypto on their site, Coins.ph will have to comply. The government wants their share of the spoils and if the law is on their side, they will find a way to get it.   

Sorry if it gave the wrong impression, but I was able to only do it "partially and indirectly" :P
^{- Luckily, a lot has changed and if someone were to try it now [in the Philippines], they can "indirectly" live on BTCitcoin.}

There were reports that mentioned they didn't "always" work for both physical and online stores; hence I never tried it ^{[not sure if that situation has improved in recent years]}.

I used to pay crypto for my brother's school fees, I really want the surrounding environment to have many places that accept crypto, but there are still a lot of restrictions. They only accept a certain amount of money. Relatively, not many things accept payments directly with crypto. However, I am still living on the money I am earning from this market, I still have to convert to fiat for easier transactions, I am really curious about a place on this planet that accepts crypto for everything in life.

Wow, you are 100% right. I was shocked and thought about this for a minute. This would really be a problem for us if they enforced that tax on us. I'm only thinking about how they'd know we're into crypto, but our wallet alone could be enough to identify us.We have to go through KYC before we can use the wallet, so we don't have a choice.I am worried now about what will happen in the upcoming years since bitcoin is getting famous, but I am also scared to declare it to the agency. What ever happens, I will try to solve it in the future when I encounter it. There are still a lot of people to check, so it will take a lot of time on this and I am pretty sure they will after to people that has huge amount earnings in crypto because you know they want they share of spoil as you stated  :D

Also, I read the terms and conditions of the coins, which state that it is our responsibility and not theirs to collect, report and remit our tax, meaning they are out of it when the government decides to push this law about taxing cryptocurrency.


 Coins.ph Terms and Condition : 2.5 Taxes (https://site.coins.ph/user-agreement)

That segment about taxes means that they are not the party responsible for reporting and paying taxes. The clients and users of their services are.

Those terms and conditions also state that Coins.ph can cancel, reverse, or refuse to do business with an individual if ordered so by the court or government agency. If they listen to the state in terms of who to do business with (and it's completely normal they will because no one is above the law), they will also cooperate if the government asks them about crypto users.

Their Privacy Policy (https://coins.ph/privacy/) says the following thing:


They also say that they can keep your private information for up to 5 years after you close your account.

More on that here > https://coins.ph/privacy/.

I think some things about that story don't seem very ideal anymore, especially in light of recent events when President Bukele canceled his visit to a conference in Miami due to an allegedly fierce showdown between local gangs, where 9000 people have already been arrested link (https://www.wsj.com/articles/el-salvador-detains-more-than-9-000-people-in-gang-crackdown-11649703587). This country is far from the security standards we are used to, at least as far as the EU is concerned.

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I think that it is not impossible to live fully paying for goods and services with crypto (of course through payment processors), in countries where such conditions exist, and you are well aware of everything that exists in this regard in our country. In some parts of the country, even utilities can be paid for with Bitcoin, not to mention platforms like Bazzar where you can literally buy everything from needles to planes and pay in Bitcoin. I haven’t tried anything like that, but I think it would be feasible if someone made an effort.

So he lives exclusively on bitcoin but he does need to get cash and for most of the stuff he buys he uses gift cards which are obviously a 3rd party thing. I don't see how you can claim to be using bitcoin alone because the fiat you take as a loan is backed by collateral, so somebody could be claiming he is living off his house since he took a mortgage on it  ;D


I could definitely live for a few days on it. All I have to do would be stock up my fridge and not go out for the next three days and only buy something online with bitcoin during this period, it would qualify, right?   :D

But if we consider purchasing gift cards with bitcoin and using those to buy stuff as still using exclusively bitcoin then we can count a bitcoin debit card too as one, and in this case, I would probably last a few weeks on using that alone, I can't remember when I last used cash to pay for something, I don't need to pay rent so unless something extraordinary happens I would probably go a long time with a debit card loaded with coins.

But that's not living on bitcoin in my opinion.
Strictly using bitcoin alone and living a normal life? Not a day! Impossible for me or my family!

Off-topic but:

Oh, what a surprise, he stopped paying them to be nice they started acting up again, when you waste your money buying the dip....

Thank you for taking the time to elaborate this. Reading their terms and conditions, as well as their privacy policies regarding the data that has been collected on users, is my first time to read and understand it I was simply using the platform at this time and was unaware of this. I am hoping that they will not do something like this or that it will not lead to something where they will give the data to the government because if this happens, I am pretty sure that the government will come after us .

From my perspective it will be under assumption before someone can conclude that some individuals is living only on bitcoin, because from the news of bitcoin speculating around the corner, it's not every country adopt the uses of cryptocurrency and it's very rall before you can see someone in my country surviving with bitcoin trading.

If such will happen it maybe in next twenty years and bitcoin will possessed it gravitational force across the world base on the issue of legalization via government... any one who is into bitcoin will as well have a subordinate of other things that will enhance of generating income.. this is my perception.

As long as you stocked up your fridge by spending your Bitcoins and you have less Bitcoin than before the food purchase, sure. Even if you use a crypto card or buy gift cards, you still acquired those with Bitcoin. What happens to those coins after that, is not your concern. Merchants now have the possibility to convert the crypto you give them into fiat almost instantly and that's a great thing that makes things much easier. But that doesn't change the fact that YOU paid with crypto. The fate of those coins is not important. Sure, it's not the same as doing a proper exchange where I send you X amount of BTC to your address and you provide me with the goods and services I need. But it's a great bridge that connects the two worlds. Even if the other party doesn't want crypto, you can still pay them in crypto.

Unfortunately its hard for us to live by using bitcoin only because I don't see any local merchant accept this as mean of payment so If I choose to use this for sure my bitcoin will be useless since I can't buy anything here unless I exchange it with fiat. Maybe this discussion about living by using bitcoin only will matter only if you are living on a country which is updated with this and more merchant accepting this currency as another option to pay them on their product and services.

 So I guess many cannot live without fiat on their hands.

In the present condition, it is hard to live only on Bitcoin because the needed patent channel that supports crypto being used as daily payment is still not put in place thats the reason why the Youtuber explained by the OP also used his BTC as collateral and get a loan in fiat but we never thought of how he's going to pay the loan back? Definitely in fiat.

With that being said, if a payment channel that allows the use of Bitcoin as day to day payment is created i won't live only on my Bitcoin because it's an asset.
Go and ask Laszlo Hanyecz, he wishes he didn't spend 10,000BTC on pizza now

I did entertain the thought of living solely on crypto once, then I realized that I'd have to change countries to do it  :D
It is almost impossible in some countries (and some of them make it impossible deliberately). I think we're a few years away from the kind of adoption that would enable us to live like that.

It's almost impossible in all countries, not just some. If you took away aids like debit cards and payment processors that convert your cryptocurrencies into fiat, you would be left with very few things that you can do with your crypto. Most of it would be private transactions where one person acquires certain goods or services from another person. Almost no merchants or shops that accept crypto keep those assets. They turn it into fiat instantly.   

it will be quite impossible and difficult because it is not yet a form of payment for services in the country. for me, I haven't tried it, because it is not yet allowed in my country. though some private enterprises might allow it. but it will be a welcome development. except one can exchange it for fiat and then use it to purchase goods and services from a local store.

Well, it is amazing to people that live on Bitcoin in respective of the market volatility or what could make an ordinary trader jump on stable coins because of the volatility. I have once imagine myself living on Bitcoin for all my life 2ithout being bordered about the bear or bull market.


It is 100% possible for people to live on Bitcoin without bordering about inflation or the government principles on fiat currency. I am a lover of Bitcoin and I will continue advocating for it adoption so that people can have a clue of what it takes to hold Bitcoin and use it for daily transactions. Bitcoin is a digital currency and also a financial instrument which can be termed as an asset with liquidity that increases and decreases in time.

https://i.ibb.co/gTsPD5B/life-on-bitcoin.jpg
https://coin-turk.com/bitcoin-temali-ilk-belgesel-film-life-on-bitcoin

Have you ever tried to live on Bitcoin?
This is a good question which really inspires me but I think we need to understand what it means for people to live on Bitcoin. Living on Bitcoin shouldn't be a difficult lifestyle just like other forum members here that earn their wages/salary in Bitcoin. I think getting paid in Bitcoin for services rendered can be termed as living on Bitcoin just like other people that are living on fiat. They get paid in fiat currency and they use the money for settling their basic needs on a daily basis.

https://i.ibb.co/G3F4NfN/bitcoin-merchants-bitpay-mainstream-cryptocurrency.jpg
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/bitcoin-use-switches-investment-commodity-everyday-currency-new-data-reveals-1496316

I believe many of the forum users here are living on Bitcoin likewise myself. It all depends on how we understand the word living on Bitcoin. I am an epitome of a person that partially live on Bitcoin. Apart from my job, I do other online businesses that I do receive my pay in Bitcoin or stable coins. Most times I do convert the stable to Bitcoin and keep in my cold wallet.

Living on Bitcoin should not be as hard as we think!

I haven’t despite I want to see myself accumulating and owning more BTC and I have already started doing DCA last month. I cannot see myself leaving the crypto industry. It’s the reason why I can afford to pay my bills, maintain my health, supporting my family, investing into BTC and other promising coins, tokens, NFTs, etc. How we wish that we’re going to get paid in Bitcoin like this Canadian Youtuber.

I would always like to spend bitcoin to buy things that I need, but its not possible to spend bitcoin always to buy things because bitcoin have not be fully adopted and not everyone or business firm have a wallet address to accept bitcoin for payment. But I still spend bitcoin to buy somethings to those who accept bitcoin, sometimes ago I have also sent a friends who is a lover of bitcoin as a birthday gift. It not to possible to spend bitcoin throughout because of fiat we have as a major currency.

Nahh Malek, this is exclusively hard for an average citizen yunno..
Benjamin must HODLing coin in stock already - and if that's coming from his YouTube incentives, then he's really trying, honestly.. ( well, on the other hand, it depends on his traffic and how much he earns as well)
I cannot think of trying that as I won't wanna Begin utilizing any staked coins I have in stock; or maybe I just feels that's one of the most critical ways to survive...
Lastly, this is really possible but not on every peripherals; it's not even about peeps not accepting BTC as a medium of exchange,.. It's about the restrictions, fees and accessibility.

Sandra 🧑‍🦰

This is something I would really love to do but unfortunately, it is impossible in my country. Living without having cash at hand in my country is difficult enough as it is, talk more of living solely on Bitcoin.
I use Bitcoin to pay for a few things and they are mostly international transactions but anything within my country I use fiat.
My government has a very myopic view on crypto, although it isn't illegal, it opens you up for scrutiny. So local businesses stare clear of Bitcoin as a means of payment so they won't be in the bad books of the state.

It's funny because our local currency going to shit and inflation will affect people like me more if it were not for Bitcoin. The currency keeps losing value against the dollar daily.

First, I would have to figure out a way to live without cash because I hate holding cash on me before I can figure out a way to live on Bitcoin alone.

I think it is happening now in Boracay Island through Pouch.ph. They are spearheading the Bitcoin adoption as means of payment for goods and services via their own lightning wallet. I think the Bitcoin maxis there are just trying to live only on Bitcoin. Not just for investment, but also as utilitarians.

They’re just treating Pouch.ph as the “GCash” of Boracay. But the downside however is that they are centralized because it’s tied to Netbank and requires KYC for verified users.

I am currently having a good relationship with their founder. But even though it’s centralized, the positive side is that they are spreading awareness for Bitcoin.

For now, I haven't tried something similar like what those Youtuber did. Because there are various reasons that make me unable to do this (using bitcoin in totality).

• The first reason, caused by the rules or laws regarding cryptocurrency made by the government in the country where I live. The rules made by the government in my country only allow cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin to be used as commodity assets, and do not allow them to be used as a means of payment transactions.
Source: https://legalitas.org/tulisan/hukum-kripto-indonesia#:~:text=Sesuai%20dengan%20Peraturan%20Menteri%20Perdagangan,yang%20diperdagangkan%20di%20Bursa%20Berjangka.

• Then for the second reason, it's because I don't have a circle or friends I want to transact using bitcoin with. That's all because in my environment, the majority of people are still unfamiliar with bitcoin.

• And for the third reason, none of the shopping centers or shops in my area and maybe in my country accept payments using bitcoins (as far as I know). So that's why, using bitcoin in totality, for me at this time it's not possible.
Because if you flatten it out, basically there aren't many crypto/bitcoin users in my country. Of the 100% of the population, only less than 2% have cryptocurrency / bitcoin. So because of these factors, right now I can't just use bitcoin to run my life, but still need other things like fiat money.

Before this can be achieved you have to take into considerations an important factor like the person's locality. This can only be feasible in the western world and not in third world or developing countries that are still struggling with bans and the adoption rate is very slow. Like in my case it is very impossible, there's no way I can live solely on bitcoin. While Bitcoin adoption is gradually gaining momentum, I buy and store Bitcoin as much as I can but I only use it as a medium of exchange in rare occasions. In most cases, I still have to trade my Bitcoin or other crypto assets to fiat in other to use it to settle my basic needs like buying food items, paying my electricity bills, house rent etc.

That shouldn't be too hard. I don't know where you are from, but you should have various debit or credit cards on your disposal unless you are unbanked somewhere. Do people in your region use payment cards while shopping and paying for goods and services? You could also go cashless by using virtual cards or Google Pay via your phone.

I live in a country where bitcoin is under stringent regulation. This has made bitcoin awareness and acceptance very slow. Only two businesses accept crorovurremcies in my neighborhood because of these anti-crypto policies of the government. Living totally on bitcoin is not possible for now in my country because you might not be able to have access to your basic needs.

Even in some remote places in Africa, one can live a cashless life. It is now common to see POS machines that offer banking services in local markets in Africa.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSAkAKsQfNXarf-6CNd4Cxdw9ao-4To5IsRRw&usqp=CAU
Living a cashless life in urban areas in Africa is as easy as using physical fiat because you can pay for almost every goods and service using online platforms of Debit cards.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSAkAKsQfNXarf-6CNd4Cxdw9ao-4To5IsRRw&usqp=CAU

I haven't thought of this before because in my country the use of bitcoin is highly prohibited because the restriction that is place on it by the government. I have thought of using only bitcoin for my daily spending if I travel to El Salvador on vacations because that is the only country that living on bitcoin will be possible. The only time that I have used bitcoin was to pay for my hotel bills when I travelled for a project because the manager was a bitcoin fan and he wanted to have more bitcoin. So when I asked him he was glad and told me that the management must not know about this. He told me that he will use his fiat currency to replace the hotel payment and I stayed for three days paying with bitcoin for feeding and accommodation directly to the manager. I have used bitcoin indirectly whereby I need to convert it to fiat before spending several times.

People in my region use payment cards and wire transfers for payment, but a lot of vendors don't trust them because;

1. The network is unreliable.
Both the banking network and service providers' network is so unreliable.
Most times when you make a transfer or pay with your card it takes so long for the beneficiary account to receive the money. Sometimes when it takes this long, the money may be reversed or it might just hang. This can be very frustrating and embarrassing because it might look like you don't have the money to pay or you're a fraud. The worst part is, you've been debited while the beneficiary account has not been credited.
You know how with Bitcoin it would show "pending" if the coin hasn't been sent, it's the opposite with this one. With this, it would show that the money has been sent successfully, while the person on the other end hasn't received it.

Particular banks don't give you this kind of issue, but again, a vast majority of the population doesn't trust them because they're online banks and people are skeptical of those in this region because of past experiences. But I use them anyway.

2. My country is not developed to the level where everybody can go digital. Some shops don't accept any form of digital payment. It has to be cash. And it's extremely difficult to live here without patronizing those shops.


If it was this easy, why was the "cashless period" in Nigeria a problem for the whole country?

I know you were being serious and not trying to make jokes, but before a travel to El Salvador, research the crime rate of that country and you might be negatively surprised and change your mind. 

That's a good use of bitcoin. Were you expecting it and did you know you would pay your hotel bills in that way before your trip? I am asking because if you had access to BTC away from home, you must be holding it on an exchange or a phone wallet. Hot wallets are ok for smaller amounts and if pre-prepared for trips and holidays.

I wish I could but I can't. Several factors hindering this with the topmost on the list being the country I live in. First, bitcoin adoption is high but is not widely accepted in shops or business places for business purposes. The reason, government regulation. I have a dream that one day, I would vacation in El-Salvador bitcoin city for a week and have the full experience of living off of bitcoin within that type. I may do a vlog about it or write about my experience either here or on Medium. But until then, I will keep spreading bitcoin awareness, doing grassroot lobbying of government officials and day dream for that day to come.

If people use bitcoin in many ways, I prefer to use bitcoin as an investment and not use it to buy things in online or offline stores.
I still use fiat for everyday life and only keep my bitcoins for long term investment purposes, so there is no desire to use bitcoins in real life yet.
If later bitcoin is widely used, especially in shops around my neighborhood, I will try to use it but not too often because I am still focused on using bitcoin as an investment.
We may have read the story of Didi Taihuttu who was willing to sell everything to invest in bitcoin and who knows what happened to him and his family now.
There may be more people trying to use bitcoin in their daily lives.

it seems that in every country it will be different because there are governments that allow btc to be used as legal tender and some do not, in my country the government does not allow people to make btc as a means of payment and only allows btc to be used as an investment asset only.

but I do often benefit from btc because I always invest in btc for the long term and also always trade daily on btc which always makes a profit, but I only invest in btc as a side business because in my opinion investing in btc would be very suitable if used as side business.

but in this case of course everyone has a different story.

People that know about Bitcoin will love to live on Bitcoin. When you only live on Bitcoin it will make life easier to live in, where you do not need a bank account before you can make online payments, your payments and transactions will be fast. Unlike our traditional payment system where you will need a middleman before your payment will go through. Using Bitcoin for payment will eradicate inflation. Live only on Bitcoin will be hard to achieve because almost all goods and services are accepted will fiat payment

 I've not really tried living only on Bitcoin and while I'd love to try something different for a change, in my country the use of BTC has not being widely accepted and while there might be some places that accept Bitcoin payment, others don't. For example, I'd need fiat to pay the taxi driver or the woman at the market.
People who live in countries like El Salvador and Central African Republic can easily do this because Bitcoin is a legal tender there. Surprisingly, in El Salvador, not all locals live on the digital currencies as they still make use of the dollar.
 

It will be difficult to live on only bitcoins in my country because many business people that you transact with daily still have problems accepting even normal bank transfer. Many people here who do physical business are interested in getting their money in cash ,or through their POS machines and those online are interested in cash transfer, even the government approved CBDC will not be accepted by most sellers online and offline. It is impossible for me right now because of where I am a citizen. For the youtuber, he can only do this in his place, if he decides to leave or change his location, he will not be able to continue.

I don't think you need to limit yourself in that way. Depending on when you got your coins and at what price, it might be worth considering buying something with them when BTC reaches a price you are happy with. Sometimes seeing and holding a physical item is good motivation and incentive because it shows that bitcoin has a real value. It doesn't matter what it is. If the purchasing power of your coins are much higher now than when you got them, you can get a new phone, a watch, a new computer, a house, a car...

Who cares what they allow or don't allow. It's between you and the buyer/seller. If I have goods you are interested in and willing to take BTC for them, your government's opinion on our deal is irrelevant.

We don't live in such a world. Even in the example with the YouTuber in the OP, we can see there are various hurdles he has to bypass and hasn't succeeded to live solely on cryptocurrencies.