I purchased a brand new phone and saw a Bitcoin payment device

[Emitdama]

Congrats on your new phone purchase and I was tempted to as which country you’re from but I didn’t because if you wanted to say, maybe you would have done that while making your post.
In my country, we have similar machines for the regular point of sales (pos) machines and yes most of these machines are already built with android operating systems which means they can also function like the regular android mobile phones but the major difference is that, the pos can print out paper receipts after each transactions and with that pos machine, the phone vendor might have installed a bitcoin wallet on the device and I’m saying this because there haven’t been a post about mobile bitcoin ATMs.

Another thing that is limiting you to ask if which country he was residing is that Bitcoin may not be fully accepted again on his country. And we don't know, what if there are spies here. So the OP can get in trouble. That can also be the reason on why the OP choose to not say the country his is in. Meanwhile, POS machines are everywhere but for sure, not all has that same POS the OP have featured but the common ones that we have, only accept popular cards like Visa and Mastercard. Some also accept trendy digital payment methods. BTC wallets are available on different operating system, so it doesn't always have to be Android.

[WhoYouCantKill]

True, some shop owners use discreet crypto PoS gadgets, mostly in areas where people seek to avoid drawing attention. They operate like a normal PoS yet generate crypto invoices or QR codes. It is not so common, therefore there is sense for you to be surprised. A lot of merchants remain quiet when it concerns accepting Bitcoin even after a ban is removed. Your experience reveals that adoption in the low key still exist, but it is not publicly advertised.

[Wiwo]

It wasn’t written that they accept Bitcoin because it might violate the law. If Bitcoin isn’t considered a currency, it shouldn’t really be part of any official payment system unless there’s approval from the government.

But your payment is still valid of course, since you received the device.

He must be from a country that have unfriendly bitcoin regulations,  and from what we in the African region and some other parts of the world e.g Philippines and even Brazil,  we have seen alot of bitcoin and cryptocurrency regulations, that is unfriendly for bitcoin payments services and even exchanges, but with that comes modalities from cryptocurrency users that arw citizens bitcoin payments is now accepted but underground.

Here in Nigeria,  you pay for car wirh bitcoin,  but that is based on individual arrangement that involves privacy and trust.

Since bitcoin payments is on a decentralized network,  as long as you have the needed devices and wallet to receive your coins,  you are good to go.

[SquirrelJulietGarden]

He must be from a country that have unfriendly bitcoin regulations,  and from what we in the African region and some other parts of the world e.g Philippines and even Brazil,  we have seen alot of bitcoin and cryptocurrency regulations, that is unfriendly for bitcoin payments services and even exchanges, but with that comes modalities from cryptocurrency users that arw citizens bitcoin payments is now accepted but underground.

Not all countries globally have same friendly stance, policy and regulation on Bitcoin but we all can access Bitcoin blockchain, and use bitcoins if we want and learn technical basic and use it practically.

Depends on legal status of Bitcoin in your nation, you will need to have different approach for your practice with Bitcoin wallets, UTXOs, changed addresses on the Bitcoin blockchain and other things for your money in and out flows. The same important thing is you must take care of your privacy and anonymity as most as possible because if you leaked something, it can be evidence against you in the future.

Understand about legality in your nation is important.
https://newhedge.io/terminal/bitcoin/legality-map

[Nwada001]

But your payment is still valid of course, since you received the device.

As long as there is not going to be any form of dispute in the future, that purpose is valid, but if anything leads to the buyer returning the phone to the shop or whatever, that will lead to some form of legal action, and that method of payment might not be recognized as being valid as long as it's not legal to make payment with Bitcoin in that country.

[Hispo]

Interesting story. That is something I would not expect to see in my country, not at all explicitly about Bitcoin, merchants here are more willing to get payments through centralized services like Binance, instead of providing a Bitcoin Address.

Anyways, even if Bitcoin was taken as a way to pay merchants here, it would be kind of dangerous to do so, due to the high percentage of crime per 100.000 people here in Venezuela, if someone with bad intentions was one paying with Bitcoin, they could assume there is more Bitcoin left in our wallets to be stolen. It is better to keep a low prolife in countries like mine.