Are you talking to your local merchants about Bitcoin?
Today I was buying a coffee at a local shop, cost $2.75. I hand over a card and the gal says, "sorry, do you have cash? We have a $5 minimum for cards...you know...fees." I said, "I only have $2." And the gal replied, that's fine.
So as they're pouring their finest for me I ask "Do you guys accept bitcoin?" And the gal says, "No, do people use that now?" Another gal walks up, "is that a thing?"
Best words I've heard all week. Of course, I come back with - "Yeah! It's a thing! It's great to use, you know...low fees." Then this gal mentions "some documentary about Bitcoin on Netflix, I guess I should watch it." I left them with, "It's called Banking on Bitcoin, check it out."
My point with all this extremely riveting dialogue (
) is that a simple question like "Do you accept Bitcoin?" turned into a full on conversation. The more each of talks about Bitcoin, the more we start to raise the local awareness, interest, and eventually adoption...the rest takes care of itself!
My honest opinion is that merchant adoption and trying to get people to use BTC for their daily purchases and such isn't particularly important for the success or failure of Bitcoin itself. No matter how you slice it, for the consumer, using a card with rewards and perks is going to be better. Sure the merchant takes the hit on fees. But the consumer also gets protection. Right now consumers have the advantage, and while merchants might like BTC better as it's better for them, trying to sell it to a population is difficult. Selling it to them as an investment asset makes more sense. Buy BTC for savings, spend your fiat.
