We need small communities and towns to create circular Bitcoin economies

[Kakmakr]

I recently watched this video on Youtube ==> https://youtu.be/wp2SonEgquQ?si=TyyraoFQ5pL9PZ2x and I realized that mass adoption of Bitcoin will only happen, if small circular economies, within the bigger economies are formed.

If you watched the video, you will see that it first started with 1 merchant and then more merchants and shops in the same town and then it spread to the neighboring towns.

Rome were not built in one day, but it started with one or two houses and it grew from there... and the same thing can be applied to Bitcoin adoption.

Let's build a Bitcoin empire!

[oli098]

That’s a fascinating idea!  I'll definitely check out the video and consider how we can support the development of these circular Bitcoin economies.

[Wiwo]

Same with every economic growth and development it has to first start from a small percentage of people/users before it get widely adopted into the larger society,  bitcoin is best for small cycles of community who have same understanding and belief for the system,  because that os the only way it can serve as a mode of exchange since it acceptability is currently low in the wider society.

Take EL Salvador for a example as a small country with lower population it was easy for them to adopt bitcoin as an alternative to the traditional currency and from that point, the adoption can move further into other countries like the USA and the rest of the world.

[Jawhead999]

There's no reason to say Lightning network is a failed project and no one use it, as we can see on that video, they're paying in Lightning network.

I think that most people who pay in Bitcoin are foreigners, it's why many merchants in that town decide to accept Bitcoin. Local people can just pay using cash, but foreigners need to convert their money to fiat first or using credit card that charge high fees, instead they use Bitcoin as it's more convenience.

[Gozie51]

I realized that mass adoption of Bitcoin will only happen, if small circular economies, within the bigger economies are formed.

No doubt about this of course that is the way it will easily spread, through such buying and selling, buying and selling through btc P2P but what happens if the government in the area is not supporting that? Like those bigger economies are not existing independent of a government in the region, the rules and regulations guiding those macro economies come from the government. So the government has been the bane on bitcoin adoption and what if they go against those institutions that are springing up through bitcoin. We already know how government has not allowed the willful use of bitcoin, so it will still be in the way of trying to regulate their activities in the area under the macro economies.

[Ishicryptic]

If shop owners in a community or a shopping complex begins to accept payments in Bitcoin, it will encourage buyers that are in the community to adopt Bitcoin and be making payments with it. Gradually the payment method will spread to nearby communities and more people will have Bitcoin awareness and adopt it until it will spread to an entire region and beyond. Although I don't think that spending and accepting Bitcoin can eliminate the use of fiat in any community, it will always be used as an alternative to fiat. I believe that the fastest way for Bitcoin to be adopted beyond community levels is if the public sectors in an economy begins to accept it as payments of utility bills, taxes and revenue collections. It will create more trust and fast adoption within citizens if their government is involved in the acceptance of Bitcoin.

[buwaytress]

It's one reason why I do my best to always support the Bitcoin accepting people on this forum.

Small hobbyist? Frequent collectible maker? Project owner? Buying/selling? People keep yammering on about institutional this and that but really, the lifeblood of Bitcoin are the many unsung users who insist on transacting Bitcoin on-chain.

Rome were not built in one day

It burned down in several weeks, though Just so we're all mindful about how quickly things can be taken apart.

[Cookdata]

I recently watched this video on Youtube ==> https://youtu.be/wp2SonEgquQ?si=TyyraoFQ5pL9PZ2x and I realized that mass adoption of Bitcoin will only happen, if small circular economies, within the bigger economies are formed.

If you watched the video, you will see that it first started with 1 merchant and then more merchants and shops in the same town and then it spread to the neighboring towns.

Rome were not built in one day, but it started with one or two houses and it grew from there... and the same thing can be applied to Bitcoin adoption.

Let's build a Bitcoin empire!

I just watch the video and I feel like moving down there, looks so peaceful and very clean environment, I wish other small towns can endorse this same adoption but this can only work in a country where Bitcoin isn't seen as a threat. There are countries who doesn't like to hear the word Bitcoin, so trying to make these merchants thing go viral so others can adopt the same payment will only land them in more trouble.

My only small concern is how this merchant are able to work with the Bitcoin volatility. If there is a way they maximize profits without been worried about Bitcoin volatility for people that bought large items that cost more will be helpful because most of the merchants that aren't interested in Bitcoin payment isn't even the transaction fee, lightening network has solved that but the days of volatility is what I'm only bothered about, if there is a way about that, more merchants will love to accept Bitcoin.

[Lucius]

It is completely pointless to talk about any Bitcoin empires when we see from examples like this that things work best in small environments. We have already seen it in the examples of Bitcoin Beach (El Salvador), Arnhem Bitcoin City (Netherlands) or Boracay (Philippines) and probably in many other places that are still under the radar.

It seems to me that the problem of many people who want some kind of global BTC adaptation is that they think that BTC will change the world - but the real problem is that the world does not want change. Therefore, changes can only happen where there are people who want to encourage them, and as we can see, there are not too many such places in the world.

[d5000]

I'm happy that such "circular" communities exist. And I think yes, if you want to boost adoption by merchants, it would be important to be always sure that you can spend your Bitcoins for your daily needs. So the merchant doesn't have to worry that much about how to cash out or spend the Bitcoins paid to them by their customers.

Perhaps one could think "real life shops" aren't the best use case for Bitcoin. On-chain txes are too slow, but Lightning works better than on-chain transactions in this use scenario, although it has its own challenges, and still a quite low user base.

On the other hand brick and mortar shops are a good option to maintain a bit more privacy. When you buy something online (with the exception of some digital goods) you almost always need to provide name and address; your data could be stored - and then it also can be hacked, so basically you're doing KYC. On a brick and mortar shop, while they see your face, they don't need any data from you.

The question is: how can we thus achieve a more widespread adoption? I think the biggest problem is indeed volatility. And this is especially true for goods with high competition and low marginal profits. Of course there are payment processors but they're not an ideal solution as they are an intermediary you'd probably want to avoid.

So I would loved to have heard a bit more about how the merchants deal with the volatility issue. Maybe it's not really a big issue if the percentage of Bitcoin buys in your shop is low in relation to total revenue, but it's a topic which has to be dealt with eventually.

[johnsaributua]

Impressive, it feels like my virtual world is a real kingdom, can fulfil needs without intermediaries. Good job to the botcoin activists in that country!

I have felt in my country, although it is a little different, they accept all types of crypto for franchising and choose what coins they accommodate, I feel the convenience with P2P, both for my monthly needs, such as electricity bills, water, taxes etc. manually or even fiat and food in the marketplace with their services, at least I feel that this crypto is recognised even though it is only digital, even so I choose reputable sellers and usually in some large telegram airdrop channels, so far safe.

Because of the ups and downs of fees I also chose altcoins as a complementary tool, because for different sellers nampunga, worthy of the seller and service provider in the video, thank you for providing a good visual for bitcoin activists and crypto users at large that this progress in the real world is very good and more and more time arises awareness and more people accept bitcoin. Although people still choose physical assets in the traditional way (gold and precious metals) for trading, although there are still different perceptions, they will gradually choose bitcoin even the smallest satoshi unit to get used to and as a complement.

[Darker45]

I think there are many ways for adoption to happen. Independently, however, it must start somewhere small. But, of course, as Bitcoin has already been widely known and its adoption already growing, it could happen that no less than a government itself would declare Bitcoin as an acceptable money and that should be enough to jump-start a Bitcoin economy. I'm seeing this possibility. Bitcoin is no longer an unknown technology, after all.

But there's beauty in a free, organic, and smooth adoption of Bitcoin in a community. I visited the Philippine's Bitcoin island, however, and the challenge for a working Bitcoin circular economy is apparent.

[Fiatless]

I watched the documentary and it was quite an interesting experience. It's just great to see how you can pay for almost everything with Bitcoin, thereby maintaining your privacy. Seeing that it is from a community in South Africa makes me believe that we can replicate these communities in other places. But there are many hurdles to face if we want it to start in my local community. One of the problems we might face is poor and unstable internet connections. Sometimes there are usually no internet connections in my area. The cost of transactions might be another big challenge but there are still other options. But some people might find it too complicated.

So I would loved to have heard a bit more about how the merchants deal with the volatility issue. Maybe it's not really a big issue if the percentage of Bitcoin buys in your shop is low in relation to total revenue, but it's a topic which has to be dealt with eventually.

Maybe the price of the good should be in the local fiat currency but payments should be made with Bitcoin. So regardless of how the price of Bitcoin moves, the shop owners will not be affected.

[Lucius]

~snip~
So I would loved to have heard a bit more about how the merchants deal with the volatility issue. Maybe it's not really a big issue if the percentage of Bitcoin buys in your shop is low in relation to total revenue, but it's a topic which has to be dealt with eventually.

I think that volatility is not the biggest problem for merchants when it comes to BTC transactions, because mostly they all use some kind of payment processors that automatically convert BTC to fiat. What seems to be the biggest problem is the actual number of people who want to pay with BTC at all.

After I read this topic, I was interested in what was happening in some other destinations that I mentioned in the previous post, and from a video that was posted 4 months ago, it can be concluded that BTC failed in Boracay. In the video, we can see that the person behind the Pouch project talks about how at one point there were over 200 merchants on the island who accepted BTC, and only a few clients a day, so some shops never had a single transaction in BTC.

Bitcoin Island's Reality Check: Is Bitcoin Failing in Boracay?

[d5000]

Maybe the price of the good should be in the local fiat currency but payments should be made with Bitcoin. So regardless of how the price of Bitcoin moves, the shop owners will not be affected.

Of course that's how it currently probably works in 90%+ of all cases - they very likely use Coingate/Bitpay and similar solutions or directly connect to an exchange.

However, if the economy really has the ambition to become "circular", eventually at least part of the coins should not be converted anymore. I can imagine scenarios where local merchants first retain 10%, then 20% and so on. As the percentage of customers paying in Bitcoin should be low, this should not be difficult to organize. If you only have 1% of Bitcoin revenue, you could directly renounce to use a payment processor and speculate that in the long run your holdings will go up. Of course, a problem may also be taxes on possible profits - not every merchant would like to want to deal with the necessary paperwork.

Nevertheless, a big percentage of merchants accepting Bitcoin via payment processors is of course an important and necessary intermediate step.

What seems to be the biggest problem is the actual number of people who want to pay with BTC at all.

That seems indeed to be a problem. In some communities like Bitcoin Beach the high acceptance is only possible due to Bitcoin supporters having migrated there (either foreigners or from other locations in the country). So in this case you have, as a merchant, a significant incentive to accept Bitcoin even if this means to pay a fee to a payment processor.

And yes, there are the known problems with Bitcoin payments, apart from the already mentioned inconvenience of on-chain payments due to the fees. In bull markets the people tend to hold, they don't want to "lose" their "precious Bitcoins" spending them, forgetting that they could simply re-buy BTC regularly (via DCA for example, or estimating the amount they have spent and rebuying it). While in bear markets, people tend to panic and cash out to fiat. We've still not advanced that much since 2013 it seems

It's however possible that the stricter KYC-related regulations for "cashing out" could drive a new wave of demand for Bitcoin payments, and this could help these "circular" communities too.

[TheUltraElite]

Small communities followed by bigger communities. I like that, but it will not work in cities, rather they have to bring it to the cities, how - I am not so sure myself.

Once smaller communities gain traction city dwellers will start moving towards it. Already in most countries the terms cryptocurrency and bitcoin have picked up buzz in the last 10years as compared to the last 20years.

If the bitcoin<>bitcoin is not a problem, the fiat<>bitcoin should be easier to allow people to spend the fiat and use bitcoin. For that exchanges need to be robust and predatory taxation does not make the scene good.

[Maus0728]

Small communities followed by bigger communities. I like that, but it will not work in cities, rather they have to bring it to the cities, how - I am not so sure myself.

Once smaller communities gain traction city dwellers will start moving towards it. Already in most countries the terms cryptocurrency and bitcoin have picked up buzz in the last 10years as compared to the last 20years.

If the bitcoin<>bitcoin is not a problem, the fiat<>bitcoin should be easier to allow people to spend the fiat and use bitcoin. For that exchanges need to be robust and predatory taxation does not make the scene good.

Maybe it will work in big cities, I think that we're just so embroiled on thinking about the different factors that we don't even try first more than anything else, I mean look at it this way, wouldn't the best thing for us if we do it anyway and if it doesn't work then we can learn something from it? The problem is that we always say that bitcoin implementation is always going to fail but we've never given it a chance, all these crazy theory that it won't be a success because of the factors when most of the factors that's listed isn't even that big of a deal or that generalized that there's doubts that it will affect the implementation if it really does happen.

[el kaka22]

This isn't the first time someone wanted something like this, people always want stuff like this, but the reality is that we are not going to end up with anything like this. You can make a very small place that accepts bitcoin, but communities at bigger nations is harder. Don't get me wrong, go to El Salvador and you are going to end up with a great situation without a doubt, you are going to end up with something that will benefit you, and it is going to be a great deal for you, it's just the way it is.

However, we are talking about some stuff that would not be all that crazy to handle, and if we can manage to make it work, then we are going to end up with a much better result in the end, because this can't happen in big nations.

[Lucius]

What seems to be the biggest problem is the actual number of people who want to pay with BTC at all.

That seems indeed to be a problem. In some communities like Bitcoin Beach the high acceptance is only possible due to Bitcoin supporters having migrated there (either foreigners or from other locations in the country). So in this case you have, as a merchant, a significant incentive to accept Bitcoin even if this means to pay a fee to a payment processor.

I would say that Bitcoin Beach (El Salvador) still has one significant advantage over some of the other already mentioned locations, namely that it is relatively close to tourists from the US who are known to spend a lot, and are also very familiar with cryptocurrencies. On the other hand, someone from Europe who wants to travel to El Salvador or Boracay will need to spend a lot of money and time to get there at all.

I think that these locations would achieve much more if they did promotion in such a way as to give certain discounts on, for example, hotels to those who would pay in advance with BTC. People need to be attracted somehow, and I think that simply too little has been done for such projects to succeed.

And yes, there are the known problems with Bitcoin payments, apart from the already mentioned inconvenience of on-chain payments due to the fees. In bull markets the people tend to hold, they don't want to "lose" their "precious Bitcoins" spending them, forgetting that they could simply re-buy BTC regularly (via DCA for example, or estimating the amount they have spent and rebuying it). While in bear markets, people tend to panic and cash out to fiat. We've still not advanced that much since 2013 it seems

It seems like an eternal problem that BTC has, although people started to be much more careful about it only after the bull run of 2017. There are more and more people who are pushing Bitcoin towards the idea of ​​digital gold, and this is somehow dissuading people from using it as a currency - because why spend today if it will be worth twice as much tomorrow?

It's however possible that the stricter KYC-related regulations for "cashing out" could drive a new wave of demand for Bitcoin payments, and this could help these "circular" communities too.

That makes sense, because why wouldn't I simply spend BTC in some exotic country instead of converting it to fiat and at the same time be forced to pay perhaps too much tax. In addition, considering how obsessive CEXs have become with coin analysis, unpleasant situations can always happen. We all probably have coins that at some point were part of some suspicious transaction, so even though this does not mean that we are guilty of it, we should not doubt that it can always be used against us.

[bittraffic]

Good to see there are some adoptions in South Africa. This can be good if they can maintain this such practice even in the bear market.

There had been something like this in my country where they say we can pay anything in BTC in the city. A lot or so they say are accepting BTC but when the bear market came only a few stores left accepting BTC. When the bull market started again, they gradually come back to accept BTC. Seasons come and go I guess.