The significance of grassroots initiatives that are trying to create circular economies that use Bitcoin as a monetary good is underappreciated. It sets Bitcoin apart from every other crypto project there is.
One of George Selgin's repeated criticisms of Bitcoin is that it isn't widely accepted as money. Which is quite valid.
Being widely accepted everywhere in exchange for goods and services is a defining characteristic of any monetary good.
If it doesn't have this characteristic, it won't matter if it's an inherently better Store of Value, Medium of Exchange or Unit of Account than existing monetary goods in the market. It will only serve the purpose of being bought and sold at a higher or lower value. Buying it would merely be a speculative gamble in the open market.
These grassroots initiatives are solving this exact problem. They are predominantly voluntary, community-driven and bottom up initiatives that are trying to get local merchants to accept Bitcoin in exchange for their goods and services through education.
While asked what makes Bitcoin stand apart from thousands of other projects, I used to have so many arguments lined up in my head.
They'd include some or the other version of a long-winded lecture about decentralisation, fair launch, capped supply, governance, ledger size, security, immutability and the fully open source and transparent nature of development.
Which are all very strong arguments to argue Bitcoin's difference.
But over the last few months, I started looking for places where people use Bitcoin to buy real goods and services. Where people use Bitcoin as money. I found a lot of videos with people doing exactly this. The diversity of places that these videos were coming from blew me away. Over 15 different countries and more that I don't know about.
Only Bitcoin has this.
Other projects do have tons of conferences over the course of a year to onboard developers but you don't see bottom up, voluntary and community-driven initiatives solely focused on creating circular economies like the ones Bitcoin has for other crypto projects.