We're working to make this much easier than Venmo or cash app to set up.

Onboard with email+password

Receive via lightning

Directly to self-custody

https://mibanco.app

i do not accept venmo or zelle due to the ToS which removes some fraud protections (participants in the network assume all scam risks), and the added risk of accounts being flagged and frozen based on what comments denote.

paypal is better than venmo and zelle, but not by much.

good take

100%. I had a conversation once with my barber (who's Jamaican) who accepts cashapp and he was saying that he saw cashapp used alot more than venmo in the black community. Idk if this is true but demographics of users is always something I think of as interesting.

It's odd that I was able to use PayPal for 20 years and then boom Venmo became the standard for people to send money around. I believe this is regional or changes with your different groups of friends. I don't know anyone who hat uses CashApp in my friends and family. Some have used PayPal many years ago, but it seems like everyone has Venmo since it was treated as the fun and social way to send money. Even my parents in their 60s use Venmo. I don't know anyone that uses Zelle either. I think I'd pass out if someone locally offered to pay me in bitcoin. I've thought about trying to get some friends to try Strike and then having them send me that way. Then, I can just send the cash to my Lightning node, but it also seems like a hassle or a dick move to ask someone to pay me but also require them to use a specific application or method. It has just been easier to accept all methods.

I'm a big fan of the "I'll get your lunch next time" option. If I can't afford to spot my friends or coworkers lunch every so often, I just won't eat out.

In Eu none of those exist, in my country there is an instant transfer app that many ppl use, they charge a few cents for each tx. Bitcoin was not built to replace this systems, people will only start using Bitcoin if they already hodl so they are bitcoiners already, or some of these apps start integrating LN, Strike now is available in EU but not many people know about it.

Doesn't PayPal do Bitcoin these days?

This is the cashu future, imo. The Venmo-like experience.

You have to link your account to venmo = you would onboard some cash to this app.

You send money around with no fees on venmo = cashu is the only way to do this, and it excels at it.

You cash out by sending back to the bank in venmo = same trust model with cashu. You don't really *have* the money until this step.

The "bitcoin standard" venmo.

With you on this! 🙌 “just Zap it to me” has much better ring to it. Lyn wrote about this in her recent Nostr article, too. Reducing payee frictions comes at a onetime upfront cost known as “wtf is Nostr?”

When I am on the paying side - I typically say I can pay you back in bitcoin, and if you don’t want to set up a wallet/learn, at least get CashApp! It’s not the final place to get people to, but if they want to get paid by me, I usually get them to accept Bitcoin and it’s usually via CashApp. It’s interesting b/c I don’t even try to tech or explain Bitcoin much anymore (terrible at orange pilling), but once they get some, they tend to hold it for fun (or b/c they don’t know how to do anything but leave it there 😂), and often start asking questions not long after!

I'm dying on the same hill as you. When I realized I could literally see what my friends were doing on the weekends based on the social feed, I was creeped out . I deleted that app immediately. One benefit of not having many friends is that I am relentless on shilling bitcoin apps. Got my tight circle all on Strike and Cashapp. Even if Venmo got Bitcoin, fuck them for normalizing letting everyone see your financial transactions by default. Sadly they captured a whole generation of people already.

All too familiar with this situation. No one outside of my bitcoin circle has accepted my offer to be paid in bitcoin 😢

Similar problem here in Canada except that we don't have Zelle or Venmo and people don't use PayPal. Everyone uses e-transfers. Such a garbage UX. Or cash.

curious if you’d have luck asking them to send bitcoin from venmo

I also wonder how Venmo, which does nothing PayPal didn't do ( and which is owned by PayPal) just exploded into being the main one.

kind of reminds me how Skype existed for years and then zoom shit all over it

in Europe revolut is an easy way of sending a friend money but they also have a ton of other features , I only treat it as a hot wallet tho

im exactly the same, minus paypal because they banned me. but bitcoin or cashapp is good. or strike (But no normie knows what strike is).

No need. Bitcoin is the only thing you mentioned that is global. All that other crap is US only. This is why bitcoin will win.

This is me 100%! I tell everyone to pay me on nostr:npub1cashappn03s3cl2ljsdntv0v28e2um5lgx4vjctqjt23pcwzjhsqmtdg5l!