Subnostr

Agree with you, P2P is difficult outside of OTC. That needs to improve but it’s downstream of other avenues like small biz being exchanges.

Canada has Bull Bitcoin where you can unKYCed buy $1000 of BTC at the post office and post offices have famously had to pivot into all sorts of sidelines after email disrupted them.

In Aus we have “newsagents” as the catchall in every town that sells newspapers but also typically lotto, tobacco and accessories, cold drinks, sodastream refills, gifts, incense, they are the delivery point for various logistics companies, do passport photos etc.

In SE Asia I could see gold dealers who do currency exchange, metals, antiques, pawn, phone top-ups etc. taking on Bitcoin exchange.

What would this look like in Africa? Or Europe?

Feel like that’s needed before robust P2P exchange can emerge.

TheBitcoinManual 2y ago

In Africa, we have plenty of Hawala men, people willing to do currency trading, there are also a host of informal shops that are willing to sell ou just about anything like your news agents, you can buy Bitcoin from them too, through vouchers that can be exchanged with Azteco, they are none the wiser they're just selling you vouchers which most people use to fund betting websites or buy airtime or data

Your max purchase is around $150

Getting into Bitcoin isn't all that hard, getting out/purchasing with it is harder, theres no way to really turn that bitcoin into stuff you want sure you can use vouchers like bitrefil but again friction with having another payment method

Currently my view is P2P markets will grow with stablecoin adoption, its the only thing that settles as fast as Bitcoin and issuers of stablecoins are pushing merchants to adopt it, and people are informally adopting it all over Africa.

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Discussion

StackSats.IO 2y ago

As a Bitcoiner I denounce shitcoins and pronounce stablecoins 😂 They’re a step on the path, enabled by Bitcoin. Shitcoins are enabled by the existence of Bitcoin too but they’re a dead end of fraud.

We don’t have Azteco widely in Aus, we need that at a minimum. It’s not in SE Asia either far as I know.

Getting this spread will bring more people to Bitcoin than P2P exchanges which tend to be for advanced Bitcoin users whereas easy onboarding is more important in other regions today.