LMFAO most blacks have zero clue what this is and I'm not spending 20 mins explaining Bitcoin to the cashier's.
It's only one store in Cape town, running one node with a Dev at some studio.
I've thought about offering lighting as a service here in South Africa, but then I haven't got the balls (or enough ammunition) to take on our banking sector here.
This is Africa after all.
"You finna pay for dat with money"
No none of that American shit, they'll just stare at you until you decide to pay like a normal fucking person and stop wasting their time lol 😂
"Bitcoin what? Nxm we don't do THAT here"
I asked to use Scan to pay. The card pos generated a QR code. They don't even know you are paying via lightning. Scan to pay is a feature for multiple different payment options.
You use a qr scanner app that links to your lightning wallet.
A third party gets your sats and settles with pick &pay in rands I assume.
It's better that no one know how you are paying.
Don't want to attract the wrong kind of attention.
what qr app are you using?
as far as I know it's only one store in Cape Town that has a lighting wallet connected to the local node
CryptoQR on the play store. You can link muun, wallet of satoshi or blue wallet. Have not tried others.
You can put fuel in at almost any fuel station that has the scan to pay feature.
You can buy clothes at Mr Price.
A lot of other stores as well.
Ask for "Scan to pay" specifically. Don't even mention lightning or bitcoin, most tellers would not know what you are talking about.
The company that takes your sats is called cryptoconvert.co.za
I bought some wine gums at pick & pay just to see.
Paid for the rest of the groceries cash.
Gresham's law has some work to do before I spend those SATs.
The White Lesbian's Burden is a heavy one to bear.
It’s Okay , Anita can do it 😜💪
you see, a grand worth of groceries in bitcoin would be worth more 5 minutes after the purchase, so the opportunity cost alone excludes the use of bitcoin as a actual means of payment.
rather hodl those sats, and use the Mandela's to outlay the cost. Or use monero; but that's another story.
I feel you, guess in some environments it’s just better to get rid of the burning depreciating fiat in your hand, and hodl the orangey treasure 🧡
well in most cases, the opportunity cost of spending sats gets higher against almost all asset classes.
Just like how we laugh at the guy who spent 10k bitcoins on two pizza's, the opp cost of that in another 10 years is kids laughing at us for zapping more than 100 sats a pop
If you’re just hodling, you’re investing in an asset and waiting for the price to go up. You’re passive.
If you’re earning and spending and saving the rest in BTC you’re using BTC to its full potential. You’re learning to deal with the ups and downs of the price and contribute to the awareness and adoption around Bitcoin.
If you only own bitcoin then you have no choice, otherwise, there is Gresham's law.
Best way to spend bitcoin, is not have any fiat I guess :)
You’ve done an amazing labor of teaching people to accept it and use it, which amplifies the capacity to spend it and earn it :)
Comes at a cost 😉
You make valid points;
Those SATs you spent for fiat items are worth more today than the day you spent them. Even if they are not, the opportunity cost to hold SATs over time is very high. In one year, Bitcoin is up 127%, for instance.
However if you spent 500 Rands on those goods, your delta hasn't moved much, even over a year. Sure your purchasing power decreases as inflation bakes in, but it's marginal in comparison to the gains, over any timeframe.
So, it's better to hold Bitcoin as a store of value than as a spending product.
That's why institutional investors and people like Soiler are buying and holding. That's why whales exist and hold for a decade or more.
That's why we laugh at someone who spent 10k on two pizzas because at the time, he was "contributing to awareness". Maybe these things need to happen for adoption to take place, idk
I mean, thanks for your service,
Yes, teaching and spending and testing.
This is part of adoption.
Be the glitch you want to see in the matrix.
There is a place for hardcore hodlers and there is a place for freedom enthusiasts who foster adoption.
We are all Satoshi.
But the opportunity cost of not changing your fiat to sats, so that you can buy things with fiat instead of with bitcoin is even bigger since you are not actively pushing the network forward.
In other words: from a "wealth increase" perspective it doesn't matter if you spend fiat or sats. For the fiat you've chosen to spend, you could have bought sats, but you didn't. So why not change fiat to sats, and spend sats so that the adoption curve of btc moves forward even faster.
Everyone on their journey to minimizing the fiat in their wallets to bring forth the network.
Is it doable paying things and necessities in #bitcoin where you all are?
bitcoin increased 1Yr something like +122.31% - so yes, putting your fiat into sats makes more economical sense than spending it. Buy and Hold is the new motto. What's it, stack sats? hodl?
no one is willing to spend, especially when you can potentially double your money in a year. However, you need to eat. Spending fiat in present value terms on groceries is nothing vs losing out on sat value.
$10 on food vs $10 on satoshis is way different.
I get that's what the Bitcoin White Paper set out to achieve, a p2p electronic cash without the need for trusted third parties, but here we are today.
And as long as people still earn fiat that they can’t turn into satoshis , they will spend the fiat and keep the sats.
That’s one of the cunnundrums of #bitcoin being better money.
Unless you’re on a full bitcoin standard or you have extreme necessity, people will always get rid of the money that loses purchasing power.
And by being on a full bitcoin standard, I also mean being able to place all your fiat in btc at the expense of shortterm volatility, and also having merchants for all your necessities that accept bitcoin.
Spend and replace is a great philosophy if you can, but not everyone can.
up until that point, of full standardisation, it makes more economic sense to buy and hodl the sats than buy and spend the sats.
you get rid of the fiat in exchange for groceries, but until there is a full standardization and bitcoin pricing normalises, the opportunity cost to save rather than to spend is a lot higher.
That's why I said earlier, we look back and laugh at the guy who spent 10k bitcoin on two pizzas, even have a day for it too - but that was a 10 year time frame.
He could have held it and be fiat rich, increasing his purchasing power in 2021 peak for instance,
it's just the way bitcoin has developed over the years, away from the Bitcoin Whitepaper initial idea of SPV and on-chain p2p exchange and more towards Nick Szabo's bitgold.
Nothing wrong with that either.
that I understand, my point is rather: even if you spend fiat, you are actually spending unconverted sats. In that sense it doesn't matter if you spend sats on stuff because you would have bought it regardless.
but those sats she spent last week are worth more this week?
the $10 she spent would still be $10 this week, unless there was some crazy inflationary/deflationary spike within a week (can happen, see covid lockdowns)
nostr:nprofile1qyv8wumn8ghj7mn0wd68ytnxd46zuamf0ghxy6t69uq3jamnwvaz7tmwdaehgu3wwdhhvun8dchxxmew0fsj7qpqehkvx8rdjsrwnf7kkqr8gy42vcwe6vwgqdwrl4juqccp689v8wfqex6z4h true, but now you are talking about timing the market when to buy sats. That isn't what I wanted to get across. My point is that even if you spend fiat, you are actually spending potential sats, which you now don't have, regardless if you spend fiat or sats. So that $10 got you 10.000 sats last week, but might now get you 9.800 sats, regardless if they were sats in the first place.
ya because the value of bitcoin has gone up - what don't you guys seem to understand?
you're getting less sats for your fiat because the price per sat has gone up. Therefore, it is economically more sound to hold satoshis rather than spending them.
More and more I come across accounts that don't know whether they should spend sats or stack sats. Mixed messaging etc.
So which is it, spend sats or stack sats?
Let me simplify the point with an example:
Imagine you have $100 in fiat and 100,000 sats (both worth $100 at the moment).
- Scenario 1: You spend $100 fiat on groceries.
Result: You still have 100,000 sats, but you've lost the opportunity to buy more sats with that $100.
- Scenario 2: You spend 100,000 sats on groceries.
Result: You still have $100 fiat, which you can immediately use to buy back 100,000 sats.
The key is: In both scenarios, you end up with the same amount of Bitcoin. The difference is that in Scenario 2, you've contributed to Bitcoin adoption by using it as a medium of exchange.
The "spend vs. hold" debate isn't about choosing one or the other exclusively. It's about understanding that spending Bitcoin (and immediately replacing it) can help drive adoption without affecting your long-term holdings. By spending (and replacing), you support the Bitcoin ecosystem while maintaining your position. This approach combines the benefits of "stacking sats" for the long term with actively using Bitcoin as intended - as a peer-to-peer electronic cash system.
I hope the example helps to get my point across.
I wish it worked that way, but it does not.
You're not getting 100k sats for $100 back because the net growth of BTC against the dollar is greater. Hence, you spend the shit coin on the present value items and save in bitcoin because it preserves wealth.
Why do you think cash notes were created in the first place? Sending gold as payment is silly AF because of value attribution over time.
I don't think you understand this because you're saying the same things again, but it makes no economic sense.
I don't think you actually try to understand what I am saying 😅 . I completely understand what you are saying, because sats increase in Fiat-value over time, thats why it's better to save in sats. However, if you spend sats and immediately replace the fiat you kept (by not spending it) back into sats, you have the same amount of sats, but helped the network. The exchange rate vs USD fluctuates, sure, but it's not that much on a minute to minute-basis.
If you don't get it, fine. Everyone is on their own btc-journey.
I understand what you are saying and I am saying it does not make economical sense to do that.
