I've said it before but I will say it again: I really believe that merchants follow customers, not the other way around.
Added to this, the barrier for entry for merchants is very low. Either open a wallet and get free transactions or go with a BitPay who make everything simple and easy for you for 1% (far lower than VISA etc).
The barrier for entry is not merchants adopting it. Merchants chase money, and they will get familiar quickly with whatever he customer wants.
Once you have customers who can get hold of Bitcoin easily, trust it, and understand it then in my view everything else will follow.
I am working on this, and so are many people - but I think it is important for people to realise that this is perhaps the key event - this is one of, if not the killer app in Bitcoin. Many people say well, we cannot have everyone paying for coffee in Bitcoin. Don't worry about that. That will sort itself out.
What we need is for everyone to have some small amount of Bitcoin, even 10 USD each just to fiddle with - and then it will grow imo.
nah..
for instance.. shops did not wait until customers demand for applepay before they accepted it.. instead applepay went out and got businesses to accept it before actually launching applepay to customers.
bitpay/coinbase has atleast 100,000 merchants signed up. and bitpay needs to advertise these 100,000 businesses more, just like apple pay has to tell customers how great using the payment system is.
yes smaller businesses will then come onboard later as the customerbase using the payment system increases..
but there is no point trying to teach 1billion people about bitcoin if there are only 100,000 locations to use it.. we need to get more of the national and international retailers that people use everyday to be onboard first. then the customers will follow. followed by the smaller independant stores.
this 'chicken&egg' discussion has been going in circles for years, and the short answer is that its far easier to talk to 1 million businesses then it is to talk to 1 billion customers.
not only based on less number of ears to whisper to.. but also because 1 billion customers will ignore it if they cant find a single shop in their town that it can be used on.
so get the shops onboard first and the customers will follow