Topic: We need small communities and towns to create circular Bitcoin economies (Read 433 times)

I think promoting bitcoin no matter where you are is already a step forward

this community alone that we have is enough to kickstart the mass adoption of bitcoin now what we need to do is start incorporating bitcoin into our daily lives bit by bit i think this is what can influence more people or merchants to start using bitcoin within their economies as well

it will be a bit difficult though because small businesses may not have the capacity to make use of bitcoin just yet but it is small businesses that are crucial to the adoption of bitcoin

You can't blame some of these business owners because some only have small capital for their business to continuously operate. Hence, whatever they are receiving in crypto payments, they will also convert it to their fiat. Though it should not affect the corresponding amount in fiat even during bearish season, but these owners may have other plans for their money.

Also, I can agree that that barrier should only be the network fees. But I guess, business owners have other takes on this market.

If they are to adopt bitcoin usage, they should do it and don't make it seasonal. Most of them who are accepting payments on Bitcoin don’t even save it for a long time, so why should the bull and bearish markets affect their methods of payment?

The only thing that I see that is supposed to serve as a barrier is the network fee. If the network is congested and the fee is way too high, then they can consider pending the payment method as the fee won’t be conducive for both parties.

No one has touched bitcoin physically neither has anyone touched it through social media, what happened is that we can only view it from address we know such unit represent a particular amount of Bitcoin in equivalent to dollars but can't feel rather can been view through the wallet its. The say way we hear people talks about bitcoin on social media is same way we see people talks about bitcoin on TV. I could vividly remember that there's a channel in our local TV that regularly gives update about bitcoin price including the stock market, they shows up the prices of commodities/assets.

Price of goods and services are not measured in Satoshi but measure in usd and other legally recognized legal tenders in other countries. The problem with accepting Bitcoin as payment option is not the problem but it becomes a problem the moment you want to keep it as a store of value. Let's say for instance, you sold some items last week when Bitcoin was trading above $60k and you haven't restock and today it's trading around $57.5k and you want to restock your shop, you will be shortage in the real value of what you have sold and that's the main problem I mean by volatility.

However, if the shop owner isn't Bitcoin dependent, like he has another fund to buy more items in his shop, he is going to benefit in the future but his business will be moving X and Y direction like he is not making any profits. Cash flow isn't the kind of business someone has to do with Bitcoin but fixed asset are will go well like selling lands, vehicles and so on.

Here in the forum, I often saw posts mostly from Indian and Nigerian members where they share their BTC knowledge to the people nearby, so small communities are definitely possible, especially the online one but towns?

I think this mostly happens for now in a country where BTC have been made as a legal tender, since it is a bit tricky and needs some serious legalizations or permits from the local governments which we know that are less likely to be approved because many of them are still allergic with BTC or doesn't know anything about it. Also BTC can rarely be seen on the TV's but not in the social medias. Many people can still learn BTC through it.

Price "Volatility" only become a problem, if you convert bitcoin to Fiat currencies, but in a circulating economy like this, coins are not converted to Fiat.

Remember... X pay Y for a product and Y pay Z for a service and the bitcoins stay in circulation. Yes, some things can only be paid in Fiat currencies, but that is why they are running a dual payment option, with both Fiat currencies and Bitcoin being accepted as a payment option.

If you need "cash".. you still have the option to convert some of your bitcoins to Fiat currency.

I think it can be possible if this work is done at the government level. If the government of a country wants to make Bitcoin famous and make it popular among the people, they can do it easily because of what is done at the government level, people believe in it and don't think much about investing in it but if in such countries where Bitcoin is not legal, no matter how big a businessman or investor tells us to buy Bitcoin or about it, the people of that country will never understand because of this fear.

People who invested in Bitcoin a few years ago and got profit, want everyone to know how profitable Bitcoin is and how much profit can be made in the future. Think about the people of the country, they want people to invest their money where they can get a good return and this is one of their virtues.
They think about others too.

In other words, in order for a new empire to rise, the old one should first be destroyed - but the problem is that the old empire was created literally for thousands of years and has solid foundations all over the world. In addition, Bitcoin is completely dependent (at this point) on the foundations of that empire, which are banks, various regulatory agencies, governments, and private companies through which most of the trading is done (CEXs).

Unfortunately, the elimination of one empire would also bring down the so-called Bitcoin empire, so we should focus more on BTC as an alternative in smaller areas than some kind of global solution.

This is already happening within the space if you can sense it correctly there are people who don't know about bitcoin but due to information that are spreading all over including TV and other social media channels people are learning massively to say but as you said there are other local communities like the grass roots should be well sanitizer and given proper orientation about bitcoin and the overall knowledge concerning wallet and how to maintain one asset to hold long.

It is good if shop owners in the community accepts Bitcoin as a mode of payment but the problem is sensitization of this shop owners, what if they don't know much about or nothing about Bitcoin,? Do we expect them to accept what they know nothing about, despite that Bitcoin is created for everyone and mainly for interested individuals, bitcoiners has work to do in terms sensitizing people on the need to accept Bitcoin as means of payment.
You have said it all, Bitcoin being used as a mode of payment can not totally cause fiat face off, no matter what, some people that believe in fiat must make use of it, as for the government involvement in Bitcoin before trust can be gained in the system as you said, this might be true but people should not wait for such because they government arent ready for total acceptance of Bitcoin and I believe that their reason for that is selfishness and misunderstanding, we are at the level of individual and institution adoption, so we should maintain that for now unless the government of various country decide on their own to approve total adoption, acceptance and make it legal tender, Bitcoin is already built on trust, so waiting for the government involvement in the acceptance will take ages, lets continue doing the liitle we can now until the apointed time if the government will take a new stand to that effect.

A similar thing was started in the Philippines, particularly in its most famous beach if I'm not mistaken, during the height of the pandemic, possibly to prepare tourists and attract crypto bros into it later down the line. However, it flopped because while it was a good tourism move, it didn't take into account whether the people who lived in there since time immemorial would approve of the idea, stores become crypto friendly against their wills, bitcoin narrative is fed to the general public whilst little to no information campaign was put out leaving people literally in the dark about cryptocurrency and bitcoin besides the fact that it is money and is very valuable. It seriously diluted in a few month's time and while there are still stalls and stores who accept bitcoin, the entire concept of a Bitcoin Island in the Philippines is already a dead one and people don't even want anything to do with it lol.

Just letting you know that a bitcoin community is good, but it doesn't just happen in a snap of a finger, you need a massive cultural and intellectual upheaval if you want something like this to be realized my friend.

Adoption will come naturally if the technology answers a large need within the population. If not, you can do any move you want it will never be massively adopted. That's why Bitcoin technology needs to evolve and to be adapted to the current people needs. Instead of wanting customers and merchants to use something they don't really need in the end.

In this theory it is emphasizing on the adoption of Bitcoin and we know quite well that Bitcoin is massively adopted currently done to comparing the adoption of Bitcoin during the time Bitcoin is being launched in 2009 if you when it happened to be massively adopted it was when bitcoin begin to have fun in 2012 so what I'm saying in essence about I don't show up Bitcoin is taking place everyday by day because almost everyone in my country is interested for cryptocurrency investment because of the good news bitcoin has done to itself through investors who are beneficiaries of Bitcoin

The dream of building a Bitcoin empire is a beautiful dream that makes Bitcoin lovers everywhere ecstatic with happiness, but this dream is not easy, and building a Bitcoin empire is different from building a Rome empire.

In the example of building the empire of Rome, people came together little by little to achieve one goal because they were in agreement. As for Bitcoin, there is no agreement yet. People want Bitcoin, but the controlling governments refuse it. If agreement and acceptance by everyone does not occur, then I think it will be difficult to build the Bitcoin empire.

Rome might not be built in a day but you know that you have to behave like a Rome person when you are in Rome, you can't do otherwise else there might be some consequences. I'm talking about place where Bitcoin is prohibited, you can't push adoption to places where they don't want you, it can only be done in places where they want to see Bitcoin. There are some countries that Bitcoin is prohibited, such adoption will only invite problems to your doorsteps.

Another thing is that Bitcoin payment means that you will be paying tax for converting your Bitcoin into cash apart form the taxes you would have paid for running your business, it will be too complicated and uninteresting for a merchant to accept Bitcoin and hold because there wouldn't be flow of cash and when it's time for restocking, you wouldn't have cash to buy new products and it's not everyone that will accept Bitcoin if you offer them such option.

It's happening and we're seeing that from every part of the world. There's El Salvador, there's Nigeria however they're struggling due to the not favorable move given by their government. I agree that small communities are a threat to the government when they're formed if they're promoting decentralized systems and that probably was the major issue seen by them and they're now taking steps to stop all of these reformations from the citizens of Nigeria. I remember all of the buzzwords about "blockchain city" with this kind of concept but they never have been brought to fruition. But if they did, for sure they're now advanced and many crypto enthusiasts are going to visit that city someday.

It's a good idea to improve adoption rates in bitcoin however, I think that in this kind of model, someone has to take the hit for bitcoin's volatility. These merchants will not always acquire their goods in a flat rate, and surely will not operate at a loss if they're not millionaires to begin with. This will improve bitcoin's visibility on other people's radar but is not feasible on these merchants in the long run.

If the majority of the world remains dependent on fiat for a huge volume of their transactions, I don't think a circular bitcoin community will survive for long. That cycle will always have a weak link that will cause a domino effect, eventually affecting everyone else around them.

Though at the least, they are spreading the word by just existing. It helps establish confidence to those who are hesitant, and instill inspiration to those who also wants to take that giant step into cryptocurrencies.

Good to see there are some adoptions in South Africa. This can be good if they can maintain this such practice even in the bear market.

There had been something like this in my country where they say we can pay anything in BTC in the city. A lot or so they say are accepting BTC but when the bear market came only a few stores left accepting BTC. When the bull market started again, they gradually come back to accept BTC. Seasons come and go I guess.

I would say that Bitcoin Beach (El Salvador) still has one significant advantage over some of the other already mentioned locations, namely that it is relatively close to tourists from the US who are known to spend a lot, and are also very familiar with cryptocurrencies. On the other hand, someone from Europe who wants to travel to El Salvador or Boracay will need to spend a lot of money and time to get there at all.

I think that these locations would achieve much more if they did promotion in such a way as to give certain discounts on, for example, hotels to those who would pay in advance with BTC. People need to be attracted somehow, and I think that simply too little has been done for such projects to succeed.


It seems like an eternal problem that BTC has, although people started to be much more careful about it only after the bull run of 2017. There are more and more people who are pushing Bitcoin towards the idea of ​​digital gold, and this is somehow dissuading people from using it as a currency - because why spend today if it will be worth twice as much tomorrow?


That makes sense, because why wouldn't I simply spend BTC in some exotic country instead of converting it to fiat and at the same time be forced to pay perhaps too much tax. In addition, considering how obsessive CEXs have become with coin analysis, unpleasant situations can always happen. We all probably have coins that at some point were part of some suspicious transaction, so even though this does not mean that we are guilty of it, we should not doubt that it can always be used against us.

This isn't the first time someone wanted something like this, people always want stuff like this, but the reality is that we are not going to end up with anything like this. You can make a very small place that accepts bitcoin, but communities at bigger nations is harder. Don't get me wrong, go to El Salvador and you are going to end up with a great situation without a doubt, you are going to end up with something that will benefit you, and it is going to be a great deal for you, it's just the way it is.

However, we are talking about some stuff that would not be all that crazy to handle, and if we can manage to make it work, then we are going to end up with a much better result in the end, because this can't happen in big nations.

Maybe it will work in big cities, I think that we're just so embroiled on thinking about the different factors that we don't even try first more than anything else, I mean look at it this way, wouldn't the best thing for us if we do it anyway and if it doesn't work then we can learn something from it? The problem is that we always say that bitcoin implementation is always going to fail but we've never given it a chance, all these crazy theory that it won't be a success because of the factors when most of the factors that's listed isn't even that big of a deal or that generalized that there's doubts that it will affect the implementation if it really does happen.

Small communities followed by bigger communities. I like that, but it will not work in cities, rather they have to bring it to the cities, how - I am not so sure myself.

Once smaller communities gain traction city dwellers will start moving towards it. Already in most countries the terms cryptocurrency and bitcoin have picked up buzz in the last 10years as compared to the last 20years.

If the bitcoin<>bitcoin is not a problem, the fiat<>bitcoin should be easier to allow people to spend the fiat and use bitcoin. For that exchanges need to be robust and predatory taxation does not make the scene good.

Of course that's how it currently probably works in 90%+ of all cases - they very likely use Coingate/Bitpay and similar solutions or directly connect to an exchange.

However, if the economy really has the ambition to become "circular", eventually at least part of the coins should not be converted anymore. I can imagine scenarios where local merchants first retain 10%, then 20% and so on. As the percentage of customers paying in Bitcoin should be low, this should not be difficult to organize. If you only have 1% of Bitcoin revenue, you could directly renounce to use a payment processor and speculate that in the long run your holdings will go up. Of course, a problem may also be taxes on possible profits - not every merchant would like to want to deal with the necessary paperwork.

Nevertheless, a big percentage of merchants accepting Bitcoin via payment processors is of course an important and necessary intermediate step.

That seems indeed to be a problem. In some communities like Bitcoin Beach the high acceptance is only possible due to Bitcoin supporters having migrated there (either foreigners or from other locations in the country). So in this case you have, as a merchant, a significant incentive to accept Bitcoin even if this means to pay a fee to a payment processor.

And yes, there are the known problems with Bitcoin payments, apart from the already mentioned inconvenience of on-chain payments due to the fees. In bull markets the people tend to hold, they don't want to "lose" their "precious Bitcoins" spending them, forgetting that they could simply re-buy BTC regularly (via DCA for example, or estimating the amount they have spent and rebuying it). While in bear markets, people tend to panic and cash out to fiat. We've still not advanced that much since 2013 it seems

It's however possible that the stricter KYC-related regulations for "cashing out" could drive a new wave of demand for Bitcoin payments, and this could help these "circular" communities too.

I think that volatility is not the biggest problem for merchants when it comes to BTC transactions, because mostly they all use some kind of payment processors that automatically convert BTC to fiat. What seems to be the biggest problem is the actual number of people who want to pay with BTC at all.

After I read this topic, I was interested in what was happening in some other destinations that I mentioned in the previous post, and from a video that was posted 4 months ago, it can be concluded that BTC failed in Boracay. In the video, we can see that the person behind the Pouch project talks about how at one point there were over 200 merchants on the island who accepted BTC, and only a few clients a day, so some shops never had a single transaction in BTC.

Bitcoin Island's Reality Check: Is Bitcoin Failing in Boracay?

I watched the documentary and it was quite an interesting experience. It's just great to see how you can pay for almost everything with Bitcoin, thereby maintaining your privacy. Seeing that it is from a community in South Africa makes me believe that we can replicate these communities in other places. But there are many hurdles to face if we want it to start in my local community. One of the problems we might face is poor and unstable internet connections. Sometimes there are usually no internet connections in my area. The cost of transactions might be another big challenge but there are still other options. But some people might find it too complicated.

Maybe the price of the good should be in the local fiat currency but payments should be made with Bitcoin. So regardless of how the price of Bitcoin moves, the shop owners will not be affected.

I think there are many ways for adoption to happen. Independently, however, it must start somewhere small. But, of course, as Bitcoin has already been widely known and its adoption already growing, it could happen that no less than a government itself would declare Bitcoin as an acceptable money and that should be enough to jump-start a Bitcoin economy. I'm seeing this possibility. Bitcoin is no longer an unknown technology, after all.

But there's beauty in a free, organic, and smooth adoption of Bitcoin in a community. I visited the Philippine's Bitcoin island, however, and the challenge for a working Bitcoin circular economy is apparent.

Impressive, it feels like my virtual world is a real kingdom, can fulfil needs without intermediaries. Good job to the botcoin activists in that country!

I have felt in my country, although it is a little different, they accept all types of crypto for franchising and choose what coins they accommodate, I feel the convenience with P2P, both for my monthly needs, such as electricity bills, water, taxes etc. manually or even fiat and food in the marketplace with their services, at least I feel that this crypto is recognised even though it is only digital, even so I choose reputable sellers and usually in some large telegram airdrop channels, so far safe.

Because of the ups and downs of fees I also chose altcoins as a complementary tool, because for different sellers nampunga, worthy of the seller and service provider in the video, thank you for providing a good visual for bitcoin activists and crypto users at large that this progress in the real world is very good and more and more time arises awareness and more people accept bitcoin. Although people still choose physical assets in the traditional way (gold and precious metals) for trading, although there are still different perceptions, they will gradually choose bitcoin even the smallest satoshi unit to get used to and as a complement.

I'm happy that such "circular" communities exist. And I think yes, if you want to boost adoption by merchants, it would be important to be always sure that you can spend your Bitcoins for your daily needs. So the merchant doesn't have to worry that much about how to cash out or spend the Bitcoins paid to them by their customers.

Perhaps one could think "real life shops" aren't the best use case for Bitcoin. On-chain txes are too slow, but Lightning works better than on-chain transactions in this use scenario, although it has its own challenges, and still a quite low user base.

On the other hand brick and mortar shops are a good option to maintain a bit more privacy. When you buy something online (with the exception of some digital goods) you almost always need to provide name and address; your data could be stored - and then it also can be hacked, so basically you're doing KYC. On a brick and mortar shop, while they see your face, they don't need any data from you.

The question is: how can we thus achieve a more widespread adoption? I think the biggest problem is indeed volatility. And this is especially true for goods with high competition and low marginal profits. Of course there are payment processors but they're not an ideal solution as they are an intermediary you'd probably want to avoid.

So I would loved to have heard a bit more about how the merchants deal with the volatility issue. Maybe it's not really a big issue if the percentage of Bitcoin buys in your shop is low in relation to total revenue, but it's a topic which has to be dealt with eventually.

It is completely pointless to talk about any Bitcoin empires when we see from examples like this that things work best in small environments. We have already seen it in the examples of Bitcoin Beach (El Salvador), Arnhem Bitcoin City (Netherlands) or Boracay (Philippines) and probably in many other places that are still under the radar.

It seems to me that the problem of many people who want some kind of global BTC adaptation is that they think that BTC will change the world - but the real problem is that the world does not want change. Therefore, changes can only happen where there are people who want to encourage them, and as we can see, there are not too many such places in the world.

I just watch the video and I feel like moving down there, looks so peaceful and very clean environment, I wish other small towns can endorse this same adoption but this can only work in a country where Bitcoin isn't seen as a threat. There are countries who doesn't like to hear the word Bitcoin, so trying to make these merchants thing go viral so others can adopt the same payment will only land them in more trouble.

My only small concern is how this merchant are able to work with the Bitcoin volatility. If there is a way they maximize profits without been worried about Bitcoin volatility for people that bought large items that cost more will be helpful because most of the merchants that aren't interested in Bitcoin payment isn't even the transaction fee, lightening network has solved that but the days of volatility is what I'm only bothered about, if there is a way about that, more merchants will love to accept Bitcoin.

It's one reason why I do my best to always support the Bitcoin accepting people on this forum.

Small hobbyist? Frequent collectible maker? Project owner? Buying/selling? People keep yammering on about institutional this and that but really, the lifeblood of Bitcoin are the many unsung users who insist on transacting Bitcoin on-chain.


It burned down in several weeks, though Just so we're all mindful about how quickly things can be taken apart.

If shop owners in a community or a shopping complex begins to accept payments in Bitcoin, it will encourage buyers that are in the community to adopt Bitcoin and be making payments with it. Gradually the payment method will spread to nearby communities and more people will have Bitcoin awareness and adopt it until it will spread to an entire region and beyond. Although I don't think that spending and accepting Bitcoin can eliminate the use of fiat in any community, it will always be used as an alternative to fiat. I believe that the fastest way for Bitcoin to be adopted beyond community levels is if the public sectors in an economy begins to accept it as payments of utility bills, taxes and revenue collections. It will create more trust and fast adoption within citizens if their government is involved in the acceptance of Bitcoin.

No doubt about this of course that is the way it will easily spread, through such buying and selling, buying and selling through btc P2P but what happens if the government in the area is not supporting that? Like those bigger economies are not existing independent of a government in the region, the rules and regulations guiding those macro economies come from the government. So the government has been the bane on bitcoin adoption and what if they go against those institutions that are springing up through bitcoin. We already know how government has not allowed the willful use of bitcoin, so it will still be in the way of trying to regulate their activities in the area under the macro economies.

There's no reason to say Lightning network is a failed project and no one use it, as we can see on that video, they're paying in Lightning network.

I think that most people who pay in Bitcoin are foreigners, it's why many merchants in that town decide to accept Bitcoin. Local people can just pay using cash, but foreigners need to convert their money to fiat first or using credit card that charge high fees, instead they use Bitcoin as it's more convenience.

Same with every economic growth and development it has to first start from a small percentage of people/users before it get widely adopted into the larger society,  bitcoin is best for small cycles of community who have same understanding and belief for the system,  because that os the only way it can serve as a mode of exchange since it acceptability is currently low in the wider society.

Take EL Salvador for a example as a small country with lower population it was easy for them to adopt bitcoin as an alternative to the traditional currency and from that point, the adoption can move further into other countries like the USA and the rest of the world.

That’s a fascinating idea!  I'll definitely check out the video and consider how we can support the development of these circular Bitcoin economies.

I recently watched this video on Youtube ==> https://youtu.be/wp2SonEgquQ?si=TyyraoFQ5pL9PZ2x and I realized that mass adoption of Bitcoin will only happen, if small circular economies, within the bigger economies are formed.

If you watched the video, you will see that it first started with 1 merchant and then more merchants and shops in the same town and then it spread to the neighboring towns.

Rome were not built in one day, but it started with one or two houses and it grew from there... and the same thing can be applied to Bitcoin adoption.

Let's build a Bitcoin empire!