The Importance of Keeping Bitcoin Adoption Local – Bitcoin Magazine
This is an opinion piece by Doug, founder of Bitramp and an advocate for local bitcoin on-ramps.
The path most traveled to exchange fiat for access to Bitcoin involves using the service of exchanges, as they are the most marketed, perceived practical and fiat-aligned path to do so. This will not always be the case as alternatives are emerging around us, with one in particular eliminating the friction of the old system and providing access to Bitcoin for all. All together. What is the solution? First, let’s talk about who walks this path. There are two main groups that will help deploy this solution to communities – Bitcoin Meetups and Small Businesses. This transformation is well under way.
Bitcoin meetups are quickly becoming the epicenter of Bitcoin education and progress in any city. Weekly and monthly gatherings take place in many small towns and cities across the country, with more being established every week. Meetups are a place where Bitcoin novices and experts alike join to communicate, educate and collaborate on ways to promote adoption in their local economies. In many of the established meetings, you will find leaders who spend time and energy daily building on Bitcoin. These are passionate individuals who care about Bitcoin and their community. A common question that organizers and regular meetups are asked by newcomers is, “Where should I buy bitcoin?” The promoter can send them a referral code for any of a few bitcoin-centric exchanges after explaining some of the trade-offs or personal preferences, and the newbie goes to set up another account. This need not be the case.
Small businesses are the backbone of any community and have the most to gain from adopting a Bitcoin standard due to increased government intervention. Simply put, when you are forced to do business with fiat in a hyperinflationary environment, it becomes very difficult to stay in business. The best thing any business can do is to start accepting bitcoin as payment and start keeping it in their reserves. As such, the current push to get small businesses everywhere set up to accept bitcoin as payment for goods and services is important. However, it is widely overlooked that bitcoin adoption is not at a point where many consumers even have bitcoin, let alone ready to use it. To accept bitcoin as payment, customers must have easy access to bitcoin. As it stands, the overwhelming majority of people who walk into a store and see a discount for paying in bitcoin that they want to take advantage of are forced to add something to their low-priority to-do list as soon as they leave out the door. This point of friction for access to bitcoin reinforces the consumer perception that bitcoin is too complicated and not ready for retail.
If the Bitcoin meetup attendee or local small business customer decides to embark on the journey of buying bitcoin on an exchange, they sacrifice a lot of time, privacy and mental energy to achieve their goal. By the end of it, one has given up one’s identity in order to gain access to a database that does not require it. All told, from account verification to moving money to an exchange, making a purchase, and moving bitcoin off the exchange (assuming they are properly motivated to do so), this process can take up to a week or more. To make matters worse, this journey is fully documented by the stock exchange, your bank and the authorities.
There are a handful of ways to access bitcoin outside of exchanges, but in my opinion there is only one way that is simple and easily accessible to everyone – Azteco’s Bitcoin Voucher System. Azteco has built a system that is as simple as three steps: Find a supplier, buy a voucher (ideally with cash) and scan the QR code. If you don’t have one of the compatible wallets, you’ll need to download one to your mobile phone, but ultimately this is an interaction that can take a couple of minutes at most. I see it as a fast, easy and private process and it gives the consumer full control of their Bitcoin instantly. For me, Azteco’s bitcoin coupons are bitcoin made easy.
This is something that is readily available all over the world – but not so much in the US. This is why BitRamp was created – to distribute access to Bitcoin coupons to two groups that are slowly playing an increasingly large role in Bitcoin adoption; meetings and small businesses. I believe that BitRamp, an Azteco partner, makes it very easy for both groups to start offering an on-ramp via bitcoin coupons by significantly reducing the upfront capital required to do so. Now someone can attend a meeting for the first time and within minutes experience supreme Bitcoin custody. A small business owner can now give customers access to their preferred payment in a way that is fast, private and very easy.
Now meetings and small businesses have the ability to offer bitcoin vouchers directly to their regular customers/attendees and newcomers, to be bitcoin onramps for their community. No longer do meeting organizers need to send newcomers for a home project to buy bitcoin on an exchange. Now the meeting organizer can reduce friction and educate all participants about the value of a superb stack and empower them to take custody immediately, without delay. Great for onboarding and great for DCA, everyone wins with bitcoin vouchers. And this is happening all over the country – meetups bring this tool to participants and the response has been strong. Additionally, a small percentage of each sale goes to the meet to support their ongoing efforts in their community. Participants can support their local meeting by using the best available way to buy bitcoin. Buy bitcoin locally and support adoption in your community.
No longer do small businesses that understand the value of accepting bitcoin as payment have to turn customers away before they can experience bitcoin and partake in the incentive. If the business wants to pass the credit card transaction savings to their customers and remove the risk of chargebacks, they have the opportunity to make bitcoin readily available to their customers to support that decision and experience the Lightning Network. They will undoubtedly see an increase in bitcoin sales if bitcoin is readily available for customers to access. Even if a small business doesn’t want to accept Bitcoin as payment yet, they can see bitcoin coupons as a new item to sell in their store, a way to bring in a new customer base, and a way to capitalize on bitcoin’s popularity without having any exposure for bitcoin itself.
While many people sit on the sidelines waiting for a number of things to happen on a national or global scale, it is in the local community where these individual grassroots movements shine a light on bitcoin for their neighbors. Meetups and small businesses promote adoption through education and engagement, showing their neighbors that they are no longer forced to forfeit their future financial prospects to a seek-and-destroy establishment. These community leaders can now add fuel to the fire of bitcoin coupons and make Bitcoin easily accessible to everyone in their community, while educating and onboarding the next billion users.
This is a guest post by Doug. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
