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With Bitcoin very close to the symbolic bar of $100,000, it's just as good a moment as any to reflect on how little crypto has been integrated into everyday life. Sixteen years after Bitcoin started operating, crypto remains in large part mostly a speculative financial class.
Yet things have not stood still on other fronts. Around Bitcoin, whose shortcomings as a means of payment have become glaringly apparent relatively quickly, enthusiasts have developed the "Lightning Network" (LN) to facilitate swift transfers with low or very low fees. The LN has long had a patchy record and was widely considered hard to use. Today, one can say that it has matured and reached mainstream. Remains the frailty of the "channels" which often limit the sums which are available for transfers.
Outside Bitcoin, a wealth of other cryptocurrencies appeared, many of which aiming to fulfill Satoshi's vision of a "peer-to-peer electronic cash system". In this respect, few have kept the vision alive as well as our humble HBD: a decentralized, zero-fee, algorithmic stablecoin that can be transferred in just 3s between Hive accounts.
As I reported earlier, I had the chance of on-boarding the very first real-world business in Luxembourg to crypto-payments. A bar-restaurant in the center of the capital, "Indie's", has begun accepting HBD and LN "sats" using the v4v.app interface in a setup compatible with Distriator.
The fact that a business accepts crypto as payment is a remarkable milestone, but it's far from enough. First of all, who is ready to pay with crypto and why would they? Crypto is seldom earned, and it is bought mostly for speculative purposes, not for use as a means of exchange. As long as crypto is not earned, customers would need to buy crypto with euro in order to spend them, so the question "why not simply pay directly with euro?" appears obvious.
With OffChain Luxembourg we are developing a lighter crypto, OCLT, based on Hive Engine, that aims to be easy to earn and easy to spend. But until OCLT gains traction, we have to give people other reasons for paying their dinner with crypto. This is what I tried to list in a previous post.
Admitting that some of the patrons let themselves be convinced by the 5 arguments I present there, the next question is: "How are they going to go about it?"
In this article I illustrate a step-by-step guide on how to practically test crypto payment at Indie's in Luxembourg.
I assume that those who'll be curious to try might as well be complete newbies who have very little experience with crypto otherwise. However, note that I do assume they know some concepts and a bit of vocabulary (such as "stablecoin").
Our setup at Indie's allows one to contrast the facility of paying with LN to the complexity of setting up a Hive account before being able to pay with HBD. Yet what is not immediately apparent is that LN is not exempt of trade-offs. Acquiring sats on the LN does not come cheap. With Bitcoin making new ATH everyday, using it to pay for beer feels like a waste ("10000 Bitcoin pizzas" all over again?). And business need stablecoins for their day-to-day operations, thus moving from sats to a stable is bound to incur a second slice of fees. Finally, because of the fickleness of LNs "channels", it's hard to pay sums above 25 - 30€
With Hive, creating an account is an ordeal. But once one has gotten through it, it can benefit from transfers of a stablecoin which are not only fast (LN is very fast too) but also free, and do not suffer from the limitations of amounts of the LN.
Our contribution can be seen here, we are acting locally as a facilitator, converting peer-to-peer, on the spot, euros to LN Sats or to HBD for people to be able to try out this new service.
We'll start with this tomorrow and hope that some of those who'll join us will be convinced to repeat the experience (once they have gotten through the "Hive account creation" ordeal).
