A lesson learned by one expat Bitcoiner living in Portugal, who decided that a merchant in his local market needed the Lightning Network.
This is an opinion editorial by Holly Young, a Portuguese citizen who operates the Bitcoin Tribe Algarve meetup.
The Bitcoin community is growing in the south of Portugal. Several active initiatives seek to strengthen and improve, including meetings, study groups, workshops and, recently, a Telegram group that connects merchants who want to sell organic goods for bitcoins with groups of clients who want to buy.
If you read Captain Sidd’s recent article “Homesteader Talk: Feeding a Family and Building a Bitcoin Community in the South of Portugal,” you will already be familiar with the Monchique market, where the interviewed homesteader sells his wares. On my visit there some time ago, I found out that bitcoin would be the perfect currency for the peer-to-peer trade that happens there. I then decided to do the best level for the orange pill traders and use the experience as a test to launch Bitcoin education more widely in the area.
The market surged during the COVID-19 loc down when the rules in Portugal that obeyed the law were particularly strict: masks in public places, no gatherings of people, etc.
The region’s freedom-loving expatriate community is outraged — and disobedient. For the people who host the market, the traders and the visitors, those who attend feel that they have a fundamental right: the right to trade. Some colorful exchanges between the market committee and the local police ensued, but the market won. Of course, cash is king in such a situation, so there should be a lot of change in your pocket, both traders and buyers.
The commodities available in the market are mostly edible, including mountain honey, mushrooms, tinctures, meat and eggs, but shoppers can also read clothes, handmade jewelry, biochar stoves, candles and copper household items. I would guess that most transactions at the market are under 20 euros – five here for a pot of delicious honey, four there to get a kid’s face painted or buy a colored bracelet.
The Lightning Network payment layer is ideal for transactions of this size. I am very excited to put a message in the Telegram group for merchants, inviting them to a free educational workshop on how to create and receive Lightning payments for goods and services sold in the marketplace and local, small businesses. The target group is traders who can accumulate bitcoins on their balance sheets as private individuals will use savings accounts.
“Spammer,” a brief accusation pointed out by one of the group’s members. In my idealism, I was more than hopeful that my offer would be accepted – I was a bit unprepared for the sometimes-vitriolic response it elicited. In a group of more than 1,000 members, only a few responded. Of them, about half are suspicious, negative, accusing me of promoting Ponzi schemes or profiteering. Happily, the other half wrote to say they wanted to join and showed genuine interest. Some local Bitcoiners messaged me personally to say that they appreciate the initiative.
We are, as the famous saying, so early.
Eventually, a few people, initially about 12, entered: a mix of local merchants and small business owners and a lovely couple who came from Eastern Europe and saw Portugal as a possible location to move to.
We held a workshop in Monchique, a mountain town in the Algarve region and location of the now famous market. The local cafe in the central square, Velochique (which not only serves good coffee and lunch but also rents bikes for the more adventurous visitors – they don’t accept bitcoins yet, but we hope for the future) is generous.
The best laid plans, as they say. In the end, no market traders came – instead, our audience was all small businesses from the region and some international visitors. But since then, some traders from the market have asked to sit down privately so that we can go through the same material. I am very happy for the bond and will be doing a follow up on this in the coming days and weeks.
I have thought long and hard about how to introduce Bitcoin. In the end, I decided to briefly talk about bitcoin as a value proposition, as opposed to a burning fiat currency. This is a point that resonates particularly well with Eastern European guests, who report that they have seen inflation of 25% for food over the past 12 months.
We continue to discuss the issues faced by merchants and small businesses. First, getting rid of credit card fees is always popular. Paying Mastercard as part of the price of good fruits and vegetables bought in the market seems illogical to buyers and sellers. Secondly, and not trivial for the cash economy, comes the need for true change, enough sources of stress in the market itself.
For me personally, the possibility of hooking up vendors with the Bitcoin community and the Bitcoin community with those who produce things of original value is a key driver in organizing events of this kind. The interface will be an important aspect in the future for the success of the Bitcoin community. This translates neatly for vendors, who are looking to access new client groups. This was the last content point covered in the workshop before the demonstration of using Lightning.
I am helped by my family members and I am happy to have their support. A technical expert, he has told us in advance how useful he found coinos.io and we have explored its potential together. He gave a brief explanation of what the wallet is and how easy it is to use Coinos. Participants were particularly impressed that in Coinos, you can add a profile picture – a feature not yet available in other Lightning wallets like Blue Wallet, and which is great for marketing to small businesses.
Once everyone has created a Coinos account (everyone is surprised by how easy it is and how little personal information is required – no address or date of birth, no proof of residence) and in just a few minutes we can do transactions. I passed one euro from my wallet to my neighbor on the left, who had made me an invoice. We passed euros around the table so that everyone present had the experience of creating and paying Lightning invoices. One participant wanted to know how to transact with customers in other countries, so we also practiced sending invoices via Telegram. In the future, we will teach the participants to sweep the sats from the Coinos hold to the cold storage device.
Everyone who was there was very impressed with how fast and easy it was to transact – it seems that the expectations before the event had been that the explanation of both Bitcoin and Lightning would be technical and difficult to understand. Two small business owners committed to accepting bitcoins and then there.
I decided before the event to limit the number of participants to 10, because experience has taught me that more than that makes the experience less interactive. Some people decide at the last minute that they can’t attend, so some follow-up event is an absolute must. In the near future, I will be helping out with a variety of market vendors who make beautiful scented candles, natural cosmetic products that are good enough to rival top cosmetic brands (and a quarter of the price!), knitted blankets, clothing and accessories, leather goods and fruit organic all to accept payments on the Lightning Network.
After the workshop, there has been some interest from the village near the local farmer’s market, so we are now happy to browse the location for our next one. Other events are planned for February and March.
Since the workshop, I have had the pleasure of joining an international group of Bitcoiners all dedicated to promoting Bitcoin adoption through education about the Lightning payment network. I don’t really believe in predictions for the future, because life has a way of coming from left field, but with caution I dare to bet that 2023 will be the year of widespread adoption of Lamps as more and more people worship them. time and energy to help on the natural path to success.
This is a guest post by Holly Young. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.