lasereyemillennial on Nostr: I live in California where there is an enthusiastic bitcoin community, but the only ...

I live in California where there is an enthusiastic bitcoin community, but the only real use case right now is store of value, as there are almost no vendors accepting BTC in the area. I get sad every time I check @BTCMap.org and see how few places there are within 500 miles of me where I can spend my #bitcoin.

I think a major deterrent right now, is that for businesses who are incorporated in the state, there are a ton of questions about how it would work to accept btc, what the tax implications are, etc, and for most people running small businesses like a coffee shop, or restaurant, there are just psychological hurdles that require exactly the right conditions for someone to accept #btc, AND market the fact that they are accepting it in such a way that I can find it.

I think that #Nostr is the answer, and I want to start a discussion about how existing pieces of technology could implement a few small improvements to shift the paradigm in three meaningful ways:

1. Create more geographic search tools to connect with other #plebs IRL. Apps like Shopstr @calvadev and Plebeian Market @chiefmonkey have started working towards “eBay” replacements, but a simple geographic query tool could begin to replace marketplaces like Craigslist or OLX, which have large peer-to-peer sales volumes for small amounts. The small amounts and peer to peer nature of the transactions would be perfect for Nostr and would suddenly allow smaller players to populate services like @BTCMap.org with more data, thus increasing the value, driving more traffic, and increasing the usage of all vendors.

Imagine “Satoshi’s Garden” where people could sell fruit and veggies from their gardens IRL.

2. More integration between existing Nostr Apps. This is similar to the final part of point 1, but services like BTCMap, Flockstr, the marketplace apps, etc. need more integration both in terms of technical development and in terms of business development/marketing.

Imagine “Coffee Chain” - a peer-to-peer alternative to coffee shops, where I can offer to make you a cup of coffee in the morning. A bigger example would be something like Airbnb on Nostr, but again, the #cofffeechain idea plays to the strengths of nostr by focusing on micropayments that bring start at the grass roots level, and increase the offerings, driving more traffic.

Personally, I travel all over the world for work, and I would use this when I traveled to connect with plebs ahead of time and figure out where I could get a cup of coffee in the morning before work. I would also be pumped to make a cup of coffee for someone in #SantaBarbara.

All of this could be integrated into existing market places mentioned in point 1, BTC Map, and meetup services like Flockstr.

3. Integrate @BTCMap.org Data into existing navigation apps to create a more seamless way of navigating the world and utilizing Nostr micropayments #IRL. I don’t think it makes more sense for BTCMap to integrate better mapping services, because they need to be able to serve more detailed data for a wide range of use cases, so it seems like they should be the guardians of super high quality, open source data, while other more navigation specific apps like BitLocal need to be created to serve the need of the end users.

Nostr and bitcoin are built for a digital world, but the disconnect for a lot of us plebs is that the small payments that we make each day that Nostr is optimized for, are things that require geographic proximity.

BTCMap is always my go-to service when I’m visiting a new city, but to be honest, it is too diverse of a Swiss Army knife right now to be the ideal tool for what I want to use it for. I want a slick interface. I want to know when the last time a spot was verified - ideally by knowing when the last time a zap was made to a vendor. I want a map where I can search by corporate vendors vs. peer to peer services. I want a map where I can explore bitcoin vendors and generic vendors alike in the same map. I want a map where I can just navigate from my house to a park. Right now I just use Apple Maps or google maps for 99% of this, It just doesn’t include the bitcoin data that I would like to prioritize. If there was a product built on OSM that incorporated the BTCMap data, I would make the switch tomorrow.

4. Finally, we need more social integration on Nostr. A bunch of the services above don’t even have customer facing npubs… the marketing game is weak, and the more collaboration there is between these services in development, the more exciting news there will be to share.