Bitcoin Commerce around the world and cool new merchant tech
Welcome to the Bitcoin Commerce Roundup!
This edition has Bitcoin Commerce stories from around the world and some cool new merchant focused tech.
Grab, Singapore based ride sharing giant, is now accepting bitcoin payments
Brave Wallet announces Bitcoin support for it’s 60 million users
Stats for NOSTR, decentralized social media protocol, show steady growth in 2024
Pay for SIM swap protected 5g service with bitcoin with Cloaked Wireless
Wallet of Satoshi announces some cool upgrades to their Point of Sale app
Looking for a laugh? Check out our Bitcoin meme of the week at the back of the Roundup! 😁
Find it all here, and thanks from the Velas Team!
Editor’s Note: We’ve decided not to use any AI assistance to write this newsletter. There is already enough robot generated content out there without us adding to it. So, for better or for worse, what you see here is, and will continue to be, written by real humans.
Grab Ridesharing App is now accepting bitcoin payments
Southeast Asia’s leading rideshare and food delivery app now allows users to top up their wallet with bitcoin!
The feature is currently available in Singapore, with future plans to expand through Southeast Asia.
It’s great news for Bitcoin Commerce. Hopefully Uber is next
: )
Brave Wallet announces Bitcoin Support
The Brave browser’s built-in wallet now supports bitcoin payments!
The browser has over 60 million users. Combine that with a renewed public interest in Bitcoin and this could lead to an important boost in bitcoin-based e-commerce.
According to the statistics published on Earthweb, the user numbers spiked in 2021 and we may see a repeat of that trend if the current level interest in bitcoin keeps up.
Brave is also popular among younger audiences, another indicator that this could be a good developing story for e-commerce merchants to keep an eye on throughout the year.
Check out more in Bitcoin Magazine and the EarthWeb stats here:
https://earthweb.com/brave-users/
2024 NOSTR stats update
Is your business looking into NOSTR, the new decentralized social media protocol? Are you doing market research?
Nostr.band has a huge set of statistics available for all your data crunching needs.
Here’s some interesting takeaways from 2024 to date:
Daily new users continue to grow, however the 30-day retention rate is quite low
Zaps (small bitcoin tips using the Lightning Network) have continued to grow, over 1.4 bitcoin has been zapped to date
Weekly active users seems to have peaked in February
While NOSTR seems likely to continue to be a growth area and source of users actively using bitcoin, user retention seems like a huge factor that needs to be addressed for the success of the network.
Check out all the stats here:
Pay for 5g Wireless with bitcoin
Cloaked Wireless is now offering SIM swap prevention focused wireless service to USA customers.
For readers not familiar with SIM swaps, we recommend doing a little research on this. It’s a huge problem for anyone in the bitcoin space, and therefore, in Bitcoin Commerce. Basically a hacker convinces your wireless carrier to forward your service to another phone under their control.
After that, they can dupe any 1 or 2 factor authentication to get into your accounts.
Cloaked Wireless is offering mobile service across the USA specifically designed to prevent these attacks….and you can pay for them with bitcoin!
Sounds like cool stuff, check it out here and also some info on SIM swapping too:
https://www.kaspersky.com/resource-center/threats/sim-swapping
Wallet of Satoshi POS gets some cool upgrades
Wallet of Satoshi just announced some upgrades to their Point of Sale app:
An item selection tab
Local Transaction History
Ability to print paper receipts
Support for Bitcoinize machines
Have you heard of Bitcoinize machines? We hadn’t until researching this newsletter! It’s a prebuilt android point of sale with out of the box support for loads of bitcoin and lightning wallets.
Check out the Wallet of Satoshi POS app and Bitcoinize POS machines here:
https://walletofsatoshi.com/pos#
Note to USA readers: Wallet of Satoshi recently dropped support in the USA, so best to look at some alternatives. As a drop-in replacement for the wallet (although not the point of sale), we have had good experiences with the Speed Wallet based on our testing.
And our Bitcoin Commerce meme of the week.............🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁
🧭 Navigate Bitcoin’s Lightning Network in a New High Fee Era
The recent spike in Bitcoin prices and network traffic have made a unique combination of headaches and opportunities. It’s also generated a lot of thinking on the future of scaling Bitcoin. Check out our deep dive here.
⚡Tapping into Taproot Assets
Lightning Labs is working on a series of short demo videos walking through using the Taproot Assets Daemon, tapd, from install to mint to transfer to burn! Find the playlist on YouTube here.