Madeira tops 100 Businesses now accepting Bitcoin 🏝️
Madeira tops 100 Businesses now accepting Bitcoin 🏝️
Portuguese circular bitcoin economy hits a big business adoption milestone.
From Madeira to Africa, we’re covering bitcoin business adoption, new tools, bitcoin ATM scams and more in this edition.
Madeira Island hits an big milestone with 100+ merchants now accepting bitcoin
Bitcoin ATM fraud is surging according to CBS news
LightSpark introduces a new feature for instant business payments
Zaprite introduces a new Point of Sale application
Sats2Data sells mobile data and voice plans for bitcoin all over Africa!
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!
100+ Merchants in Madeira now accept bitcoin
Madeira Island in Portugal just hit an important milestone, with over 100 merchants now accepting bitcoin!
This tweet even breaks down the businesses by type, showing the wide range of businesses on the list:
Bitcoin circular economies are a great inspiration for Bitcoin Commerce and adoption overall.
We’ll quote from Free Madeira: “Here’s to a prosperous future powered by Bitcoin!”
Check out the writeup here for more:
https://x.com/FREEMadeiraOrg/status/1828758065941770695
Bitcoin ATM fraud is through the roof
We believe Bitcoin ATMs are a key component in Bitcoin adoption. They’re also a great example of an early and still relevant Bitcoin business model.
Bitcoin ATMs are a critical link for people that earn physical cash to buy bitcoin, electronic cash for the internet.
However, according to this article by CBS, they are also a key component in a recent 900% surge in crypto scams. These scams are also reportedly targeting older consumers, with people over 60 three times more likely to be targeted.
Let’s use this opportunity to spread this advice from the USA FTC: Real businesses and government agencies do not ask anyone to use a Bitcoin ATM. Bitcoin ATMs are for people who want to buy bitcoin for cash, period.
Spread it around.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bitcoin-atm-scams-ftc-cryptcurrency-fraud/
LightSpark introduces instant bitcoin to USD payments via the Lightning Network
LightSpark continues to innovate in payments. This time they’re making headlines with LightSpark “Extend”, which allows users to send bitcoin payments and have their recipients receive US dollars.
They seem to be on a roll, with large scale integration announcements week after week.
We dug a little deeper and found their guide to how it works: users can sign up for a UMA (it looks just like an email or a Lightning address except for a $ symbol at the start), link an account, and receive payments via the Bitcoin Lightning Network.
UMAs are an interesting development in cutting edge payments, check out these articles to find out more:
https://www.lightspark.com/news/lightspark-extend-announcement
Zaprite introduces a bitcoin and fiat point of sale app
Zaprite has been focusing on making bitcoin invoicing for business for some time. They make it possible for businesses to accept both fiat and bitcoin side by side via a single payment link.
Now they are extending this feature to in-person point of sale systems. It’s a “virtual” point of sale, meaning it’s not an actual physical device, but rather a software application that’s access by a link with a phone or tablet.
We’re really curious how credit card payments work with the software. Perhaps by NFC?
Check out all the details here:
https://blog.zaprite.com/introducing-point-of-sale-on-zaprite/
Sats2Data offers mobile data and voice topups across Africa
We’re wrapping up this edition of the RoundUp with this cool business that offers customers across Africa the ability to buy mobile data and voice airtime using bitcoin.
Users enter a country and phone number and then can pay bitcoin for mobile service.
Pretty cool stuff! Check it out here:
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.