Lessons learned by an expat Bitcoiner living in Portugal, who decided that merchants in his local market needed the Lightning Network.
This is an opinion editorial by Holly Young, a Portuguese resident who runs the Bitcoin Tribe Algarve meetup.
Bitcoin communities are on the rise in the south of Portugal. Several initiatives actively seek to strengthen and increase them, including meetings, study groups, workshops and, recently, a telegram group connecting merchants who want to sell their organic products for bitcoin with a group of customers who want to buy them.
If you read Captain Sidd’s recent article “Farmer Talks: Feeding Your Family and Building a Bitcoin Community in Southern Portugal” then you will already be familiar with the Monchique market where the interviewed farmer sells his produce. On my visit there some time ago, I realized that bitcoin would be the perfect currency for the peer-to-peer trade that takes place there. I decided then and there to do my best to take the orange pill from traders and use that experience as a test case to implement Bitcoin education more broadly in the area.
The market arose during the COVID-19 lockdowns when the rules in law-abiding Portugal were particularly strict: masks in public places, no gatherings of people, etc.
The area’s freedom-loving expat community was horrified and did not comply. For the people who welcomed the market, the traders and the visitors, attending was like asserting a basic right: the right to trade. Some colorful exchanges took place between the market organizers and the local police, but the market won. Of course, cash is king in such an environment, so having plenty of change in your pocket was a must for merchants and shoppers alike.
The staples available on the market are largely edible, such as mountain honey, mushrooms, dyes, meat, and eggs, but shoppers can also browse clothing, handmade jewelry, biochar stoves, candles, and brassware for the home. I would venture to say that most of the transactions in the market were for less than 20 euros: five here for a pot of delicious honey, four there to paint her son’s face or buy her a pair of colored bracelets.
The Lightning Network payment layer lends itself perfectly to transactions of this size. I was excited to leave a message in the Merchant Telegram group, inviting them to a free educational workshop on making and accepting Lightning payments for goods and services sold on the marketplace and by local small businesses. The target group were traders who are in a position to accumulate bitcoins on their balance sheets like a private person would use a savings account.
“Spammer” was the succinct accusation made to me by a member of the group. In my idealism, I rather hoped my offer would be accepted: I wasn’t one bit prepared for the occasionally vitriolic responses it actually engendered. In a group of over 1,000 members, only a few responded. Of those, about half were suspicious, negative, accusing me of promoting a Ponzi scheme or profiteering. Fortunately, the other half wrote to say they would like to join and showed genuine interest. Some local Bitcoiners sent me a private message to say that they appreciated the initiative.
We are, as the famous saying goes, so early.
In the end, only a few people signed up, initially about 12: a mix of local traders and small business owners and a lovely couple who were visiting Eastern Europe and seeing Portugal as a possible place to emigrate.
We held the workshop in Monchique, a mountain village in the Algarve region and the location of the now famous market. A local cafe in the central square, Velochique (which not only serves great coffee and lunch, but also rents out bikes to more adventurous visitors – doesn’t accept bitcoins yet, but we’re hopeful for the future) generously hosted us.
The best laid plans, as the saying goes. In the end, none of the market traders came; instead, our audience was all the small businesses in the area and some international visitors. However, since then, several of the market’s traders have reached out to request a private meeting so that we can review the same material. I am very happy to oblige and will carry out this follow up in the coming days and weeks.
He had thought long and hard about how to introduce Bitcoin. In the end, I settled on briefly talking about bitcoin as a value proposition, as opposed to our bloated fiat currency. This was a point that resonated especially with our Eastern European guests, who reported seeing 25% inflation for food over the past 12 months.
We move on to discuss the issues facing merchants and small businesses. First of all, the elimination of credit card fees was definitely popular. Paying Mastercard a portion of the value of the beautiful fruits and vegetables we buy at the market seems profoundly illogical to both buyer and seller. Second, and not insignificant for a monetary economy, was the need for correct change, a source of stress in the market itself.
For me personally, the ability to link vendors to the Bitcoin community and the Bitcoin community to people who produce goods of genuine value is a key factor in organizing events of this type. That interface will be an important aspect in the future for the success of a Bitcoin community. This translates perfectly for providers, who want to access a new group of customers. This was the last content point we covered in the workshop before a demo of using Lightning.
A relative helped me in this and I was delighted to have their support. As a technical expert, he had informed me in advance about how useful he found coins.io and we had explored its potential together. He gave a brief explanation of what a wallet is and how easy it is to use Coins. Participants were particularly impressed that in Coinos, it is possible to add a profile picture, a feature not yet available in other Lightning wallets like Blue Wallet, and one that is good for small business marketing.
Once everyone had created a Coinos account (everyone was impressed by how easy it was and how little personal information they had to divulge to do so – no address or date of birth required, no proof of residency) and in just a few minutes we were able to make transactions. I passed a euro from my wallet to the neighbor on my left, who had made me a bill. We passed the euro around the table so that everyone present had the experience of creating and paying a Lightning invoice. One participant was interested in learning how to transact with customers in other countries, so we also practiced sending the invoice via Telegram. In the future, we will teach participants how to move their satellites from Coin custody to a cold storage device.
Everyone present was very impressed with how quick and easy it was to transact; it seems that the expectation before the event had been that the explanation of Bitcoin and Lightning would be technical and difficult to understand. Two small business owners pledged to accept bitcoin right then and there.
I decided before the event to limit the number of attendees to 10, as experience has taught me that more than that makes the experience less interactive. Several people decided at the last minute that they couldn’t attend, so some follow-up events are a must. In the near future, I will be helping various market vendors who make beautiful scented candles, natural cosmetic products good enough to compete with the best cosmetic brands (and at a quarter of the price!), crocheted blankets, clothing, and accessories, leather goods and organic fruit all to accept payments on the Lightning Network.
After the workshop, there has been quite a bit of interest from nearby towns with local farmers’ markets, so we are now happily scouting locations for the next ones. More 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 on the Lightning payment network. I’m not a big believer in predictions for the future, as life has a way of coming at you from left field, but I’d be cautious in betting that 2023 will be the year of widespread adoption of Lighting as more and more Most of us dedicate time and energy to help you on your 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.
