Why Monero Merchant Adoption Is So Hard

@BraveSmoke The irony is deep in this one.

@monerica and plus look what is going on with the COLDCARD fiasco: you have legitimate BTC believers who are also normie that have absolutely no idea what is happening or going on. Even some experienced users are getting caught up in this. And what is easiest resource they have? Send it to a kyc exchange and wait it out.

Top to bottom things are centralizing and it even becomes harder to convince people to hold cold storage.

@xenu Yeah, it's just crazy. Seeing some of these BTC influncers who claimed they researched everything and that Coldcards was the best now acting terrified.

If/ when quantum computers come out, some say in a year, some say ten, who knows, this seems like the moment everyone feels they are hacked. Quantum resistance will be critical very soon.

A lot of this does lead towards 3rd party custody and just having a credit card on top of it.

Outside of the crypto bubble, the horror stories of people losing over 100k are real. If that happened to someone, why would they ever in their right mind put themselves in that situation again?

Gold existed for a long time too, but most of it is just paper traded. Seems crypto will go the same route and the actual user base will be small.

@monerica I do think crypto and Monero/Btc in particular will have an advantage for internet usage because we are instilling a strong ideological foundation into crypto anarchism. I also think usage in person is easier so over time I expect more libertarians to accept it. But yeah, it is going to be slow growth and BTC (and xmr) will continue to see diminishing returns unless there is some sort of event that changes things.

A simple way to "ju-jitsu" this problem is to just use analog paper money at the brick and mortar cash register..... and where do you get this analog paper money?... by selling Monero to a person seeking KYC-free monero! :-D

There will be a whole bunch of refugees from the traditional banking system when the terms of digital id verification become unacceptable. For us, getting paid in crypto, and accessing cash with crypto will be completely essential. This completely changes the equation. I completely agree with @monerica that meaningful (permissionless) support for crypto is impractical for most regulated businesses. But I envision servicing the digital id refugees to become an importent niche. XMR->Pokemon cards for example, can already be found on xmrbazaar and also some web3 platforms. Building the back roads.

The bitcoin adoption that matters is waste energy utilisation and potentially domestic heating: ultimately mining. I don't know much about the recent history of the industry but in the long run hash power growth rate is looking healthy.

Also @Stylus1063 is right about ai. I skimmed the article. I really really don't see why anyone would write using ai. If you can put the info in a prompt, you can put the info in prose just as concisely! Why make an ai spin words around for no reason and ruin the quality of your otherwise fine presentation?

@monerica Well,the problem is that merchants don't want to use Monero as they fear sanctions from governments.They (goverments,and those behind them) don't like "privacy coins"!

@Orhan7 A typical merchant is never going to accept Monero and it's weird people still talk about this like it's just around the corner. Over a decade of trying and getting basically no traction. The people who keep thinking it's coming are living in a fantasy world and have never actually talked to merchants or been on the other side of a cash register. It's slow, confusing, and highly error prone.

I believe it's the combination of structural, regulatory, technical, economic barriers, and negative things spread about privacy.

@monerica You are right,and as result ,adding all what you mentioned to the fact that privacy coins aren't "loved" by those wanting to control everything,merchants won't adopt payments with Monero.