I've been volunteering with Bitcoin Ekasi for the past few months and it's been so exciting to ask a merchant if they accept bitcoin with the strong expectation that the answer might be yes. When it's not...well, I'm not good at onboarding merchants. But I have had a lot of success onboarding employees who accept tips. Even in Ohio, USA, a true bitcoin wasteland, I would say that my success ratio of onboarding tip-takers is at least 10% of the total that I talk to. Here, I'm guessing that I'm seriously over 50% successful.

That said, accepting a tip using a smart phone is a drag! Let me show you how to really seal the deal with even the most rudimentary 3d printer. But first, in order to better understand how this guide came about, let's look at some fun things you can buy the next time you're in Mossel Bay.

One of the first things I was asked to do was train some of the guys on using the 3d printer. The 3d printer was quite literally collecting dust when we started this process, but now we're getting into a rhythm in which it's working around the clock. We started with the obvious.

Then we made some of our own brand and design.

Then we thought, "hey, let's go the lithograph route."

I should mention at this point that most of what I've been doing is less relevant to this conversation; things like calling schools to offer field trips or cataloging replacement parts to machines or writing how-to guides or the mining automation stuff I actually came here to do. One thing I took on myself is setting up websites for local businesses. Ever go to btcmap.org and think, "I can't tell what this company even does." I have, more than once, gone to a "restaurant" only to find out it was a grocery store. So, I thought, why not make free websites for a couple of businesses and then teach html to one of the kids here that might be able to make a small business out of continuing the process?

I started with our thrift shop and then did one for the local car wash. It was fun, but it was nothing compared to what happened next. After making these two, I asked one of the resident young geniuses if he wanted to learn how to code. It will be a bit of a process for him, but I got to witness the "AHA!" moment live when he realized that what he wrote in the css actually changed the way the page looked. It was that exciting moment Mark Rober describes here, and I could actually see it in his face before he described that exact sentiment. It was easily the highlight of that week, and ironically when I was teaching something that I'm not even really proficient at myself.

So I just got done getting up the thrift shop with a Bitcoinize POS machine that is connected to a BTCPay Server store that we made a couple of weeks ago. It's awesome, but most local businesses here still just use a simple Blink wallet. It's not ideal for a number of reasons I'll post on soon, but it's the reality of quick and dirty lightning onboarding. The problem is, what do you do when the person with the Blink wallet (usually the owner) isn't around? I encountered this situation enough times that I finally decided to just use the 3d printer that we have to make them a durable QR code that could just stay at the register.

Again, this isn't ideal for a number of reasons, but at least it makes it possible to always accept bitcoin payments.

What it is ideal for is tips. Luthando suggested servers could wear QR codes of their lightning address on necklaces. We've made both that and a keychain version now for those who want to be a little more subtle.

As I mentioned at the beginning, these folks are your lowest hanging fruit for orange pilling. This is a true peer to peer tip and, in my opinion, significantly better than just putting more on your payment to the business, which then has to transfer the money to your server. But now, they don't have to pull out their phone, log into their phone, open their wallet, do a dance, press the receive button, press the QR code button, and then hope you're still awake. With the new option, they can just pull out a keychain and bring home the bacon.

It's also nice to have a way to receive payments when traveling through areas in which you don't want to bring your phone.

Bitcoin Ekasi currently only has one single filament 3d printer. This explanation will assume the same for you. If you have a multi-filament printer, some of these steps are simpler and far more intuitive. I'll let you figure it out on your own, but feel free to contact me if you really are having trouble. :)

Also, we'll be using some free websites, one of which will request an email address. If you're concerned about privacy, make sure to generate these files from a computer with a level of anonymity that you feel comfortable with, and use a burner email address.

-Go to https://genqrcode.com and put in the wallet address. Pick the circular frame and then generate a jpeg.

-Go to https://lithophanemaker.com and pick the keychain/ornament option. Upload your jpeg. Set the frame height to 4mm and minimum thickness to 2mm. Email yourself the stl.

-Open the stl file in Cura (free and open source). Change the X dimension to 50mm. Go to Extensions/Post-Processing/Modify-G-Code. Add a filament change at layer 10.

-Take the file to the printer. Make sure to start with a light colored filament and then switch to a darker colored filamen when the printer pauses. Remember to click "resume print" after switching filaments.

Boom! Your favorite server is now getting zapped more than a GM post by Ron Paul on Pizza Day.