110 sats \ 2 replies \ @cointastical 30 Jul 2022 \ on: Want to buy bitcoin physically? bitcoin
Back in 2014 after Bitcoin Conference in Amsterdam I spent a day in Istanbul. At the conference I had used a bitcoin ATM for the first time, bought a Coinkite card, and saw so much I was even more certain that bitcoin's March to gaining mass adoption was in high gear at that point, especially for developing countries. (I was wrong on the timing as a two year bear market had just begun, but I digress).
Anyway I had tried to gauge bitcoin awareness by asking at the various foreign currency exchanges I happened across if I could convert bitcoin to lira. I even had a Casascius coin to show (one intact but also one peeled to show how bitcoin works, by use of a private key to spend). Asked a couple merchants if they would accept bitcoin or even if they heard of it.
My hopium balloon got totally deflated. Nobody had heard of it, nobody except my taxi drivers were even interested in hearing more about it, and few I spoke with had smartphones so I couldn't even help them become bitcoiners by giving a little bitcoin away to them after they installed mycelium wallet or similar.
Had I known at the time the right way to communicate on bitcoin is to describe it as a savings technology rather than a payment method and bridge between fiat currencies, I think I might have done better towaeds solving the problem that was the main catalyst that eventually gave bitcoin a good amount of traction there.
You can come back now and scratch your itch :)
Besides the exchanges houses, I also saw a couple of stores with "Bitcoin accepted here signs". They where mainly small, luxury items stores (jewelry, watches, etc). Although I'm not sure if that was truly to date, since current regulation in Turkey forbids using cryptocurrencies for commercial transactions
reply
You can come back now
Some day, I hope to!!
[...] current regulation in Turkey forbids using cryptocurrencies for commercial transactions
That's really unfortunate. In another country where a similar ban exists, I know some freelancers who are paid in bitcoin. They know which merchants they can spend at -- even though there's no pin on CoinMap.org for them nor any "bitcoin accepted" signage in the shop. So bitcoin continues to be used just that it isn't advertised.
There is another place I've been where the hotel concierge knew offhand nearly a dozen restaurants and tourist spots where bitcoin was accepted. Here too there was no "bitcoin accepted" advertising or anything, just word of mouth.
reply