As you may notice from my previous posts, I'm quite an enthusiastic Lightning user. I use it whenever possible and I go out of my way to find merchants that accept it.
But when I heard that a coffee shop in my area has begun accepting USDC for payments (and no other crypto), I couldn't resist. So I went over with a friend to try it out.
The coffee shop, Revolver Coffee on Cambie Street in Vancouver wasn't easy to find, because the whole area was cordoned off for a pretty impressive movie set. There was a sign outside promising $1 cold brew "all summer long", the first one being free. Another sign at the door showed the Coinbase logo and "USDC accepted here." It's not exactly unusual for shops in this area to accept USD cash, as the area is near the cruise ship terminal, and US cruises on their way to Alaska are required (by U.S. law) to make a stopover in Canada.
But it is unusual to see prices listed in USD, and I already sensed that $1 was referring to USDC, not CAD. From a marketing perspective, I already find this odd. Why not use Bitcoin or Ethereum, or just the somewhat recognizable "crypto" moniker?
To participate, I would have to download the Coinbase wallet. The process felt a bit sketchy, I had to scan the QR code on the sign outside the coffee shop, which led me to
https://go.cb-w.com and from there to https://v3eo.app.link before showing me a prompt to "Get Coinbase Wallet" and then the App Store. Any tech savvy person should have their alarm bells go off at some point in this onboarding flow.I download the app and to their credit the signup process is relatively smooth. I'm not asked for any personal information and only have to set a six digit PIN to start using the app. What now? I scan the QR code outside again and now see a pop up "Coffee Days, Your First Cup is Free."
The coffee voucher appears to come in the form of an NFT, and looking at its contract on Basescan I can see that about 15 people have claimed their free coffee ahead of me in the past five days.
I head to the counter and ask about the promotion. The guy behind the counter pulls out a tablet, opens a web browser and looks through a menu to find the item. I can choose any coffee I like. The web app shows a QR code that I can scan with Coinbase Wallet, enter the PIN, confirm and done.
On the tablet however, nothing appears to happen. It's not clear at all whether I paid, although I do see a pop-up with an "onchain receipt".
Free coffee is great I assume, but I want to actually buy something today. There might be an option to buy USDC through the app, but that might require a bank account I don't have. I turn to my friend and he sells me 5 USDC for 8422 sats over the Lightning Network.
As somebody who tangentially followed "crypto" since its beginnings, this process is very confusing. Under the Receive tab I see an Ethereum address, a Bitcoin and Solana address. But when clicking on "Ethereum" a pop-up (so many pop-ups in this app) informs me that I can use this address to receive tokens on Ethereum, Base, etc. So to receive "USDC" on the "Base" network i have to share my Ethereum address. Got it.
To pay, we go to the counter again, they ring up the products on their tablet, show me the QR code, I scan it with the Coinbase app, enter PIN, confirm, send, I get my "onchain receipt and the teller gets a tiny notification that shows for about two seconds that I paid. If they miss that notification, they have to go into a separate part of their app and look through incoming transactions by timestamp and amount. We're the first person to actually buy something with USDC at this shop, rather than just claim a free drink.
My friend also tries scanning the QR code with other crypto wallets, but it appears only Coinbase wallet is able to make the transaction. Not a great look, as we're jumping through a lot of hoops and consuming significant resources on a "blockchain" just to make a low-value transaction from one Coinbase user to the next.
Generally, it's fascinating yet also depressing to think how much money went into this app, the merchant services and the whole promotion, yet the user experience is miserable and walled off.
I walk 10 minutes to an ice cream shop that accepts Lightning, and while the staff aren't exactly happy to hear me ask for it, they are able to open their extra tablet, invoice me the amount and let me pay over the Lightning Network in about the same time.