As I understand Bitcoin is relatively restricted in Mainland China, but it's also not illegal. How are people using Bitcoin there these days, and how do you stay up to date with news from China?

I did go to all the BTC merchants that I found around me from BTCMap! Just won't do a trip report about them this time

There seems to be some legal requirement that makes it impossible to custody sats for your clients. You can custody their euros, but not their sats, so you have to set them up with their own wallet, node or channel.

Thank you! May our paths cross!

Thank you! Hope you can make it back to Italy sometime soon!

Thank you! High praise!

Generally BTCMap seems to be accurate, and I agree that for a country that large and advanced there should be far more merchants accepting Bitcoin payments

I do very much wonder about the rates at ATMs, those are absolutely insane and I suspect it's primarily scam/extortion victims using them.

But 4% isn't insanely high for a tourist if you imagine that my old bank would charge me 3% for a foreign currency transaction, or at least 2% for an ATM withdrawal. There are some businesses that will give me a 5% discount on using cash over card, so it could be worth it for me to buy cash at a 4% fee over a prepaid debit card at 0%.

great insights, thank you.

Super happy to see this, already running it!

What would you say is the difference between a minivan and an SUV?

BMW makes minivans, the iX, X5, X7 for example. That minivans today are marketed as "SUVs" or similar isn't their problem.

The pictures you posted made me smile, though

You can calculate a statistical confidence interval. If you randomly draw 21 from a group of 30, and zero accept sats, what are the chances that any of the remaining 9 do? In fairness, I wasnt able to talk to people at the venues that were temporarily closed, but there was also no indication they would accept sats. I reached out to the community, talked to the supertagger and others of the BTCMap team. If any of these venues really were to miraculously take Bitcoin, it would be easy to add them. If the bar to add venues is so low, the bar to remove them has to be as well.

All these merchants (and more!) were added together through a web form. There must have been some serious misunderstanding of what this web form is for.

The city centre of Rovigo. I expected a fair share of Bitcoin merchants here.

This is what you'll see before entering town from the train station. Not exactly a beautiful city, but Italy's standards are high.

I had some this weekend, great taste, thank you again!