What would you say the risk is if somebody nefarious knew I sold $5000 worth of Bitcoin on a specific day? Looking at the group, they would not know who I sold it to, or where we met, or what the specifics of the deal were

I'm not in the US, but I know it works there too. Other commenters have pointed out that in the US the risk of counterfeit bills is significant, so maybe that would be a useful addition

Is this because of regulation, or because Americans seem to still stubbornly resist using Bitcoin as money?

That may change now, with Lightning fees might finally come down. This one charges 2% now, I hope it can be profitable at that margin

Vancouver had the first Bitcoin ATM in the world, even!

If you're in Vancouver, come check it out! They're setting fees to 2% for the full month

yeah absolutely fascinating!

Merchants rarely attend the meetups, but we do hold meetups at merchants! Most of our communication with merchants is electronic, or at their place of business.

Some groups are really small, others have a constant turnout of about 20-30 people, only one meetup has had more than 100 people attend regularly. Over the past year, I haven't notice an increase in the number of attendees, but maybe there are more people joining these, and we don't notice because the number of groups has increased.

We did host a block party in September (free entry, about 300 people dropped by), and a halving party (ticketed, about 120 people joined)

Are there Bitcoiners around you? You might be surprised!

Where's here? The downtown area of a large city?

The average housing price in the US is less than US$500k. And as we learn from the infographic above, the average house in the US is humongous. I didn't find good data on the walking distance to the nearest pub, but 2/3 of Americans live in suburbs or rural areas, where they may at maximum find a gas station within walking distance.

In America most can afford a large house and car, but only the top 1% can afford to live in walking distance to a pub

Check out Vancouver, BC. North America's number one community that actually uses Bitcoin!

Very cool to see! I hope it serves you well and please report any problems you see to the LND team!

Sounds like an awesome trip! One awesome memory I like to hold on to is when I took trains from Hong Kong to Berlin.