CoinSpice’s Hayden Otto, obviously a native of Australia, published a video today featuring himself traversing the economy of North Queensland, Australia, without using fiat currency at all. He was able to dine, drink, travel, get accommodations, and even have his laundry done – all with Bitcoin Cash. At one point in the video, he appears to pay nearly $4,000 AUD to take a helicopter tour of the region, followed by a motorcycle ride.
Many of the retailers would accept cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin Cash, but, according to Otto’s reporting, Bitcoin Cash has a large community as a result of its local meetup.
Bitcoin Cash: Cheaper Than Fiat or Bitcoin
As this reporter has noted in the past, the transaction fees on Bitcoin Cash are laughably small. For people who held Bitcoin prior to the original fork, it’s basically “free money.” Using Bitcoin Cash is shown to be convenient and easy. Most importantly, merchants seem to understand it.
While the Bitcoin community lauds second-layer solutions such as Lightning Network, which will arguably create another generation of adoption delays among merchants, Bitcoin Cash users just get down to business. Not to get off subject, but it is still possible to use Bitcoin directly on-chain. It’s just that fees are both unpredictable and occasionally very high. By comparison to other cryptos, that is. What Bitcoin lacks as a usable currency, it makes up for as a store of long-term value.
A Homogenous Crypto Ecosystem Becomes Less Likely By The Year
Partisans within the crypto movement have yet to accept “Bitcoin as gold, others as payment notes” as a normality. But it’s probably the only workable reality we’ll see in the near future. | Source: Shutterstock
As previously noted, Lightning Network adoption will take at least as long as Bitcoin adoption. Still, there are over 14,000 local businesses around the world that do currently accept Bitcoin Core, according to Coinmap.
Many of these are likely to accept Bitcoin Cash as well, as the infrastructure is still not all that different. However, according to AcceptBitcoin.cash, just 960 of the 2000 retailers they track accept Bitcoin Cash.
At the same time, the initiative itself is an example of the drive within the Bitcoin Cash community. It wants to prove itself as a viable alternative to Bitcoin. Nevertheless, markets have been unkind to the price of Bitcoin Cash. Especially since the Bitcoin SV hardfork from which neither version of Bitcoin Cash has ever recovered.
Merchant adoption is becoming a hot topic once again, after years in the background. Starbucks is spearheading a Bakkt-led initative to create payment crypto-enabled payment rails for merchants. Hardliners might still like to see “closed-loop” initiatives, in which some merchants are able to accept crypto payments as well as use them to pay for their costs and labor.
Crypto skeptic Frances Coppola recently received a ton of flak on Twitter for calling Bitcoin “a cult.” One of her more interesting points was that valuing cryptos in fiat money underlines a lack of actual faith in the currencies, hardening the belief that speculators remain the mass of crypto adopters.
I’m not pumping anything. I am lampooning the comment “to the moon”, which values Bitcoin in USD terms.
— (((Frances Coppola))) (@Frances_Coppola) March 4, 2019
Here’s the video from CoinSpice. A bit cringey, but still enjoyable.
