BTC Map - January 2026 Update

Global Metrics 🌍️

• Total Bitcoin-accepting places: 21,823 → 23,088 (+1,265 +5.8%)
• Recently verified (1y): 11,874 → 12,746 (+872 +7.3%)
• Avg. days since last verification: 392 → 393 (+1 +0.3%)
• Merchants boosted: 8 → 20 (+12 +150.0%)
• Total boost duration: 635 → 2,240 (+1,605 +252.8%) days
• Comments posted: 32 → 40 (+8 +25.0%)

Find current stats over at the 👉 BTC Map Dashboard.

Country Activity 📈

Here are this month's most active countries in terms of merchant data editing. Square merchants continue to dominate in the USA 🇺🇸.

Community Activity 📈

Here are this month's most active communities in terms of merchant data editing.

New Communities 🫂

We welcomed the following new communities over the past month:

• 🇸🇻 Bitcoin Ahuachapán
• 🇳🇬 Bitcoin Ikorodu
• 🇺🇸 North Jersey Bitcoin
• 🇬🇧 Bitcoin Beach Bournemouth
• 🇨🇴 Satoshi Team - Bogotá
• 🇰🇪 EcoBitz
• 🇪🇨 Bitmaxis
• 🇰🇪 Bitsavers Eduhub
• 🇸🇻 Bitcoin Santa Ana
• 🇺🇸 Bitcoin 30A

We now have 648+ Communities scattered across the planet. 🌎️

Active Taggers 🏆

Here are this month's most active contributors adding and updating merchant data on BTC Map.

📣 Shoutout to the top 3:

• 🥇 Rockedf with 646 edits
• 🥈 RoseBTCmap with 455 edits
• 🥉 Comino with 233 edits

Find current and historical stats on the Tagger Leaderboard.

Web App 🕸️

With 26 PRs merged in January, the Web App continues to evolve. Notable changes this month:

• Google Maps-Style Search with overlay panel (#608) - Enhanced search experience with an intuitive overlay interface
• Tagger Onboarding Form (#584) - New streamlined onboarding flow for taggers joining the platform
• Verified Date Display (#641) - Locations now show when they were last verified
• IP Geolocation - Map now automatically centers based on user's IP location for a better initial experience
• Analytics Link in Footer (#617) - Easy access to site statistics from every page

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed dark mode data source select styling (#628)
• Fixed broken marker icons in production (#626)
• Fixed deleted merchants appearing in drawer (#621)
• Fixed comment modal closing when clicking backdrop (#620) by keshav0479
• Fixed areas loading indicators (#651)
• Upgraded Areas API to v3 for better handling of deleted areas (#625)

Maintenance:

• Removed 31 unused icon files reducing bundle size (#627)
• Combined MerchantButton and MerchantLink components (#661) by kanishka0411
• Disabled Gitea Issues API with maintenance message (#649)

Admin App 🛠️

Nathan made 54 commits to the Admin App this month, introducing powerful new tools for area management and data quality:

Map Editor: New Edit Shape functionality with GeoJSON simplification for easier area boundary management.

Linting System: Initial linting functionality with automated quality checks including:

• Large GeoJSON detection (areas over 500 points)
• URL alias clash detection
• General data quality validations

Area Management Improvements:

• Built-in GeoJSON fetcher and simplifier when adding areas
• Population data now fetched from Nominatim
• Enhanced icon editing with dedicated modal
• Image editing via URL with improved UX
• All tags visible in area details, not just required ones

Maintenance Tools:

• Country geocoding with continental filtering
• Community organization filters
• Wildcard search functionality
• Tag search on maintenance page
• Pagination for large datasets

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed silent logout issues with graceful re-login handling
• Fixed cache sync to include missing areas
• Fixed custom tag addition and optional tag updates
• Removed double confirmation for removal actions

Infrastructure ⚙️

Igor made 13 commits to the API this month with some significant infrastructure improvements:

LND Integration: Migrated our Lightning Network payment infrastructure to LND, including comment invoice handling and backend improvements.

Platform Migration: Moved all notifications from Discord to Matrix for better alignment with our open-source values. This includes:

• Boost alerts now go to Matrix
• OSM changes channel migrated to Matrix
• Removed all Discord webhooks from RPC methods

Documentation: Added comprehensive documentation for create_api_key, delete_event, and change_password RPC methods.

Analytics 📊

January was our first full month with our self-hosted Umami analytics!

Check out the BTC Map Analytics Dashboard. Track our growth and see where our users are coming from in real-time.

Credits 🫶

Thanks to everyone who continues to contribute to the project including the Shadowy Supertaggers:

• Hannes / escapedcat - Primary web app contributor with 15+ merged PRs
• kanishka0411 - Verified date feature and component refactoring
• keshav0479 - Modal fix
• Nathan / dadofsambonzuki
• Igor Bubelov

Support Us 🤝

There are many ways in which you can support us:

• Become a Shadowy Supertagger and help maintain your local area or pitch-in with the never-ending global effort.

• Help improve or maintain our code. Check out our GitHub Team and hop into our Matrix Space.

• Consider donating to the project here.