I just want to point out something that should be obvious to everyone here. Most people outside our bubble don’t know how to use ”magic internet money,” and the only way to change that is to patiently show them, usually in person.

Last night at @PUBKEY , I was helping people make donations to @HRF for a signed copy of a book by Evan Mawarire, who himself is still early in his bitcoin journey.

Here are some of the problems I observed:

One person tried to pay a Lightning address with Muun wallet, asking me why the QR code wouldn’t scan. Muun still does not support LNURLp after all this time. I suggested checking out the new Misty Breez wallet, but he didn’t have TestFlight installed, so I invited him to come back next week during our Lightning meetup to learn more, and showed him how to get an invoice from HRF’s BTCPay Server.

Another one only had BlueWallet with on-chain funds, and had never used Lightning before. I asked him why and he said it was because it didn’t work in BlueWallet. This is a fair point, because BlueWallet has never adopted NWC, and using LNDHub is a clunky and frustrating process. It’s almost as if the developers of earlier-generation wallets have just given up on advancing the tech and UX.

A third person tried to scan the QR code for the Lightning address, and it only opened up her email app. I asked if she had a Lightning wallet, and she said she didn’t use bitcoin at all, so I sent her to the page to make a donation by debit card.

So that’s kind of the state of things, at least from my perspective. I see these sorts of things every day. Whether it’s people trying to pay a Lightning invoice with an on-chain wallet, or even from an exchange, or trying to onboard to a custodial service in New York, where companies like Cash App and Strike can’t provide some or all services, because we’re thrown into the same bucket as Iran and North Korea.

In all this, #Nostr is a tiny island. It’s very sunny and warm here, but most of the world doesn’t know we exist, or how to find us. ☀️🏝️