For the NOSTR techies -- the BTCPay Server <> Barebits compatibility idea is pretty cool.

Imagine if Greenfield became a standard for implementing Bitcoin payments ⚡

That it solves real-world payment problems!

NOSTRiches -- If you know a grant we should feature, make a PR!

Otherwise you can email us too: [email protected]

Here’s a barfy post on inclusiveness because we’re getting it wrong and I think it really does matter.

Warning: this post is about race and gender in the USA. If that’s an unacceptable topic for you, I get it, please scroll on.

What percent of US military veterans are women? (11% and it’s growing fast)

Minorities? (27% and it’s growing fast)

Yet I work in tech -- and specifically form a part of a tech veterans group -- where women and minorities are never represented in the imagery.

Notice I didn’t say rarely. I said never.

I know exactly why this is, because I’ve asked. It’s part of a backlash against something called DEI, which is an acronym for a policy of inclusiveness.

As far as I understand it, the idea is more about making sure people aren’t excluded, and deliberately separating this idea from things like quota systems, which have some real drawbacks and unintended consequences.

The hangover from the old system is that white men now feel discriminated against if everyone else gets artificially pumped up by quota systems.

Honestly, I totally get that.

Weirdly, it is ok to have a double standard in the USA, but only if it is directed at white people. If you’d like to test this theory, try switching words like “white man” or “white woman” for “black man” or “latina woman” in a sentence and see how it lands.

So people feel singled out and attacked. Seems natural to me.

That said, back to the theme of our story. At this particular veterans group, minorities and women membership seems to be wildly underrepresented. Especially black and latino people. This also seems to be true for my experience in tech and engineering in general.

I think a large part of that comes from people never “seeing themself” represented. If I run a veterans group and 100% of the images I post are of white men, do you think a black woman is likely to “see herself” as welcome in that group?

Of course not. I’ve seen this play out a thousand times.There are even sayings about “expectations becoming outcomes” that apply perfectly in this situation.

So I troll them at times and reply to their fearsome-looking white male combat avatars with equally ferocious-looking Puerto Ricans. Women and men.

I fear they do not appreciate this, but I don’t care.

I’m not saying we need to OVER-represent anyone. But the US military is one of the most racially integrated institutions in the world, and increasingly, a well-integrated institution with regards to gender as well.

We’re better for it.

We should be proud of it.

We need to fight to make sure that we show it.

If accepting Bitcoin is the first step in integration, why do so many businesses skip it???

Can we make another bull run out of this please? It would be a solid foundation.

Sup NOSTR! Check out our newest edition:

Bitcoin Commerce. African Scale.

This was one of those times where picking the headline was a tough decision. The Square point-of-sale integration story easily has the potential to be the industry story of the year.

On the other hand, from all the sources I can gather, right now that integration is still in a beta phase. I even signed up to be part of the beta during the Bitcoin Conference last year and haven’t heard anything.

The good news is that both the Square Bitcoin integration and the beta program seem to be very real, and a careful read of their recent press release and splash page even has a hard date for the rollout: November 10, 2025.

But that’s all about what isn’t the headline.

Africa is quietly experiencing a Bitcoin Commerce explosion. I think this gets so under-noticed and we needed to feature it and keep featuring it.

Based on my research there are enough widespread integration and adoption stories out there that it can be hard to feature them all. But that being said I really wanted to focus on the work being done by @MoneyBadger in this edition.

MoneyBadger seems to be an integral part of both the continued success of the South African Pick n’ Pay supermarket integration, and the Scan-to-Pay integration featured in this edition.

It’s so interesting to see how Bitcoin Commerce exists and grows in two such distinct worlds: African fintech and brick & mortar retail USA. These stories are superficially different but they share a common, entrepreneurial spirit and enthusiasm that I think is the real backbone of Bitcoin Commerce.

If you’re interested, I hope you get a chance to check it out and let me know what you think!