Most of the videos of Bitcoin being used in commerce in backwater places I see involve a phone with a shitty wallet interface in it. This setup is kinda bad as it has way too many requirements: - a phone - internet access for the receiver - internet access to the payer - a setup that is casual enough for the receiver to take his own phone out of his pocket and type numbers in it - the guy with the phone must also be the owner of the shop and mix his finances with those of the shop The last one is the most absurd to me. If we assume everybody has a phone, though, I don't see why there couldn't exist an app that worked offline where every employee of a small business could type a number and generate a QR code that the payer scans and gets the amount already converted in his wallet to pay. Or, if we assume the receiver will have internet, we can skip that part and let the employee generate an invoice that will be paid but the money will go to the shop's wallet, not to the employee. These are basic things, so maybe they do exist and I'm just uninformed. I would do these apps myself if I could, but it doesn't really help if they "exist" but the people in the trenches evangelizing Bitcoin to commerce aren't aware of them.

Replies (3)

They do exist. I believe ideally people evangelizing should give these solutions + a simple phone setup explaining the latter is equivalent to cash you declare or you don’t
We can assume everyone has a phone, and that app can be built, but what stops the employee from opening their own lightning wallet instead of the business' app to receive the payment? A physical device helps make this harder, or something integrated with their POS system or cash register. I hear Coinos does a good job.
Blink offers a web POS that every employee can use to let customers pay, without being able to touch the funds. It's quite easy to build something like that for any wallet that has a LN address.