Top Tweets for #LocalBitcoins

In 2013-14 there was a plethora of Bitcoin accepting businesses - you could buy all sorts of tech, travel and gift cards with Bitcoin. It was common for people to host Bitcoin only events where everything was paid for in Bitcoin — you could trade OTC in person using LocalBitcoins or other similar online services. There were services who would run startup payroll in Bitcoin and some early startups had no bank account at all. We were building the early blocks of a true Bitcoin economy. Many of these things have been shut down or decreased. Don’t tell me that the reason this has decreased is because no one wants to spend it or that it’s some sort of victory that we have moved from this to captive centralized systems. You can always spend and replace Bitcoin. The main reasons it’s changed was regulation and taxes as well as an ethos change where more people are now focused on integrating or becoming captured by the legacy financial system. This is a step backwards. The space was cooler a decade ago and in many ways more on track to change the world. Mainstream financial acceptance is a key part of global adoption but it should have been done on Bitcoin terms not on trad fi terms. We need to embrace these roots for Bitcoin to realize it’s full potential. If new people are not onboarded to Bitcoin as usable unstoppable money but instead onboarded to centralized paper Bitcoin that is not progress. This only works and has value of the principles of censorship resistance and decentralization are practiced.