When programmer Jonathan Silverblood flew from his home in Finland to Townsville, Australia in August for a two-and-a-half month vacation, he had one main job.BCHMore).
The coastal city of Townsville is known as the ‘Bitcoin Cash City’. The name comes from the conference of the same name that was first launched in 2019. We know that there are many merchants that accept Bitcoin forked tokens.
While attending a 2019 conference, Silverblood was intrigued by the number of merchants and vendors offering BCH as a payment option in Townsville, and said he hoped the city would do so once COVID-19 restrictions were lifted. We mentioned we were planning to go back.
just came in #townsville, #Bitcoin Cash City In 59 days, I made 97 bitcoin cash transactions to pay my living expenses. It does not include transactions for…
— Jonathan Silverblood (@monsterbitar) October 8, 2022
“Going to this destination is totally BCH spending and getting more work done by my family and kids going on vacation with grandma, and also an excuse for me to spend more than I normally would. I’m back,” he told Cointelegraph after returning home from a trip.
“It makes sense to pay with it while I’m there. It takes less time and effort.”
Silverblood is a Bitcoin Cash enthusiast and programmer. He has been working for General Protocols for the past three years where his salary is paid in his BCH.
He said that in the 69 nights he spent in the city, he was ultimately able to make 130 transactions using Bitcoin Cash. These include goods and services at cafes, restaurants, hotels, dental extractions, haircuts, Steam Deck game console repairs, and more.
“We had some pretty busy days. Sometimes I wanted to go.”
Silverblood also used BCH to make several payments unrelated to Townsville businesses, including gift cards for Steam and Netflix.
But his Bitcoin Cash-funded vacation was not without its problems.
Silverblood said that while his experience with BCH as a payment method was successful, it wasn’t a “huge success.” This was due to issues such as insufficient power at payment terminals, WiFi access, and the inability of some merchants to offer virtual currency as an option when making payments.
“When I arrived at the Townsville airport, I wanted to pay for a taxi to my hotel as well, but that was no longer an option as a competing taxi company bought the BCH taxi company.”
He also found that not all merchants were open to the idea of using BCH. Because they didn’t want to “complicate bookkeeping” and “couldn’t stand the volatility.”
“For most merchants I have spoken to during my travels, the number of customers paying with cryptocurrencies seems too low to motivate additional staff training costs, additional hardware such as WiFi, and payment terminals. said Silverblood.
“Cryptocurrency is here and working, but merchant adoption is slow and widespread, making it difficult to live fully,” he added.
Mr Silverblood said he didn’t even bother to buy a plane ticket with BCH because his family wanted to fly Qatar Airways.
This is because the airline Owned Metaverse in July.
Related: 21-year-old gets ‘thought-provoking’ questions after teaching seniors about cryptocurrencies
Silverblood and his family have since returned to Finland, but the programmers are confident it won’t be the last time they will use cryptocurrencies to pay for goods and services.
“You can’t Bitcoinize your dentist, you can’t Bitcoinize your breakfast, you can’t even use Bitcoin in a Bitcoin competition.”
…I’ve done all of them now #Bitcoin Cash City #townsvilleI will miss this place when I go home tomorrow.https://t.co/dj2l8TopEp
— Jonathan Silverblood (@monsterbitar) October 18, 2022
“I will definitely try something like this again. In just a few weeks I will be flying to another Bitcoin Cash hotspot, St. Kitts, for the BCH 2022 conference,” he said.
“I don’t know what to expect there, but I hear 100% all merchants accept it, but only half accept it, merchants accept it, but you need a special wallet .”
