Pierre Simon

Back home in the Netherlands since Friday! 🇳🇱

It was an emotional week in Aruba saying goodbye to my uncle, but being back on my island re-grounding with family was so deeply needed. 💙

One last observation on the payment front: alongside Sentoo, I also saw Pay.aw out there—another QR payment option. Sentoo itself is actually pretty slick since it's an instant bank transfer, but merchants still pay processing fees.

The biggest hurdle on the island right now isn't consumer adoption—it's government perception. Local regulators and authorities still treat Bitcoin and crypto as high-risk, making adoption an uphill climb.

Lightning (and ecash) remains light-years ahead: open, instant, global, and drastically cheaper for merchants. The local appetite for digital payments is already there—now it's just a matter of shifting mindsets and replacing the legacy banking rails! ⚡️🇦🇼

cc: @BitcoinAruba #Aruba #Bitcoin #LightningNetwork #Payments #CircularEconomy

Arrived in Aruba yesterday after my uncle passed away. Good to be back 'home' with family. 💙

Hit the barber today and ran into an old colleague from my Aruban police force days! When it came time to pay, it was cash or a local payment method called Sentoo.

From a user perspective, Sentoo was flawless—scan a QR code, hit a payment link, open the local bank app, and approve. Seamless. But looking at it through a technical and merchant cost lens, Lightning and

still blow it out of the water. ⚡️🥜

Numo Pay would have been an absolute game-changer for this merchant—instant, zero-fee tap-to-pay offline via ecash, backing up directly to

. The island is already comfortable with QR-based instant payments... now we just need to help local shops swap out the legacy banking middleman for sovereign rails! 🇦🇼

cc:

#Aruba #Bitcoin #LightningNetwork #Cashu #BTCPayServer #Payments

Checking out the merchant experience with various Lightning wallets and comparing them to traditional PSPs like Stripe. 💳⚡️

The common narrative is that Lightning is "nearly free" compared to the 2.9% + €0.25 standard in fiat. While generally true, the merchant reality is more nuanced.

I just crunched the numbers on a €10.00 payment:

🔹 Stripe (EEA Card): You pay ~€0.40. You keep €9.60. 🔹 Bitkit (New Channel): Initial setup (LSP + on-chain fees) can be ~$1.05. You keep ~$8.95.

Wait—Bitcoin is more expensive? For the first transaction, yes.

This is the "Self-Custody Tax." To be non-custodial and sovereign (like with @Bitkit), you pay a one-time fee to open a channel. Most merchants want the speed and low fees of Lightning but aren't ready to manage their own liquidity.

The tipping point:

• On a €100 payment, Stripe takes €3.20.
• On a €100 payment, Lightning (once open) takes <€0.01.

We need to be honest about the onboarding "friction" if we want real adoption. If you’re a high-volume merchant, the initial $1 investment in a channel pays for itself in just 2-3 sales. After that, it's 99% cheaper than card networks.

Not every wallet is built for the same merchant. Some prioritize pure sovereignty (Bitkit, Phoenix), others prioritize instant "it just works" convenience (custodial).

The goal for 2026? Making that first channel-open as invisible as a card swipe.

#Bitcoin #LightningNetwork #MerchantAdoption #Payments #Nostr #Fintech