Breaking Through: Square Inc. Opens the Door for Millions of Merchants to Accept Bitcoin
The lines between speculative asset and everyday money are blurring—and today we see a major milestone in that evolution. Square, under parent company Block, Inc., has officially rolled out Bitcoin payments for its merchant base.
1. The significance of the rollout
Square reports that ~4 million U.S. merchants will gain the ability to accept Bitcoin payments via their existing hardware and POS terminals.
Transactions will be settled using the Lightning Network (Bitcoin’s layer-2 scaling solution), enabling near-instant, low-cost transfers.
Zero processing fees until 2027 for merchants choosing to accept Bitcoin-payments directly—meaning the cost barrier to adoption is significantly lowered.
This move transitions Bitcoin from being “just” a store of value into being a usable medium of exchange for everyday transactions—coffee, retail, services—via mainstream infrastructure.
2. Context within the adoption curve
From a libertarian techno-enthusiast perspective, here’s how this fits into the broader adoption model:
As you’ve seen in your previous chart of Bitcoin’s adoption path, we’re still very early in percentage terms.
When a payment-platform giant like Square opens up access for merchants, the utility side of Bitcoin gets a tangible boost. This reduces one friction point in the adoption cycle: “Will I even find a place to spend my BTC?”
More merchants means more potential demand from consumers willing to hold and spend Bitcoin. That spending-mechanism makes holding more practical, and practical use reinforces the network’s value and robustness.
3. What this could mean for the future of Bitcoin
Network effect acceleration: With more points of acceptance, Bitcoin becomes more than a speculative instrument—it becomes integrated into real-world commerce. That reinforces the value proposition of ownership, self-custody, and decentralised money.
Greater merchant choice: Merchants can choose to accept BTC or convert instantly to fiat, giving them flexibility. This means Bitcoin is being accepted even by businesses that don’t want long-term exposure. That’s a smart bridging strategy for the “real economy.”
Regulatory spotlight: When millions of merchants accept Bitcoin, it becomes harder for regulators to ignore its utility or treat it purely as a speculative instrument. We should expect increased scrutiny—but that’s not inherently bad: clear, consistent regulation helps adoption.
Empowering individual financial sovereignty: From my libertarian vantage point, this is a small but meaningful step toward shifting power away from centralized payment rails and toward peer-to-peer value exchange. It means individuals can choose currency, merchants can choose payment method—and less of life is dictated by legacy financial intermediaries.
Here is why this matters for the ecosystem, the adoption curve—and what we individual liberty-miners should take away.
Part 2 – How to spend your BTC now: the Wallet of Satoshi route
If you’re holding Bitcoin and want to participate in this merchant-ecosystem, here’s a practical tool. Wallet of Satoshi is a mobile Lightning wallet that enables easy payments—and importantly, it now supports merchant-search features in certain regions.
✔️ What Wallet of Satoshi offers
Simple UX: Send, receive, and spend Bitcoin via the Lightning Network in seconds.
Merchant payment support: From its reviews, users mention that the wallet supports merchants accepting Bitcoin/Lightning payments—so you don’t need specialized hardware if you’re spending.
A way to discover merchants: While specific merchant-mapping inside Wallet of Satoshi may vary by region, btcmap.org is directly linked und find merchants in the App
🔍 Why this matters
Ease of spending: With more merchants accepting Bitcoin (via Square and others), and an accessible wallet like Wallet of Satoshi, the friction of using Bitcoin drops.
Reinforces Bitcoin’s utility: Holding Bitcoin is one thing—but spending it is where the economic feedback loop strengthens the narrative of digital, self-sovereign money.
You don’t have to wait for tech-savvy shops: As mainstream channels like Square roll this in, pretty much any retailer on Square hardware could become a Bitcoin-accepting merchant. That means your ability to spend BTC is expanding—even if you didn’t go looking for it.
Final Thoughts
This isn’t just incremental progress—it’s structural. When a payments-platform of millions of merchants opens the door for Bitcoin, adoption odds increase materially. For you holding Bitcoin, for me advocating liberty and decentralisation, it’s another reason to remain optimistic. We’re not just dreaming about self-sovereign finance—we’re seeing infrastructure build in real time.
Spend your sats, support businesses that accept them, and keep your eyes open: the network effect is live.
