This week the question shifted from "can you spend Bitcoin?" to "can you buy everything with it?" A Bitcoin-only online marketplace is piloting in Cape Town — no rands accepted, even in test mode. Lightning moved 15,000 BTC in a single month through just 5,000 BTC in channel capacity. And from El Salvador to Mozambique, circular economies proved they can handle not just daily commerce but disaster response.
The Big Move: BitcoinFriendlySA is piloting a Bitcoin-only online marketplace for Cape Town and the Winelands — hand-picked South African goods from small businesses, with no fiat checkout option. It's starting small with a few select merchants to validate the model, but the intent is clear: end-to-end Bitcoin commerce where fiat isn't even on the menu.
Spotlight: Lightning Hits a Velocity Milestone
River's data shows the Lightning Network moved 15,000 BTC per month while holding roughly 5,000 BTC in channels. That means every sat in the network turns over about three times a month. This isn't a store-of-value metric — it's a payments metric. Lightning is doing what payment rails are supposed to do: move money fast and often.
1) Payment Infrastructure & Settlement
The plumbing behind Bitcoin payments got materially better this week — from always-on settlement to simpler merchant stacks.
- Lightspark + Cross River Bank: Lightspark announced 24/7 real-time fiat settlement on the Bitcoin Network with Cross River Bank, targeting B2B, cross-border, and retail payments. Always-on settlement solves one of the oldest objections merchants have: "when do I actually get my money?"
- BTCPay Server v2.3.5: The open-source merchant payment processor shipped a release with long-requested features beyond routine bug fixes. Separately, a widely shared tutorial showed how to pair BTCPay with BullBitcoin via Boltz — no Lightning liquidity management required. Nicolas Dorier endorsed it. That combination shrinks the skill barrier for any small business owner who wants to self-host Bitcoin acceptance.
- BitSpenda — Bitcoin to mobile money: Described as a Bitcoin-to-mobile-money platform enabling everyday spending in Ghana. Instead of waiting for every merchant to integrate Bitcoin directly, BitSpenda bridges into M-Pesa and similar rails that merchants already accept.
2) Merchant & Enterprise Adoption
New merchant surfaces keep appearing — and the interesting ones this week are clustered in corridors where foot traffic is high and repeat visits are built in.
- El Salvador — Soya Nutribar + Tunquito Market: Soya Nutribar, a multi-location food chain and early Bitcoin supporter, continues expanding along Bitcoin Coast with outlets in El Tunco. Separately, Tunquito Market opened as a "Bitcoin mini-market" on El Tunco's main beach road — stocked for typical tourist needs, right where the foot traffic is.
- Peru — Surf Xperience (Lima): A surf school on Lima's Miraflores coast accepts Bitcoin and partnered with MOTIV Perú to run teen classes. Service businesses with repeat scheduling create ongoing payment opportunities, not one-off transactions.
3) Circular Economy & Ground-Level Proofs
The most compelling evidence that Bitcoin works as everyday money still comes from the communities building entire local economies around it.
- Praia Bitcoin (Brazil): The community's leader stepped back this week amid questions about project finances and technical architecture decisions — including the Bitcoinize POS integration. It's a reminder that building a circular economy requires sustained operational discipline, not just merchant tooling and signage. The model matters; so does the management.
- Bitcoin Berlín SV (El Salvador): The team ran a "Bitcoin MoE Experience" — breakfast at a local café, a conversation on circular-economy lessons, and a coffee tour at Finca La Cruz, all paid in sats. After two years of merchant onboarding, they also published a free merchant guide written in "merchant language" to answer the questions that come up every time. When you need a book to standardize onboarding, you're past the experiment phase.
- Cyclone Gezani — Mozambique: When Cyclone Gezani knocked out power and internet in Tofo, Bitcoin Ekasi routed community donations through the BoaGente coconut-oil factory — a merchant recently onboarded to accept Bitcoin that still had generator power. Disaster response running through a Bitcoin merchant endpoint is a stress test that no pilot program can simulate.
The pattern this week: Bitcoin commerce is moving toward purpose-built Bitcoin-only surfaces — even if the first one is still in pilot mode — while the circular economies that have been quietly building for years are proving they can handle everything from tourist coffee tours to cyclone relief. The infrastructure is catching up — always-on settlement, simpler merchant stacks, mobile-money bridges — and the numbers back it up: 15,000 BTC a month flowing through Lightning. See you next week.
