TL;DR at bottom
I think we need to seriously examine our path forward to growing the community. I believe we should focus less on getting businesses to accept BCH and focus more on living on BCH, and getting other people to become full time users. I've been moving towards living on BCH for some time now. Let me go over the benefits to the community, the benefits to the user, and the methods for accomplishing this.
Firstly, without a strong user-base, companies accepting BCH will do us no good. Sure, YOU can spend it more places, but that business will not get much more traffic because of accepting the coin. They are likely to drop the practice once they've lost interest. Imagine invading a country. Do you start by invading the capital? No. Do you start by invading the edges? Even still, no, you start by building an army. We need an army of users if we want to hold any ground we take. To be clear, what I am saying is that if we want businesses to continue accepting BCH, we need a strong, large userbase.
Next I will go over the methods I use for living on BCH and their benefit. I primarily use 3rd party services such as gyft or even the Shift card (https://www.shiftpayments.com/card). Only a couple of the people I do business with accept it directly, but that's fine and it still does the BCH cause good.
Get your coins:
The way I get my coins is simple, and I imagine most people may do it this way in the USA. I have a recurring buy in my Coinbase account on the same day as I get paid my USD. This amount is the same amount as all bills and other expenses I pay in BCH, plus about $200 a month for recreational activities or purchases. This comes out to about $500 every two weeks.
- I pay my electric/insurance/waterbills/gas/Groceries via the Shift card. See my reasons why this is beneficial below.
- If a business is on Gyft, I use Gyft for purchases, or giftcards.bitcoin.com if I know at least half an hour ahead of time. Gyft is instant though.
- I eat at menufy (https://www.menufy.com/), since you can buy food via BCH using menufy at most restaurants that have a menufy website.
- I get my internet via Calyx. Calyx is actually a non-profit which offers a 4G wireless modem for members who donate enough ($500, good for 1 year) with a technically unlimited data plan. They accept donations via BitPay.
- I buy my coffee/snacks from cryptomercado.com.
- I also browse places like OpenBazaar or https://acceptbitcoin.com/ occasionally for new places or services.
- Edit: I forgot purse.io! I frequent there Also I don't follow these rules strictly. Don't feel that you must.
I know some people think there's no point in using BCH if the receiver converts it straight to fiat or some other coin, but I think this is a wrong assumption. I've covered this a bit and I cover it more below.
Why I use the Shift Card:
There are advantages to the BCHer who uses the shift card. Firstly, using the shift card (which is a debit card that can link to any coinbase asset you have) allows you to segment your money. If you don't have a credit card, this protects the money in your bank account while only putting your coinbase funds at risk of fraud if someone steals your card information. I keep the funds in my coinbase account low in order to combat this threat. Next, holding value in crypto rather than dollars resists entities from stealing from you via inflation. Third, holding crypto in any way at any time increases demand ever so slightly. One convenient thing about the Shift card is you can just send money from your own wallet to coinbase whenever you know you are going to go make a purchase. Best to do this ahead of time.
Why I use Gyft:
There are advantages to the BCHer who uses Gyft. Gyft is a company (who has a convenient mobile app) that sells gift cards for various retailers. Check out their website to see where all you'll be able to spend BCH via Gyft. The advantages include directly holding your coins with your own keys and just completing a BitPay invoice when you want to buy something. This method has all the advantages of the shift card plus holding your own keys and subverting the VISA system, thus avoiding a degree of surveillance.
I believe if enough people used BCH wherever they could, the demand for the coin would be higher, and
TL;DR:
I use the Shift card and the Gyft app, along with a couple other things, to try to live on BCH.
PS: If you do this, be sure you have an emergency fund big enough to cover any market crashes so that you can still, you know, eat.
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/a3c4zc/how_i_live_on_bch_and_why_more_people_should/
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