BOSNIAN_HUNTER

Key takeaways
Measuring real Bitcoin payments is difficult because many transactions go through intermediaries, crypto cards or instant conversions.
Surveys show that a sizable minority of crypto holders have used crypto to buy goods or services at least once but rarely distinguish Bitcoin from other assets.
El Salvador's experience suggests that making Bitcoin legal tender does not automatically lead to everyday retail use, especially when existing payment systems remain convenient.
Payment processor data indicates that crypto payments are more common in online and high-value categories like travel, electronics and digital services.
When Satoshi Nakamoto conceptualized Bitcoin, they thought of it as digital money. However, a question stands today: How many people really use Bitcoin to buy things?
The answer is not simple. Payment data is fragmented, many transactions go through intermediaries, and a rising portion of crypto payments now use stablecoins instead of Bitcoin. Still, exploring surveys, payment processors, app ecosystems and country-level experiments will help you develop a clearer view.
This picture reveals that, while Bitcoin hasn't yet attained widespread everyday adoption, it is used in situations where it solves practical problems better than traditional payment methods.
This article explores what makes measuring Bitcoin payments so complex, what surveys indicate about spending behavior and what the El Salvador experiment reveals about Bitcoin payments. It also discusses what payment processors demonstrate about usage and when Bitcoin payments make sense in real terms.
Why measuring Bitcoin payments is harder than it seems
There are no global statistics disclosing a record of Bitcoin used at checkout. Instead, when it comes to measuring Bitcoin payments, analysts depend on indirect indicators:
Consumer surveys that ask whether people have ever paid with crypto
Payment processor data showing merchant transaction volumes
State-level efforts that aim to make Bitcoin legal tender
App-based systems that support Lightning payments.
Lightning payments are a way to send Bitcoin instantly for a negligible fee. It works like a high-speed express lane on top of the main Bitcoin network, making it suitable for small everyday purchases.
Various factors explain why measuring Bitcoin payments is so complicated:
Merchants usually do not hold the Bitcoin they receive. Payment processors often convert BTC to local currency right away so merchants can avoid associated price risks. From the buyer's viewpoint, they paid with Bitcoin, but on the merchant's end, it resembles a regular bank payment.
Crypto cards make the distinction between Bitcoin payments and regular payments less clear. When someone uses a Visa card backed by crypto, the merchant receives fiat through normal channels. This is spending funded by crypto but not a true Bitcoin payment.
Stablecoins tend to be used more predominantly in crypto payment flows. Tokens linked to fiat currencies, particularly dollars, make up a large share of transaction volume, whether for business payments or cross-border transfers.
For this reason, it is useful to distinguish three separate cases:
Paying directly with Bitcoin onchain or through the Lightning Network
Paying with Bitcoin that is converted to fiat in the background
Paying with other crypto assets, such as stablecoins.
Did you know? In 2010, 10,000 BTC was used to buy two pizzas, marking the first known commercial Bitcoin transaction and proving that the network could be used for real-world trade, not just peer-to-peer transfers.
What surveys suggest about spending habits
Among those who own crypto, spending is not uncommon, but it is not regular either.
A 2025 National Cryptocurrency Association survey found that 39% of crypto holders reported using cryptocurrency to shop for goods and services.
According to GM Global Cryptocurrency Insights, conducted in 2024, 11% of respondents reported actively using crypto for purchases, while 19% expressed interest in using crypto for everyday transactions.
These surveys indicate that a sizable minority of crypto holders have used crypto to make purchases at least once. Yet these surveys tend not to separate Bitcoin from other assets, and they do not track how often it happens.
This difference is important. A person who used crypto once to buy a flight or an online service counts the same as someone who uses it often even though their actions differ greatly in terms of payment adoption.
El Salvador: A real-world test for Bitcoin payments
El Salvador is the only country to have made Bitcoin legal tender nationwide, creating a natural testing ground for everyday payment use.
Despite early incentive programs following the official adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender in 2021, retail adoption in the country did not grow significantly. Only a fraction of citizens used it for regular transactions, and most businesses that accepted BTC reported very low volumes.
Several reasons explain this:
Volatility made pricing difficult for buyers and sellers.
Many users quickly converted government incentives to cash.
Merchants had no compelling reason to encourage Bitcoin payments.
Usability problems persisted for non-technical users.
El Salvador's experience demonstrates that legal status by itself does not build consumer payment habits, especially when existing payment options function well.
The country initially made accepting Bitcoin payments mandatory for private businesses. However, in early 2025, businesses were allowed to decide whether to accept Bitcoin payments as part of an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Bitcoin payments continue to be legal for obligations such as taxes and state bills.
Did you know? In certain countries, Bitcoin kiosks allow users to pay utility bills by converting BTC into local payment networks, turning crypto into an indirect but practical payment bridge.
What payment processors show about actual usage
Crypto payment processors act as a window into merchant activity. Some consistent patterns are visible:
Transaction volumes are higher in online commerce than in physical retail.
Average purchase amounts are often larger than typical retail purchases.
Categories such as travel, luxury goods, digital services and electronics appear more frequently.
These patterns align with basic economic logic. Crypto payments are more attractive for large cross-border payments.
Another emerging trend is that stablecoins account for a major part of crypto payments. Merchants find receiving dollar-pegged tokens simpler to record and convert into their operating currency than holding Bitcoin.
While crypto payments are rising in merchant systems, Bitcoin's share of this activity may not be the largest, whether in business-to-business (B2B) or peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions.
Lightning and app-based payment systems
If Bitcoin is to work as everyday money, the Lightning Network is essential. Lightning enables near-instant, low-cost payments, making small transactions feasible.
But Lightning also brings new measurement difficulties. Many transactions remain off the main blockchain, so total volumes are hard to track.
What you can see instead is platform activity.
You can use apps that facilitate Lightning, allowing users to pay merchants without directly holding Bitcoin. In some setups:
The user pays in local currency.
The app converts it to Bitcoin behind the scenes.
The merchant receives Bitcoin via Lightning.
To the merchant, this counts as a Bitcoin payment. To the user, it may simply feel like a normal QR code scan.
This approach blurs the usual meaning of paying with Bitcoin, but it is significant because it lowers friction.
Did you know? Nonprofits have started using Bitcoin donations to receive funds globally within minutes, especially when traditional wire transfers or card payments face regional shutdowns.
Where Bitcoin payments actually make sense today
Data sets and case studies suggest that Bitcoin payments appear mainly in specific economic niches rather than in everyday consumer spending:
Cross-border small business payments: Exporters, online merchants and freelancers sometimes choose Bitcoin to bypass international bank delays, currency controls or high intermediary fees. Fast settlement and finality matter more than volatility since funds are converted quickly.
Travel and high-value online purchases: Airline tickets, hotel bookings and electronics often appear in crypto payment reports. These are cases where card fees add up and international buyers are common.
Donations and censorship-resistant funding: Nonprofits, activists and humanitarian groups use Bitcoin when traditional payment systems are unreliable or politically restricted.
Remittances in certain corridors: Stablecoins lead most crypto remittance flows, but Bitcoin still plays a role where local on-ramps exist and recipients can convert easily.
Gift card and voucher systems: Many people use Bitcoin by buying gift cards or prepaid vouchers indirectly. This is not direct merchant acceptance, but it is a real way consumers spend.
Local circular economies: Small communities around Bitcoin meetups, tourism areas or coworking spaces can demonstrate local usage. These cases are genuine but remain small in scale.
So, how many people actually pay with Bitcoin?
There is no exact global number for Bitcoin payments, and any precise user count should be viewed with caution.
The evidence supports the following points:
Among crypto holders, a substantial minority has used crypto for payments, though not always regularly.
Everyday Bitcoin payment use has remained low, even in countries that encouraged it.
Merchant acceptance exists, but payment volumes are concentrated in certain sectors and regions rather than broad retail.
A rising portion of crypto payments now uses stablecoins instead of Bitcoin, particularly for business transactions.
Bitcoin functions today more as specialized payment infrastructure than as universal consumer money.
Practical milestones for Bitcoin adoption
Future adoption of Bitcoin as a payment method will likely depend less on theory and more on the development of infrastructure layers.
Key indicators to watch include:
Apps that hide crypto wallets and private keys from users
Merchant tools that add Lightning without added complexity
Clear regulations on crypto payment settlement and accounting
Competition between Bitcoin systems and stablecoin networks.
If paying with Bitcoin becomes as easy as scanning a QR code in a familiar app, usage may increase, depending on regulatory and market conditions.

The latest on-chain sequence deserves attention.
Bitcoin mining difficulty just jumped 12.04%, pushing network difficulty to 144.39T. That increase lifted the estimated average production cost to roughly $44,823, compressing miner profit margins to about 51.3%.
When margins contract that quickly, behavior shifts.
Miners don’t speculate — they manage cash flow.
On February 20, roughly 9,354 BTC moved from miner wallets to exchanges. The timing aligned almost perfectly with price testing the $68.3K resistance zone — a logical area for profit realization and operational coverage.
That’s mechanical selling pressure.

The Immediate Countermove: $933M Stablecoin Inflow
At the exact moment miner supply increased, a net inflow of approximately $930M+ in USDT hit exchanges.
That liquidity:
• Absorbed sell pressure rapidly
• Prevented immediate downside expansion
• Created visible price rigidity
On the surface, that looks constructive.
The Stablecoin Supply Ratio (SSR) remains compressed near 9.6–9.8, historically low levels. That suggests substantial potential buying power relative to Bitcoin’s market cap.
Liquidity exists.
But intent matters more than size.
The Critical Question: Offensive or Defensive Capital?
There are two very different interpretations of this $933M inflow:
Scenario 1 — Offensive Accumulation
Capital entered to build exposure.
Liquidity absorbed supply with intent to push price higher.
Breakout potential remains intact.
Scenario 2 — Defensive Absorption
Capital entered only to neutralize forced miner selling.
Liquidity was reactive, not proactive.
No follow-through momentum develops.
If it’s defensive liquidity, the risk becomes clear:
Once absorption stops, and if miner pressure persists, the bid weakens quickly.

Why This Matters Now
A low SSR signals available firepower.
But liquidity must convert into expansion, not just stabilization.
If capital absorbs supply yet price fails to:
• Break pivot resistance
• Expand volume sustainably
• Establish higher-high structure
Then the market becomes fragile again.
Defense without offense leads to exhaustion.
What To Watch Next
The key variable isn’t whether liquidity exists.
It’s whether that liquidity transitions from absorption mode to expansion mode.
If new inflows continue and price pushes through structural resistance, this episode becomes accumulation.
If inflows fade and miner supply reappears, support could thin rapidly.
Right now, the market is balanced between resilience and vulnerability.
Liquidity showed up.
Now we wait to see whether it attacks — or simply shields.
$BTC #Bitcoin #Crypto

Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Increase: The Silent Adjustment That Keeps the Network Alive
Introduction: The Metric Most People Ignore
When people talk about Bitcoin, they usually focus on price action, institutional inflows, ETFs, or halving cycles, but very few stop to understand the mechanism quietly working in the background that keeps the entire system stable. Mining difficulty is not flashy, it does not trend on social platforms, and it rarely becomes the headline of mainstream financial news, yet it is one of the most important components of Bitcoin’s architecture.
A mining difficulty increase is not just a technical adjustment buried in blockchain data dashboards, it is the network responding to real-world pressure, economic shifts, hardware upgrades, energy constraints, and global competition among miners. It is Bitcoin adapting in real time without asking permission from anyone.
To understand Bitcoin properly, you need to understand difficulty, because this single variable influences miner profitability, network security, supply issuance rhythm, and even long-term structural confidence in the system.
What Mining Difficulty Actually Means
Mining difficulty is Bitcoin’s built-in self-correction mechanism designed to keep block production steady regardless of how much computing power is participating in the network. Bitcoin is programmed to produce a new block roughly every ten minutes, and that timing is not random, because it influences transaction confirmations, fee dynamics, and the long-term issuance schedule of new coins.
However, miners are constantly entering and exiting the network. New hardware comes online, inefficient machines are retired, electricity prices fluctuate, facilities experience outages, and entire regions may see shifts in mining activity due to regulatory or environmental factors. If Bitcoin did not adjust for these constant changes, blocks would begin arriving too quickly or too slowly, which would disrupt the entire rhythm of the network.
Difficulty exists to prevent that imbalance. Every 2016 blocks, which is approximately every two weeks, the network evaluates how long it took to mine the previous set of blocks. If those blocks were mined faster than expected, the protocol increases difficulty. If they were mined slower than expected, the protocol reduces difficulty. The goal is always the same, which is to maintain an average block interval of about ten minutes.
Why Difficulty Increases Happen
A difficulty increase occurs when miners collectively produce blocks faster than the intended pace during the previous adjustment window. That speed indicates that the network’s total computational power, known as hashrate, has grown.
Hashrate represents the combined processing power that miners are contributing to secure the network and compete for block rewards. When hashrate rises, it means more machines are operating or existing machines are running more efficiently. Faster block production triggers the automatic recalibration mechanism, and difficulty rises to restore equilibrium.
The increase itself is not emotional, political, or strategic. It is purely mathematical, yet the forces driving hashrate growth are deeply tied to economic incentives and real-world infrastructure.
The Real-World Forces Behind Difficulty Growth
Hardware Innovation and Fleet Upgrades
Mining hardware evolves rapidly. Each new generation of ASIC machines becomes more efficient, producing more hashes per unit of electricity consumed. When large mining operations deploy new hardware at scale, the network can experience significant increases in computational output even if the number of physical machines remains similar. This efficiency surge accelerates block production and leads to upward difficulty adjustments.
Expansion of Industrial Mining Operations
Large-scale mining firms frequently expand their infrastructure by building new facilities, securing long-term energy contracts, and scaling hosting agreements. When major expansion phases are completed and powered on simultaneously, the network experiences a noticeable rise in hashrate. The difficulty adjustment mechanism reacts accordingly, ensuring that the pace of block production remains stable despite this surge in capacity.
Energy Market Conditions
Mining is deeply connected to energy markets, and electricity pricing plays a central role in determining which operations remain profitable. During periods when energy becomes cheaper or more abundant, miners are incentivized to increase activity. Conversely, during periods of grid stress or high energy prices, some miners temporarily curtail operations. When curtailed machines return to operation, hashrate can rebound sharply, often resulting in a noticeable difficulty increase during the next adjustment cycle.
Price Incentives and Market Cycles
Bitcoin’s price also influences mining participation. When price rises significantly, revenue per block increases in fiat terms, allowing miners to justify running older equipment or accelerating expansion plans. More active participation increases competition, which ultimately pushes difficulty higher. However, price alone does not guarantee sustained difficulty growth, because profitability also depends on operational efficiency and energy costs.
The Competitive Impact on Miners
When difficulty increases, competition intensifies. Each individual miner earns a smaller share of the total block rewards unless they expand their own hashrate proportionally. This dynamic creates constant pressure within the industry.
Since the most recent halving reduced the block subsidy to 3.125 BTC per block, miners have become even more sensitive to difficulty changes. Their revenue now depends not only on block rewards but also on transaction fees, operational efficiency, and electricity expenses.
If difficulty rises without a corresponding rise in Bitcoin’s price or transaction fees, profit margins compress. Efficient operators with access to low-cost energy are better positioned to survive these conditions, while weaker or inefficient miners may shut down equipment or exit the market entirely.
This competitive filtering process strengthens the overall network over time, because the most resilient operators remain active while unsustainable models are gradually removed.
Network Security and Structural Strength
A sustained increase in mining difficulty generally reflects higher hashrate, and higher hashrate makes the network more secure. The greater the total computational power protecting the blockchain, the more expensive and impractical it becomes to attempt malicious attacks.
From a structural perspective, difficulty growth represents capital investment, infrastructure development, and long-term commitment from participants who are willing to allocate resources toward securing the network. While this does not directly predict short-term price movements, it reinforces Bitcoin’s durability as a decentralized system.
The Misconception Around Bullish Signals
Many market participants interpret difficulty increases as automatically bullish, assuming that rising competition among miners signals confidence in Bitcoin’s future. While there can be correlation during strong market cycles, difficulty is not a sentiment indicator. It is a mechanical response to computational power.
Difficulty can increase during periods of structural growth, but it can also rise following temporary disruptions when miners return online after outages. It can rise during price rallies, and it can rise during margin compression environments where competition intensifies even as profitability tightens. Context always matters.
The Self-Correcting Design That Defines Bitcoin
What makes mining difficulty truly remarkable is not the number itself but the design behind it. Bitcoin does not rely on a central authority to decide how hard mining should be. It measures its own performance through block timing and adjusts automatically according to predefined rules.
This self-correcting mechanism ensures that the network maintains predictable issuance and stable block intervals regardless of external conditions. It allows Bitcoin to absorb hardware innovation, energy disruptions, economic cycles, and geographic shifts without compromising its core structure.
Difficulty increases are not dramatic events in isolation, but they represent adaptation. They show that the network is responding to pressure rather than breaking under it.
Final Reflection
A Bitcoin mining difficulty increase is not just a statistic on a chart. It is the network tightening its standards because miners collectively performed above the target pace. It reflects competition, capital allocation, and resilience operating beneath the surface.
While price movements dominate headlines, mining difficulty tells a quieter story about the health and sustainability of the system. It reminds us that Bitcoin is not driven by emotion or opinion but by rules embedded in code.
If you truly want to understand Bitcoin beyond speculation, you have to look deeper than candles and headlines. You have to watch the mechanisms that keep it balanced. Mining difficulty is one of those mechanisms, and every increase is a signal that the system is alive, adapting, and continuing forward.
#BTCMiningDifficultyIncrease

Pepe's price action is displaying early signs of a bullish reversal after reclaiming a key support level with a strong bullish engulfing candle.
Key Insights
Pepe’s price reclaiming a key support level indicates the potential end of selling pressure and a possible structural shift.
A bullish engulfing candle has disrupted the pattern of lower highs, signaling a change in short-term momentum.
The next major milestone is reclaiming the Value Area Low (VAL), which could open the path for upside movement toward resistance levels.
Pepe’s price action is showing initial signs of a potential structural recovery following a sharp dip below key support levels. At first, the market seemed to be breaking down, but the price quickly reversed, invalidating the apparent breakdown. This rapid recovery has led many traders to consider the possibility that a local bottom may be forming.
The recent drop below a high-timeframe support level appeared to be a deviation — a brief move below the key level designed to trigger stop-loss orders and capture liquidity. However, this deviation proved short-lived, as Pepe swiftly reclaimed the support. This quick reversal suggests that the bearish breakdown lacked sustainability and that selling pressure may have become exhausted.
Bullish Engulfing Candle Confirms Reversal
After reclaiming support, a powerful bullish engulfing candle emerged, confirming the change in market sentiment. This candle fully engulfed several previous bearish candles, indicating strong buying interest and marking a potential shift in short-term momentum. The bullish engulfing pattern also broke the ongoing sequence of lower highs — a defining feature of the prior bearish structure — hinting at the early stages of a bullish reversal.
For the bullish case to hold, it is essential that Pepe maintains its position above the high-timeframe support level. The price needs to remain above this level in the upcoming sessions to confirm that demand is sufficient to overcome any remaining selling pressure. Should the price fall back below support without a successful reclaim, the downside risk would likely return.
Value Area Low (VAL) Key for Upside Potential
The next important technical level for Pepe is the Value Area Low (VAL), which marks the lower boundary of the current fair value range. Successfully reclaiming the VAL would indicate solid price acceptance within this range and could set the stage for an upward rotation toward the next significant resistance level. This reclaim might drive price toward the Point of Control (POC), representing a major upside target.

$BTC #WhenWillCLARITYActPass #TokenizedRealEstate