There is âgrassroots evidenceâ that âAmerica is adopting Bitcoin,â according to Clay Graham, founder of Rapaygo and a Bitcoin Lightning Network (LN) enthusiast.Â
At a Bitcoin Lightning festival held in Portland, United States over the weekend, the Bitcoin LN clocked more than $200 (four million Sats) in just three hours.
Hailed as âPuddle Town on Lightning Rails,â Portlandâs Bitcoin Party was a space where âvendors, food carts, artists all accept Bitcoin.â Graham told Cointelegraph that there was also a âfood cart podâ that acted as a âbusiness attraction destination to Bitcoin fans who want a Bitcoin beach type experience.â

Fiat money was of course, not allowed, and popular Bitcoiner Dennis Porter MCâd at the festival. In this tweet he showed how easy it is to pay for goods using the LN:
I paid ZERO fees to accept #Bitcoin instantly for my shirts. Can Visa do that? pic.twitter.com/34haSgIB6G
â Dennis Porter (@Dennis_Porter_) March 28, 2022
Graham told Cointelegraph that the event was judged to be a success if âpeople could spend Bitcoin freely as they would fiat.â In total there were:
“50 people spending over 4M sats in 3 hours, 3 food carts and 7 vendors selling anything they want while even supporting use cases like ‘tipping the DJ’.”
Graham concluded that the LN made payments at the party a breeze: it was âeasier than cash, all cheaper than cards and having tons of fun on a sunny day.â

A near-instant layer-2 payment network built on top of the Bitcoin base chain, the LN is ideal for a party setting. Pubinno, the company behind the Lightning pour a pint tool was built with festivals in mind, while LNBits build open-source payments tools like split payments tools and offline solutions to make payments tech even smoother.Â

Tiago Vasconcelos, cofounder of Aceita Bitcoin and an LNBits FOSS contributor told Cointelegraph:
âWith the LN the only thing you need is an internet connection! No card swipe hardware, no need for cash, no need for changing currency [even] if the venue is international and with lots of foreign people.â
Built on the LN, LNBitsâ free open source solutions are closely competing with Visa and Mastercard. Vasconcelos adds that the ânetwork fees are near to zero, or even zero, and ultimately are paid by the customer, not the merchant!â Plus, âusing LN reduces the costs, and risks, of using Visa or Mastercard.â
Ultimately, some Bitcoiners are even keen for scammers to learn about the LN, and for Graham:
âThe LN is so fast and transactions can clear as fast as faster than cards so both the buyer and seller don’t feel that âwhere has my money goneâ feeling when they are just trying to have fun on a sunny day.â

Related: Shitcoins are âgarbageâ: Bitcoin-only brokers on freedom and finance
Plus, itâs a payment network that supports âartists, people who made stuff with their own hands and small businesses.â And thereâs more of a local connection to moneyâand more sovereigntyâbecause for the Portland Bitcoin Party, âthe nodes that routed payments for the LN are mostly made liquid in Portland.â
Following Portland’s success, Graham added that âKansas city has already reached out on how to boilerplate this party,” using his company’s solutions.Â
âRemember that within a year of Bitcoin beach el Salvador announced legal tender. Now we can have Bitcoin beach in every town.â