Spending Bitcoin Locally: PlanterSam

By Corey San Diego

On Memorial Day I took my family to visit PlanterSam (website, google map) owned by my new friend, Morteza. We were in need of a new house plant or two and I was previously connected to Morteza through some local Bitcoiners so of course I wanted to support him and practice spending Bitcoin.

I've patronized a few businesses in person, and many online. There are many ways to accept Bitcoin, each varying in sovereignty, reliability, and difficulty. Luckily Morteza has an IT background (he also has a side business educating merchants interested in accepting Bitcoin). He even has a Bitcoin section of his website that shows his customers how to use it in store.

My wife Jenna getting some botanical education

This shows in his setup; he has a self-hosted, lightning-supported BTCPay Server implementation. This was really exciting for me because I have my own self-sovereign spending setup with Zeus connected to a node at home. This is a match made in sovereign heaven, but I am not the most proficient lightning node steward so I expected a hiccup or two.

Luckily right before I left my house he sent me his node information so I created a channel with him (or published a transaction to create one but didn't wait for it to confirm) and was on my way. It confirmed while I was driving and, as you can see in the video below, worked brilliantly.

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We chatted a bit about his experiences as a Bitcoin merchant. I've been convinced that a truly sovereign merchant setup is currently only accessible to those who are technical and passionate enough about Bitcoin (or have IT support). He echoed this but optimistically opined that this will only grow in the future.

Check out PlanterSam online or in person, buy some stuff with Bitcoin, and support a local business!

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