May 2025 Update

Global Metrics#

Here are the top stats from the last period:

Total Bitcoin-accepting merchants: 15,306 → 16,284
Recently verified (1y): 7,540 → 7,803 (the rest of our dataset is slowly rotting; help us before it's too late!)
Avg. days since last verification: 398 → 405 (more mappers, please)
Merchants boosted: 22 (for a total of 4,325 days, someone is feeling generous)
Comments posted: 34

Find current stats over at the 👉 BTC Map Dashboard.

Merchant Adoption#

Steak n’ Shake#

The US 🇺🇸 is a massive country, yet its BTC Map footprint has been lagging relative to other countries ... that is until now!

In what came as a nice surprise to our Shadowy Supertaggers 🫠, the Steak ’n Shake chain began accepting Bitcoin payments across hundreds of its locations nationwide (with some international locations too).

According to CoinDesk, the rollout has been smooth, with users reporting seamless transactions powered by Speed.

This marks a significant step towards broader Bitcoin adoption in the US. Now to drop the capital gains tax on cheesburgers!

SPAR Switzerland#

In other chain/franchise adoption news, the first SPAR supermarket in Switzerland 🇨🇭 to begin accepting Bitcoin was this one in Zug. It was quickly followed by this one in Rossrüti and this one in Kreuzlingen, in what is believed to be part of a wider roll-out plan within the country powered by DFX's Open CryptoPay.

That said, we believe the OG SPAR crown goes to SPAR City in Arnhem Bitcoin City!

New Features#

Merchant Comments in the Web App#

Web App users are now on par with Android users in that they can both see and make comments on merchants.

This is powered by our tweaked API that enables anyone to make a comment as long as they pass the satswall fee of 500 sats. This helps keep spam manageable and ensure quality comments.

And just in case you were wondering what the number count was on the merchant pins - yep, they're comments!

Map showing merchant pins with user comment numbers.

Here is an 👉 Example merchant page with comments.

Merchant Page Design Tweaks#

To support the now trio of actions (Verify, Boost & Comment) on the merchant page, we've re-jigged the design a little to make things a little clearer.

What do you think?

Technical#

Codebase Refactoring#

Thanks to Hannes’s contributions, we’ve made progress in cleaning-up the Web App's codebase and completing long overdue maintenance. Whilst often thankless tasks, these caretaking activities help immensely with long-term maintainability enabling us to confidently build new features.

Auth System Upgrades#

The old auth system was held together with duct tape and prayers, and we’re working on a more robust authentication system to support future public API access. Updates include:

Password hashing
Bearer token support
Improved security practices

More enhancements are in progress and we'll update you in the next blog post.

Better API Documentation#

Instead of relying on tribal knowledge, we're finally getting around to writing actual docs (with the help/hindrance of LLMs). The "move fast, break everything" era is over; now we move slightly slower and break slightly less. Progress!

Database Improvements#

We use SQLite, which works well but it requires careful handling in async Rust environments. So now we're untangling this mess to avoid accidental blocking queries (and the ensuing dumpster fires).

Backup System Enhancements#

BTC Map data comes in three layers of fragility:

Merchants (backed up by OS - the big boys handle this)
Non-OSM stuff (areas, users, etc. - currently stored on a napkin)
External systems (Lightning node, submission tickets - pray to Satoshi)

We're now forcing two core members to backup everything, because redundancy is good.

Credits#

Thanks to everyone who directly contributed to the project this period:

Support Us#

There are many ways in which you can support us:

Become a Shadowy Supertagger and help maintain your local area or pitch-in with the never-ending global effort.
Consider a zapping this note or make a donation to the to the project here.