THE LONG ROAD TO BITCOIN PAYMENTS

Summary from the TLDR Crypto newsletter

Spiral, Block's Bitcoin-focused subsidiary, published a report arguing Bitcoin payments infrastructure is production-ready but adoption remains a demand problem, not a technology gap. Lightning runs in production, self-custodial wallets have abstracted most complexity, and over one million US merchants can accept Bitcoin through Square. The strategic concern is that major payment providers are now updating financial rails with stablecoin support, and if those rails exclude Bitcoin natively, switching costs could lock the current payments upgrade cycle into stablecoin infrastructure. Spiral is issuing a call for moonshot ideas to accelerate Bitcoin payment adoption before that window closes.