This is a promoted article provided by Pleb Lab.
Written by the pleb @BTCRetriever
Empowering local small businesses with the hardest money known to man has never been easier. The team at, and developers in, Pleb Lab prove that Austin, Texas is ground zero for a bitcoinized U.S. economy. With the seamless experience delivered by the Oshi App, paying in bitcoin becomes easier than ever before.
In just a few short weeks, the folks at Pleb Lab powered by Oshi onboarded 16 local restaurants, food trucks and bars, including Austin favorites III Forks Steakhouse, and a top-notch bar, The Tipsy Alchemist. It spread like wildfire. This effort sparked Bitcoin adoption that will certainly set fire to the city. It all began on South Rainey Street, with the onboarding of Monks Momo to the Oshi App. It culminated in a Block Party of epic proportions.
The night began like any other Austin Bitcoin Club meetup, a gathering of plebs at the startup incubator in downtown Austin, the Capital Factory. Waving his Bitcoin flag, Kyle Murphy led the charge with a roughly 150-man march down from the north end of Congress Avenue, just shy of the capitol building, to Rainey Street. The energy of the night was super charged by the appearance of notable Bitcoin faces such as Parker Lewis, Marty Bent, Ben Carman and even some candidates for Texas public office.
I arrived just after 8:30 p.m. and was stunned to see the massive turnout of local plebs as well as many from out of state. There were people in attendance from California, Colorado, Florida and New York, and likely many more places. I made my way to the back of the crowd to the Happy Lobster Food Truck, where the owner was having a blast dishing out lobster sandwiches made to order. The ordering experience could not have been easier: the happy lobster, regular, maine lobster, drizzle of butter, on a fresh, toasted burger style bun with a side of fries was the obvious choice as it sounded and looked mouthwatering and offered a promotional 50% discount or 50% sats back. I obviously went with the sats-back option.
I placed the order in the Oshi app and was provided a Lightning invoice, which I copied and pasted into my Muun wallet app. And just like that, I had paid and received my sats back in the Oshi app instantly. I walked up to the counter and flashed my order QR code, and let the owner know that I had prepaid in the app. A quick scan and my name was all that was needed to get the order started. I asked the owner how he liked the experience and he could not have been more impressed with the ease of it all.
As we made conversation with new friends, networking through the crowd of people eating happily in the events epicenter, the crowd over time began to dissipate. The plebs sought out other businesses around Rainey Street, ready to spend some sats. I made my way to Tipsy Alchemist where the after party was to take place.
It was incredible to see groups of Bitcoiners each enjoying their beers and cocktails which they ordered through the Oshi app. They were then delivered by the Tipsy Alchemist waitresses. The process seemed to work smoothly. I asked one of the waitresses if she thought it was weird. She was clearly not a Bitcoiner, or at least she wasn’t at the time. She said, “Yeah, it’s a little weird,” but the confidence of the plebs radiated and she realized that maybe there was more to this magical internet money than appears at shallow glance.
The success of the night was captured by CNBC and by a few plebs who have been working hard to create some beautiful new Bitcoin documentaries. Based on metrics seen on Oshi, the total flow of the evening likely recorded over 500 people in attendance, with 398 active new users in that evening alone, and with 4.3 million sats rewarded back. The night will be remembered as the genesis event for Bitcoin adoption in Austin, Texas. From here, it only goes parabolic.