Noid believes Bitcoin payments will be a boost in Thailand's tourism industry

Golden Finance News - Relevant research shows that tourism is the second largest industry in Thailand and the largest industry in Pattaya. The number of tourists received by this seaside town has reached 8 million every year.

Customers who pay with Bitcoin in Thailand are usually from different countries. Image source: Golden Finance

Customers who pay with Bitcoin are usually from different countries, but American tourists are the most frequent users of Bitcoin. You can easily find tourists from 25 countries every day at Pattaya Beer Garden.

This makes Pattaya Beer Garden the best place to observe the global trend of Bitcoin adoption. Peter Noid is the operator of Pattaya Beer Garden, a large local restaurant and bar in Pattaya, Thailand.

——Noid has seen many young Russian couples in his store, as well as some slightly older Chinese, and the latter usually choose to pay with Bitcoin.

——Many places in Thailand accept Bitcoin payments, so this is definitely a good place for Bitcoiners. Noid met many Bitcoiners and had great exchanges with them.

There are even many tourists who come to this bar specifically to consume because they heard that they can pay with Bitcoin here.

Credit card fraud

Credit cards are accepted in Thailand, as in most countries. However, Noid said many tourists are reluctant to use credit cards because of the many credit card fraud incidents in Thailand.

"For me, Bitcoin payment is the first choice, but most of our customers have not heard of this digital currency. Bitcoin should be popularized among tourists as a convenient and secure payment method," said Noid.

Therefore, Pattaya Beer Garden accepts zero-confirmation Bitcoin transactions.

Other options are not practical in the retail industry. Since accepting Bitcoin payments, they have never had a problem and have completed more than 1,000 transactions.

Bitcoin Popularization Dilemma

Noid said that Bitcoin's popularity had been growing here until the 'don't buy coffee with Bitcoin' message came out. The number of Bitcoin transactions has been stagnant over the past year.

Noid added that using Bitcoin to buy coffee or beer might not be an important economic function, but it would make Bitcoin more real in people's minds.

He believes that the current deadlock in the scaling debate is likely the "culprit" that has a negative impact on the popularity of Bitcoin payments.

“To be specific, high fees and long confirmation times will definitely affect adoption. That’s what frustrates me,” Noid said.

He went on to say that he would have liked to persuade other merchants to accept Bitcoin payments, but that he no longer wanted to do so, and that he was not willing to explain to them the current impasse in the Bitcoin system.

—Noid fully understands that Bitcoin’s “on-chain scalability cannot reach the standards of Visa or Mastercard,” and believes that “second-layer solutions are likely the best answer to the problem.” However, he also said that Bitcoin also needs a quick fix.

He believes that Bitcoin needs to expand on-chain immediately to promote the continued popularity of Bitcoin and attract more consumers, regardless of what expansion plans are added later.