If you listened to our last episode, you’ll know that we just launched a merchandise store for the Rollo & Slappy Show at store.mcfloogle.com. It’s exactly what you’d expect from a podcast’s merchandise store but with a bit of a wrinkle: we only accept Bitcoin as payment. Using BTCPay Server, we’re able to host our own payment processor to take both on-chain and Lightning Network payments. The ability for the average person to do this is a huge step for being able to take control of our own finances and commerce and hope that our humble little store can help to move the needle in that direction.

Whether it’s deserved or not, Bitcoin has a reputation for being complicated to use. It feels like a daunting task for a lot of people to set up a wallet and then send and receive Bitcoin. And then on top of that, they hear stuff about second layers like the Lightning Network–no wonder people feel paralyzed!

But we want to help ease those fears and show that using Bitcoin and the Lightning Network isn’t so terrifying to use. And we want to give you a sweet sticker in the process. Let’s get started.

1. Download the Strike App through our referral link, invite.strike.me/F95178. You need to use the referral link so you can get $5 for free (we also get $5 for referring you to the service). Strike is a service like Venmo that allows users to send USD back and forth to each other but also has the ability to pay Bitcoin on-chain and Lightning Network invoices. In other words, you can send USD from your bank and debit card to the app and use it to pay for things in Bitcoin. Strike does the conversion on your behalf (so they take on any tax burdens too, which is nice). What’s great about this is that you don’t have to dip into your Bitcoin stack if you want to pay someone in Bitcoin. This of course also means that you can use it to buy Bitcoin by simply sending funds to a Bitcoin address that you control.
2. Head over to the sticker page on the merchandise store. It’s best to do this on a computer instead of your phone to make the process simpler. Select any size sticker that you want. Once you’ve added it to your cart, proceed to your cart to check out or click the “Checkout” link on the menu. All stickers cost $5 and have free shipping. If you’ve added other items to your cart, you will not have free shipping (and you’ll have an invoice for more than $5), so if you plan to purchase other items, do that separately.
3. Complete the billing details and click the “Proceed to BTCPay” button. You will see the following page:
   
4. Under “Awaiting Payment…”, click “Bitcoin (BTC)” on the “Pay with” row. Click “Bitcoin (Lightning)”. This will show you a Lightning Network invoice instead of an invoice with an on-chain address.
   
5. Open the Strike app on your phone with the $5 from the referral on it. Tap the “Pay” button on the home screen. Then tap the QR code scan button on the top right (circled in red below).
   
6. Scan the Lightning invoice on the BTCPay Server invoice page to send the payment from the Strike app. Strike will figure out the type of payment on its own–there’s no need to provide any sort of instructions for it. Once the payment is routed and received, you will receive a confirmation and you’ll be on your way to receiving an awesome sticker. There is a chance that the payment will fail, but that’s okay, just rescan the QR code and it will go through after another try or two.

Was that so hard? Now, admittedly, it’s not a pure Lightning Network experience since you didn’t technically send Bitcoin–you initiated a process for Strike to send the Lightning payment. So if you want to do that and add another step or two, go download the Breez wallet and create a Lightning invoice to send the funds from Strike and then send the Lightning Network payment from Breez to the invoice to buy the sticker.

On the other hand, you’re more than free to just keep that $5 referral reward for yourself. If you’ve never had Bitcoin before, then you should download a wallet (like Bluewallet), create an on-chain address, and send the Bitcoin from Strike to that address. Play around with it and see how it all works. The most you can lose is $5 that you didn’t have anyway.

Hit us up with any questions or if anything goes wrong. The fastest way to contact me is through Twitter, @RolloMcFloogle. You can also email me at [email protected].