TL;DR: “Australia is allegedly home to over 400 physical stores that accept Bitcoin (BTC) and Lightning Network as a payment option,” Hayden Otto, CEO of BitcoinBCH.com began. “Unfortunately, the majority of these BTC stores are fake.” Otto claims to have discovered point of sale (PoS) company TravelByBit is presenting false merchant adoption numbers.

TravelByBit Accused of Presenting False Merchant Adoption Stats

Otto cites the TravelByBit CEO who, back in 2018, appeared to claim the cryptocurrency PoS company had “400 stores taking payments in crypto across every major city in Australia.” A quick surf to the TravelByBit website confirmed their use of that 400 number, reading, “Over 400 merchants across Australia accept [BTC] and other major cryptocurrencies” as of March 12, 2020 … nearly two years later.

BitcoinBCH.com is on the front lines of crypto adoption in Australia, and pains to document its gains, slogging merchant-by-merchant successes. They’ve published detailed reports going back to shortly after their historic Bitcoin Cash City Conference in September of last year. They also have an ongoing rivalry with TravelByBit over dueling statistics and proof of adoption. In late 2019, for example, Otto published a video showing how merchants accepting BTC were easily gamed by way of reliably reversing transactions using unmodified wallets in common, and TravelByBit’s PoS was used as prime evidence. The competing PoS company was so unnerved by Otto’s revelations, its CEO stomped, “We will be dropping both [(BTC)] and Bitcoin Cash” in retaliation (TravelByBit continues to support BTC, however).

In his latest exposing of TravelByBit, Otto insisted, “TravelByBit lists only 206 stores, not the over 400 stores claimed to be using their platform, and 8 of these 206 are described as ‘online.'” He points to its merchant map showing “only 201 physical locations which [are] also inconsistent with the over 400 stores claimed.” If those anomalies were not enough, Otto also stressed how through the last half-year, “TravelByBit processed virtually no BTC transactions across their stores.”

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