GrowBits: Gardening with Bitcoin

GrowCake
6 min readAug 18, 2022

GrowCake, a mobile app food cooperative, launches September 2022 (v0.5 aka version 0.5). v0.5 is the beta version, only available in Minneapolis/St Paul through our ‘Direct Action Campaign’; Local Gardeners helping Local Food Deserts. What’s the Gardeners’ incentive? Free Bitcoin!

Let’s not mince words; the American economy is collapsing because it is no longer functional. Full stop.

Why? Because Americans citizens are no longer functioning like Americans. Entrepreneurship is dead and has been replaced with Pseudo-Scientifc Whiney Wokeness.

Who would’ve guessed that the ‘Generation of Participation Awards’ would grow up to become such selfish, corporate shills?! How could anyone have seen this coming? Ugh..

Who could’ve predicted that raising a generation to 1) be deathly afraid of failure, 2) measure success in terms of degrees and universities and 3) believe the ‘gold standard’ career is middle management at a corporation of consumption, would be a massive disaster for the national and international economy?!

The answer? LITERALLY ANYONE WITH A PULSE!

Awake, Not Woke

GrowCake is committed to being Awake, Not Woke. This is an important distinction within our company’s mission because it, quite literally, differentiates us from every other organization in America. Being Awake means “Unapologetically helping your Communities by any means necessary”. The opposite of being Woke, woke essentially meaning “Marxism”.

We believe the most important factor of the ‘Awake, Not Woke’ movement is basing community guidelines on merit, not hype. Execution, not sizzle. Sovereignty, not authoritarianism.

In order to fulfill these ‘Awake, Not Woke’ tenets, we believe it is important to announce our merchant partnership with Strike x Shopify enabling Bitcoin payments. Sovereign, for sure. Private, absolutely. Ownership, 100%.

What we know Bitcoin can do *right now* for the Proliferation of Gardening, Urban Farming, & HyperLocal Food…

1. Eliminating 3% credit card fees on all transactions! Increasing revenue +3%, based on current volume alone, is a big win.
2. Consumer Trust, Transparency, and Liquidity
3. Access to 24/7 global marketplace

GrowCake Enables the Bitcoin Lightning Network via Strike Payments

Strike, a digital payments platform built on Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, today announced an integration with e-commerce company Shopify.

“Now eligible U.S. Shopify merchants will be able to receive bitcoin payments from customers globally as U.S. dollars,” announced Strike CEO Jack Mallers speaking at the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami.

A Forbes Under 30 alum, Mallers has also noted that Chicago-based Strike partnered with Blockchain 50 lister, the world’s largest point-of-sale (POS) supplier, and payments firm Blackhawk.

The integration offers an alternative to traditional card networks such as Visa and MasterCard by leveraging the Lightning Network, a second layer built on top of the bitcoin blockchain that allows users to send or receive cryptocurrency quickly and cheaply by moving transactions off of the main blockchain.

“The service will be accessible to any consumer in the world with a Lightning Network-enabled wallet, including more than 70 million CashApp users,” Mallers said.

The announcement underscores the growing adoption of the Lightning Network. Earlier in the day, Robinhood unveiled plans to integrate the solution into its technology stack, joining firms like cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, Twitter and Block.

Bitcoin, Decentralization, & the Urban Farming Community

Every dollar counts right now. When times get tough, only the creative and hungry survive. Meanwhile everyone in our lives are fixated on the bread and circuses, we know it’s time to secure your family and community by optimizing your company.

The world is sliding into recession as politicization hits an all-time high. Not a productive outlook in the near-term.

“Bitcoin isn’t just about sending money. It has many features and opens many possibilities that the community is still exploring. Here are some of the technologies currently being researched, and in some cases, being turned into real products and services. The most interesting uses of Bitcoin are probably still to be discovered.”- Bitcoin.org

Control against fraud

An unprecedented level of security is possible with Bitcoin. The network provides users with protection against most prevalent types of fraud like chargebacks or unwanted charges, and bitcoins are impossible to counterfeit. Users can backup or encrypt their wallets. Hardware wallets make it very difficult to steal or lose money. Bitcoin is designed to allow its users to have complete control over their money.

Global accessibility

With Bitcoin, all payments in the world can be fully interoperable. Bitcoin allows any bank, business or individual to securely send and receive payments anywhere at any time, with or without a bank account. Bitcoin is available in a large number of countries that still remain out of reach for most payment systems due to their own limitations. Bitcoin increases global access to commerce and it can help international trades to flourish.

Cost efficiency

With the use of cryptography, secure payments are possible without slow and costly middlemen. A Bitcoin transaction can be much cheaper than its alternatives and be completed in a short time. This means Bitcoin holds some potential to become a common way to transfer any currency in the future. Bitcoin could also play a role in reducing poverty in many countries by cutting high transaction fees on workers’ salary.

Tips and donations

Bitcoin has been a particularly efficient solution for tips and donations. Sending a payment only requires one click and receiving donations can be as simple as displaying a QR code. Donations can be visible for the public, giving increased transparency for non-profit organizations. In cases of emergencies such as natural disasters, Bitcoin donations could contribute to a faster international response.

Crowdfunding

Bitcoin can be used to run Kickstarter-like crowdfunding campaigns, in which individuals pledge money to a project that is taken from them only if enough pledges are received to meet the target. Such assurance contracts are processed by the Bitcoin protocol, which prevents a transaction from taking place until all conditions have been met. Learn more about the technology behind crowdfunding.

Micro payments

Imagine listening to Internet radio paid by the second, viewing web pages with a small tip for each ad not shown, or buying bandwidth from a WiFi hotspot by the kilobyte. Bitcoin is efficient enough to make all of these ideas possible. Learn more about the technology behind Bitcoin micropayments or about future upgrades currently being designed and implemented to make micropayments more accessible.

Dispute mediation

Bitcoin can be used to develop innovative dispute mediation services using multiple signatures. Such services could make it possible for a third party to approve or reject a transaction in case of disagreement between the other parties without having control of their money. Since these services would be compatible with any user and merchant using Bitcoin, this would likely lead to free competition and higher quality standards.

Multi-signature accounts

Multiple signatures allow a transaction to be accepted by the network only if a certain number of a defined group of persons agree to sign the transaction. This could be used by a board of directors to prevent any member to spend parts of their treasury without other members’ consent. This can also be used by banks to prevent theft by blocking payments above a threshold if the user does not provide additional credentials.

Trust and integrity

Bitcoin offers solutions to many of the trust problems that plague banks. With selective accounting transparency, digital contracts, and irreversible transactions, Bitcoin can be used as a ground to restore trust and agreement. Crooked banks cannot cheat the system to make a profit at the expense of other banks or the public. A future in which major banks would support Bitcoin could help to reinstate integrity and trust in financial institutions.

Resilience and decentralization

By way of decentralization, Bitcoin created a different type of payment network with an increased level of resilience and redundancy. Bitcoin can handle millions of dollars in trades without requiring military protection. With no central point of failure such as a data center, attacking the network is difficult. Bitcoin could represent an interesting step forward in securing local and global financial systems.

Flexible transparency

All Bitcoin transactions are public and transparent and the identity of the people behind transactions are private by default. This allows individuals and organizations to work with flexible transparency rules. For instance, a business can choose to reveal certain transactions and balances only to certain employees just like a non-profit organization is free to allow the public to see how much they receive in daily and monthly donations.

Automated solutions

Automated services usually have to deal with costs and limitations of cash, or credit card payments. This includes all kinds of vending machines, from train tickets to soda machines. Bitcoin is suited to be used in a new generation of automated services to cut their operating costs. Imagine self-driving taxis or a store where you can pay for your purchases without waiting in line. Many ideas are possible.

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GrowCake

“When the Going Gets Weird, the Weird Turn Pro” - Hunter S Thompson