Merchant adoption of bitcoin was a lie perpetuated by the community in order to convince people that bitcoin was about to go mainstream. The bitcoin cult needed the aurora of legitimacy that real economy merchants provided. By misleading people with claims of 40,000+ merchants 'adopting' bitcoin, the cultists could portray bitcoin has having legitimate uses.

With Bitpay falling apart this curtain of deception has now been pulled back, revealing a toxic community hell bent on getting rich at the expense of others.

BitPay was a one way fiat exchange service. They did not eliminate banking costs but instead absorbed them. Bitcoiners proudly pointed to BitPay as the 'Paypal of Bitcoin' since they perceived it to be the first successful crypto business that was 'legitimate'. Criticism of BitPay being a glorified one way exchange service was repeatedly censored. Critics pointed out that BitPay was used to 'cashout' into precious metals and computer parts and contributed to the price decline. BitPay was used by community members as a way to gloss over bitcoin's rotten image.

Euphoria ensued as every BitPay merchant was pumped and promoted by the circle-jerk echo chamber desperate to see the value of their digits swell. The peak of this euphoria was the disastrous 'Bitcoin Bowl', where sleazebag CEO Tony Gallipi attempted to push bitcoin onto hot dog eating football fans.

BitPay stated numerous times they were counting on a rising bitcoin price to cover expenses. The strategy was based on deceptive marketting. By claiming that merchants were 'adopting' bitcoin, Bitpay was counting on consumers to do the same. Bitpay built it, and they never came.

This strategy was a complete and utter failure that anyone with a hint of practical reason could have forsaw.

The bitcoin blockchain is 'permissioned'. To use the blockchain one must obtain bitcoin. Obtaining bitcoin requires handing capital for mining equipment or handing capital for direct purchases of bitcoin. The amount of crypto currency one has determines how often one can use the blockchain. The blockchain is only open to those who can obtain bitcoins.

Bitpay never answered the question of 'Why would people want to use Bitcoin?'

Bitcoin has a high barrier to entry. To cross that barrier one must hand wealth over to a bitcoin seller for the tiny supply of marketable bitcoin at any given time. To get more bitcoin into the market the price has to be bid up. Bitcoin requires users to have existing wealth.

BitPay either did not understand how bitcoin worked or were caught up in the euphoria of engineered price pumps.

Merchant adoption of bitcoin never happened because 99.99% of merchants never touched bitcoin. If adoption of bitcoin by a merchant happened, why would they need to rely on a third party? Bitcoin is P2P rendering BitPay useless. Merchant's signed up with BitPay because bitcoiners would pump them all over the Internet. Many merchants would later discover that acknowledgement of bitcoin acceptance led to sales declines. Be wary of bitcoiners barring gifts.

Merchant adoption on a large scale was also technically impossible unless the entire supply chain adopted bitcoin. If merchants held BTC they would be exposed to the wild volatility as well as the wide bid/ask spreads involved in attempting to convert back to fiat. Think about it. Would any sane merchant go through the hassle of setting up an account on a shady bitcoin exchange?

Converting to and from bitcoin involves real costs, this includes paying the inflation premium to a miner, paying fees associated with the banking system, paying a volatility premium.

Bitpay's legacy is one of spamming the blockchain with people cashing out of bitcoin into precious metals and video cards.

Notice how after an 80% price decline, the entire ecosystem outside of cyber-crime is falling apart? The explanation is simple. Without a price rise into perpetuity bitcoin businesses have no revenue models.