To add (or improve) a language, currency, theme, or wallet, go to the respective languages, currencies, themes, or wallets folder. To download the latest version of the app, go to the release folder. Contact info and demo videos are down below.
A point-of-sale system for cash and Lightning, ideal for mom & pop businesses, complete with product barcode scanning and other features. Easily enhanced with new languages, themes, currencies, wallets, etc. for any locale, and platform-independent to grow with the business from smartphone to desktop or mini-computer to fill the gap between personal wallets and big commercial PoS solutions.
This project is motivated by real-life circumstances. In many places in the world, there are more small business vendors without PoS (Point-of-Sale) systems than there are with them. The problem is that although we have great Bitcoin/Lightning wallet apps, it is a hard sell to get vendors to accept alternative payments on a personal wallet when they don’t see immediate practical benefit outweighing the inconvenience to their business operations.
First, these small vendors, who currently only deal in cash sales and have scarcely a calculator and a scale to assist them in the checkout process, need a PoS solution that makes their life easier today (and which could advantageously preempt their adoption of credit-based PoS systems tomorrow). The fact is, these operators unwittingly already have a capable device in their pocket with a working barcode scanner, computation capability, Internet connectivity, and more—all in their smartphone, waiting to be utilized. And yet, existing wallets do not adequately address their use case.
I believe there is great opportunity to improve their business operations by developing a fantastic PoS app that will turn their smartphone into a handy checkout register, and I have already begun development on such an app and brought it to a functional level of completion. It leverages JavaScript ES6 as its platform so that it can run on any device, allowing businesses to keep using this same PoS app as they grow from smartphone to mini-computer. My 11-minute video demonstrating the desktop version of the app speaks about this.
My vision is for this product to serve as a benevolent “Trojan horse” per say to orange pill business owners through various means such as by providing charts and useful financial data to show them with their own numbers how Bitcoin has (or could have) benefited them since installing the app, as well as aid them in tax reporting, financial management, and by giving practical financial education.
I believe life-improving apps will do wonders to incentivize Bitcoin adoption. Besides enabling customers to pay with Lightning, my goal is to provide a delightful checkout experience, for example by allowing customers to receive their receipt direct-to-phone via animated QR code (already implemented and I love it!). Besides being “green,” this allows both vendor and customer to benefit from the fine-grained data about their purchases while maintaining privacy. Additional features include intrinsic multilingual support (implemented), multiple independent accounts for separate businesses within a single app instance (implemented), color and texture themes (implemented). As I get ideas and feedback/experience, I pivot as needed. This was exemplified by a redesign of the UI to a simpler format, as I mentioned in my 15-minute introduction video.
For wallet operations, the app can be configured to use any LNbits-compatible wallet for custodial or non-custodial operation. With the desktop version of the app, I intend to leverage LDK to provide a third in-between option that will allow business owners to self-custody the funds in a built-in Lightning node without the burden of managing the channels. Some business owners have expressed that they don’t accept Lightning for the sole reason that running a business is too demanding to worry about managing a Lightning node too. I am currently looking at LSPS specs and one other way of outsourcing Lightning node management to meet this express need.
Funding would enable me to continue development on this project without having to sacrifice it to alternative employment. As an active Bitcoin proponent in my area, I am personally dedicated to this project for the benefit of my own community, but I have designed it with the flexibility to be configured and/or extended to serve any locale. It is an app that is currently missing from the ecosystem as far as I can tell, and I hope it will raise the bar for what apps should do, provoke others to innovation, and hopefully speed Bitcoin adoption not only in my area but everywhere.
Anyone is welcome to jump in and help out! But if you like what I'm doing, I'd love to continue, but I can only do it with your financial support. It doesn't take much! Watch these 20 seconds for details.
Nostr: npub1rjlw0khf7sj33kpmehmhvay9sz8zg877cyxmu6tnyglnyv37zc4sr4786s
Watch for updates on YouTube @myDevUpdates or jump to a topic:
- Introduction and basic usage of calculator and emoji shortcuts (15 minutes)
- Demonstration of the barcode scanning feature (6 minutes)
- How to accept Lightning payments from customers (6 minutes)
- How to pay Lightning invoices with fiat currency (8 minutes)
- Possibilities for desktop builds like this demo under Windows (11 minutes)
- Overview of GitHub repo (10 minutes)