OAK
🌽

Start a Crypto Farmers Market

What we did in Oakland, and some resources to try it yourself
 
  1. Connect with the market organizer: get permission & space
  1. Talk to merchants
  1. Onboard merchants with a wallet
  1. Run a booth
 

1. Connect with the market organizer

We spoke with the coordinator of our market to build initial interest in crypto generally and a community-based currency specifically.
Our key benefits to the market were:
  • additional promotion to bring crypto-interested customers to the market
  • saving merchants on fees
We found that not all markets were ready to experiment with crypto or community currency. In particular, organizations that run multiple markets were more conservative and slow-moving to consider the idea.

2. Talk to merchants

We approached merchants during the market with a 1-1 pitch. We asked them about their current payment processing methods, and introduced our work to create a community currency. Some key recommendations for these conversations:
  • Lead with your values and what you’re trying to accomplish for people, not the technology itself.
  • Have a vision beyond the market. What is the merchant’s participation going to help you accomplish?
Example Conversation:
  • Hello, I’m Garrick with OAK
    • Hi, I’m John
  • We’re working with Harv (market coordinator’s name) to run a community currency pilot here at the market. Have you heard of community currency before?
    • Nope
  • Community currency helps us keep more money here in the local economy, supporting local businesses like yourselves, and they cut big banks and financial institutions out of the picture. So instead of paying Visa and Square 3% of every transaction, you get to keep it all.
    • Cool
  • We’re looking for vendors here at the market that would be willing to participate in the pilot program. Are you interested in joining?
    • What does it take to join?
  • We’ll set you up with a digital wallet that can accept the digital dollars we’re using for our community currency pilot. We can either set it up for you or we can walk you through the process so you can learn and control it in the long term. And as a thank you for participating this week, we’ll give you $5 extra when someone makes a purchase of $5 or more.

3. Onboard Merchants with a Wallet

We had two options here: (1) we talk merchants through setting up a Rainbow wallet on their own phone, and (2) we created a wallet for them, then had them download Rainbow and Import or Watch the wallet. This is essentially a solution of us acting as their custodian, so it’s important that you handle their private key appropriately. We only felt comfortable doing this because we’re willing to guaranty any lost assets with USD.
The self-custody option is best for a volunteer effort where you want the merchant to be self-sufficient, but will be hard for some merchants to do.
Optional: Help merchants set up a Coinbase account. This is the easiest and cheapest way for them to offramp their USDC to USD, if that’s what they want to do.
Once the Merchant wallet is set up, print a sign with their QR code. (Example below)
notion image

4. Run a Booth

Bring a table and EZ-Up tent, make a sign, and talk to some market customers. Have each customer:
  1. Download Rainbow (have an app store QR code to make it easy)
  1. Give you however much they plan to spend in cash or Venmo
We offer $5 extra for people who put at least $5 into the system.
Go!

Additional resources

Merchant Playbook

Goals

  1. Acquire merchants (target 90% market saturation)
  1. Retain merchants (target 80% 6mo retention)
  1. Grow transaction volume (target $2k per market)

Step 1: Getting Merchant Commitments

  • Sales 1-pager
    • Covers mission & vision
    • Introduces crypto & “digital dollars”

Step 2: Set Up Merchant

  • Confirm business name
  • Get phone # and email (can sign up through OAK table QR code)
  • Download Rainbow
  • Send initial test transactions: $5 USDC and $.50 MATIC
  • First cash out
    • Manual offramp OR via Coinbase

Step 3: During the Market

  1. Check in before market
    1. Ensure print sign is up
    2. Review any questions
  1. Check in during market
    1. Any transactions?
    2. Any troubleshooting?
  1. Check in after market
    1. Any troubleshooting?
    2. Collect print sign
    3. Cash out support

Step 4: Before the next Market

  1. Share a recap 1-1 communication (email, text, phone call) to each participating merchant
    1. Share any key metrics
    2. Thank them for participating
  1. Ask if they need cash-out support
  1. Prep print materials for next market
    1. Get QR and print sign for any new merchants
 
badge