MappingBitcoin
What It Is
MappingBitcoin is a global directory of the entire Bitcoin ecosystem. Not just merchants — people, organizations, communities, events, a glossary, venues. Everything that makes up the Bitcoin world, mapped and searchable in one place.
23,000+ venues across six continents is where it started, but the vision is bigger. This is the reference point for anyone who wants to find, connect with, or understand any part of the Bitcoin ecosystem. No corporate middleman. No gatekeepers deciding who gets listed.
Why I Built This
The Bitcoin ecosystem is massive and fragmented. Venues are on one site, meetups on another, key people scattered across Twitter and Nostr, organizations buried in blog posts. There's no single place where you can see the whole picture — who's building what, where things are happening, what the important concepts are.
I wanted to change that. One directory. Open source. Community-maintained. Verified by Web of Trust, not by some company selling premium listings.
What's Inside
Venues Bitcoin-accepting businesses worldwide — shops, restaurants, services. Searchable by location, payment type (on-chain, Lightning), category, and verification status. Built on OpenStreetMap.
People Builders, educators, advocates, contributors across the Bitcoin ecosystem. Real profiles, not influencer leaderboards.
Organizations Companies, foundations, nonprofits, DAOs, meetup groups — anyone building in the space. Mapped by location and focus area.
Events Conferences, meetups, hackathons, workshops happening around the world. Find what's near you or plan your next trip around the ecosystem.
Glossary Bitcoin terminology explained clearly. Not the sanitized version — the real concepts, in plain language, for people who actually want to understand the technology.
How Trust Works
Reviews and contributions are weighted by Web of Trust algorithms built on Nostr. Your social graph determines how much weight a review carries. Trusted community members matter more than anonymous accounts. This kills spam and fake reviews without needing a centralized moderation team.
Business verification happens through email or domain verification linked to Nostr identity. No central authority decides who's legitimate.
The Stack
- OpenStreetMap — the map layer, open and community-maintained
- Nostr — decentralized identity and communication
- Nostr Web of Trust — trust-weighted contributions based on social graph
- Blossom — decentralized storage for photos and media
The Incentive Model
Platforms like Yelp and Google Maps monetize by selling ads and promoted listings to the businesses being reviewed. The platform profits when businesses pay for visibility, not when users get honest information. The incentives are misaligned and nobody talks about it.
MappingBitcoin has no ads, no promoted listings, no premium tiers. The incentive for contributors is the same as the incentive for users — make the directory better so everyone benefits. When you remove the middleman extracting value, the system naturally aligns.
Free to use. Free to contribute. Open source.