14,885 Merchants & Counting: BTC Map’s March Recap

April 1, 2025  |  BTC Map  ·  Projects

Dev Updates

escapedcat has been working on a global icon refactor to standardize icons and improve website performance. These changes aren’t merged yet but are in the final stages.

I initially assumed all our apps displayed community descriptions, but it turns out this feature was only available on Android. I’ve since added a community description field to the web app to display them when available. Community mods can add descriptions to their BTC Map pages—here’s an example:

Community description.

These descriptions are helpful because a list of contact links alone isn’t enough. Users often need additional context, such as a community summary or the preferred contact method.

Our website can be slow due to full sync requirements. We’re gradually moving away from this model, and I’ve updated the leaderboard page to use a dedicated endpoint for better performance.

I also worked on internal API refactoring to improve code maintainability.

Admin Updates

Our community submission queve has 15 open tickets, which is manageable, but we should review stalled submissions to either reject or progress them.

  1. Brazil - 302 changes + 3 comments
  2. Suriname - 143 changes + 3 comments
  3. South Africa - 131 changes, no new comments
  4. El Salvador - 107 changes + 4 comments
  5. Thailand - 86 changes + 9 comments
  1. Eenentwintig Suriname - 134 changes + 3 comments
  2. Bitcoin Plett - 57 changes, no new comments
  3. Bitcoin Berlín SV - 53 changes + 1 comment
  4. Bitcoin é aqui! Rolante/Riozinho-RS-BRASIL - 41 changes, no new comments
  5. Dezentralschweiz - 34 changes + 1 comment

Most Active Editors

  1. Comino - 404 edits
  2. Rockedf - 182 edits
  3. saunter - 65 edits
  4. mrjonesza - 55 edits
  5. Go BTC - OSM Team - 54 edits

Global Metrics

Total merchants increased from 14,556 to 14,885.

Total number of merchants.

Recently verified (1y) merchants decreased from 7,893 to 7,742. More local maintainers are needed to reverse this trend.

Conclusion

It was a relatively quiet month, but things are getting better and the key indicators are solid.

How to help: Re-verify outdated locations in your area. Every contribution strengthens the Bitcoin ecosystem!