Why I Built BTC AR: Pricing the World in Bitcoin
A personal essay on creating BTC AR, a simple client-side app that lets you point your camera at prices and instantly see their value in Bitcoin. It explores the motivation behind the project, the philosophy of pricing life in sats, and how reframing everyday costs through Bitcoin shifts perspective on money, value, and sovereignty.
Table of Contents
Ever found yourself at the grocery store, staring at a price tag, and thinking: “How many sats is this?”
That moment of curiosity—that desire to see everyday life priced in Bitcoin—that’s what led me to build BTC AR, a super simple, client-side app that uses your camera to translate prices into Bitcoin (or sats) with zero fuss.
The “Why” Behind BTC AR
1. Bitcoin isn’t just an asset. It’s a way to see the world differently.
Bitcoin isn’t tethered to a single country, central bank, or corporate agenda. It’s a global, decentralized form of money, grounded in the principles of sound money, limited supply, and permissionless participation. Books like The Bitcoin Standard articulate it beautifully: Bitcoin represents the most advanced form of money—hard-capped and permissionless.
When you price things in Bitcoin, you're not just converting currencies—you’re reimagining value. You start to think: “That latte costs how many sats? That concert ticket is this many sats?” It changes your perception of everyday spending.
2. It’s about reframing value beyond fiat.
We live in a fiat-dominated world—prices are entrenched in USD, EUR, YEN, and others. But fiat is rooted in broken promises, rising inflation, and centralized control. Bitcoin offers an alternative: sound, borderless money without a central authority.
By giving people an easy way to see things priced in BTC, the app encourages them to think of value through a Bitcoin lens—not just as a speculative asset, but as a unit of account.
3. No permission. No server. No privacy issues.
Your camera. Your browser. Your Bitcoin conversion. BTC AR is entirely client-side—no sign-ups, no tracking, no data leaving your browser. That aligns with the ethos of decentralization and financial sovereignty that Bitcoin embodies.
Why an SPA with Camera Access Was the Right Tool
I wanted something fast, intuitive, and zero friction:
- Client-side SPA: No backend. Just code, in-browser, doing all the work.
- Camera-based scanning: All you do is point. No typing. It's immediate.
- Instant conversion: See the price in sats or BTC instantly, in your own context.
All built around one belief: people should be able to start viewing their world in Bitcoin without having to “get crypto.” The knowledge and empowerment come from context, not onboarding.
Why Price Everything in Bitcoin?
A unit of account that reshapes decision-making
As economist Kim Grauer points out, Bitcoin’s volatility and fees make it impractical for everyday retail, but that perspective misses the core: pricing things in Bitcoin changes your lens. It’s not about using BTC to checkout—it’s about seeing value through BTC’s digital scarcity.
That tiny shift—seeing prices in sats—helps build intuition and challenges the fiat habit.
Toward Bitcoin as “money, not just asset”
If Bitcoin is going to be money, we need to think of it as a unit—not just something to trade. Pricing things in Bitcoin is part of a transition from thinking of BTC as “assets to HODL or trade” toward “units of accounting that shape behavior.”
It’s a step. It’s soft but fundamental.
A Snapshot: How BTC AR Works (Without the Tech Jargon)
- You point your phone at a price tag.
- The app reads the number using OCR (Optical Character Recognition).
- Simultaneously, the app fetches the current BTC-fiat exchange rate from a public API.
- It instantly displays the equivalent value in sats (or BTC).
All within your browser, using camera APIs, no backend needed. That means privacy by design, and performance that’s snappy on mobile. No user data stored or leaked. Pure client-side power.
What I Hope This Sparks
Awareness through context
When prices show up in sats, you start asking real questions. “Why is that $5 coffee nearly 40,000 sats? What does that mean comparatively?” It triggers introspection about spending, savings, and value.Bitcoin becomes familiar, not abstract
Most people view Bitcoin as a headline number — $114k today, $120k tomorrow. BTC AR makes Bitcoin tangible in the patterns of daily life.A micro shift toward sound money culture
If you repeatedly inhabit a world where value is denominated in a scarce, uncensorable money, your preferences evolve. You start to value long-term, saving, and low-inflation perspectives.
A Broader Context: Why This Matters Now
- Institutionalization is making Bitcoin act more like a macro-asset tied to markets and regulation :contentReference[oaicite:6]{index=6}.
- Yet with scarcity baked in (21 million coin supply), Bitcoin remains a unique form of money—countering inflation in an era of money printing.
- These large macro narratives are important—but I wanted to impact individual behavior. BTC AR is micro-scale: personal, immediate, relatable.
Why “BTC AR” as a Name?
- BTC – clear, concise reference to Bitcoin.
- AR – stands for Augmented Reality, but for us, it’s a shortcut: you point your device, AR-like scanning of prices, you view the world differently.
- Together, “BTC AR” captures both the technology and the philosophy—point your camera, see prices in Bitcoin. That simple.
What This Could Become
While I built the initial version to be lean and immediate, I’ve started imagining wider possibilities:
- Historical price comparisons: “This day last year, this coffee cost 35,000 sats.”
- Saving insights: Track how much fiat you spend in sats—visualize habits.
- Shared views: Let people share interesting sats-priced items with others.
- Contextual spending tips: Nudges like “That’s 0.002 BTC—maybe save that in a lightning wallet?”
All with the same principle: simple, client-only, privacy-first.
Final Thoughts
BTC AR isn’t just an app—it’s a thought experiment you carry in your pocket. It’s a tool that bridges the abstract (Bitcoin markets, macro debates) with the concrete (your coffee, your groceries). It’s a small step toward exploring what money could be in a world that values scarcity, sovereignty, and simplicity.
If you’ve tried it, drop feedback. Tell me what you're discovering. If you haven’t yet, try it at btcar.app—see your world in sats for yourself.
Here’s to reshaping how we price, what we value, and how we think—with just your phone.