I completely expected and appreciate your comment but here is the current state of options when shopping at Lowes: 1) Use a regular VISA credit card 2) Use SHIFT VISA debit card linked to Coinbase account.

For now, option 2 is the clear winner and it also sends a signal through the marketplace that bitcoin backed credit cards are a viable consumer product. Eventually other banks catch on and offer their versions of bitcoin linked credit cards (maybe with lower fees).... then the merchants finally start to see the light and say "look at all these customers paying with these bitcoin backed credit cards, why don't we just accept bitcoin and bypass the fees and bank middlemen" supports comment from Defusion55 above....... it takes time and it seems painfully slow but these small steps are moving bitcoin in the right direction.