In short
- Steak ‘n Shake accepts Bitcoin nationwide from 16 May.
- The rollout gives more than 100 million customers a crypto payment option.
- Few chains have gone beyond pilots, so that the development is marked as a rare complete adoption.
Bitcoin comes to the Drive-Thru.
American Fast Food Chain Steak ‘n Shake said on Thursday that it starts with accepting the world’s largest crypto at all its American locations from 16 May, giving his more than 100 million customers the option to pay for Milkshakes and Hamburgers in BTC.
“The movement has just begun”, the company posted On X.
Unlike retailers with high margins, fast food chains run on thin margins and high volume, making steak ‘n shake’s Bitcoin Roll out a real-world stress test for the speed, costs and usability of the crypto on a scale.
The integration was initially plagued In March, when the chain asked a question on social media: “Should steak accept a shake bitcoin?” what drawn Involvement of figures such as former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.
Since then, the Momentum company has built up around crypto-new marketing, culminating on the formal announcement on Thursday.
Steak ‘n Shake has previously also leaned to Bitcoin’s cultural iconography, earlier tweet An image of a Mars-bound cargo ship stamped with the Bitcoin logo in reference to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Vocal Promotion of beef Tallow and Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s Interplanetary Aspirations.
The Bitcoin game
Various large food and drink chains have experimented with crypto payments in the past decade, although many of those efforts have been stopped, reduced or limited to narrow pilots.
Starbucks Are customers able to reload their digital portfolios with Bitcoin via the Bakkt app, a function that was launched in 2021 that turns BTC into dollars before it reaches the retailer.
Chipotle followed example Mid 2022, cooperation with digital payment company Flexa to accept more than 90 cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ether and Solana, at hundreds of American locations, which also use automatic conversion in Fiat at the point of sale.
Subway, one of the earliest adopters in the room, has already tested Bitcoin payments at Select -Franchises in 2013.
Some locations have re -introduced the option in later years, especially in crypto -friendly cities, but no system -wide implementation has been announced.
Outside the US, various fast food giants have turned to crypto as a hedge against local currency instability or as a nod to emerging digital economies.
In Venezuela, where inflation has expressed interest in dollar alternatives, Burger King Worked together with Latin -American crypto -company Cryptobuyer in 2020 to enable Bitcoin and Altcoin payments at different locations. However, that was only experimental and short -lived.
In El Salvador, where Bitcoin was made legal tender in 2021, Pizza Hut was one of the first regular points of sale to accept the crypto.
Published by Sebastian Sinclair
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