19 Feb 2014 / NPR – Hungry for a Philly cheesesteak or a hot Reuben sandwich? That’ll be about 0.001 bitcoin, please.
From restaurants to breweries, to even your and , the popular cryptocurrency has inched its way into the food industry, as more vendors consider it a valid form of payment.
Unlike cash or credit, bitcoin is an invisible currency that exists only online and can be transferred from person to person sans a centralized government or bank.
Today, you can use the virtual money to order Thai food and pizza through services like and . There’s a Subway in Allentown, Pa., that will gladly trade you a toasty 12-inch sub for the intangible currency. And sprinkled throughout the country are a handful of food trucks that have been testing bitcoin out in the streets.
Heck, you can even use bitcoin to prep for a zombie apocalypse at .
Overseas, you can spend the currency at the cafe in Tokyo, in London or the pub in Sydney, all of which are among the firsts to accept bitcoin in their respective cities.
The digital currency is a welcome alternative to credit cards for many small businesses. There’s little risk in setting up a for customers to directly transfer money into, and it beats the 3 percent merchant fee that vendors are charged for each credit card transaction. As the Huffington Post , last year 81 percent of money spent in American restaurants was charged to debit, credit or prepaid cards….. Read more
