Venezuela’s Burger King Starts Accepting Crypto Payments

Through a public announcement on Twitter, the payment provider Cryptotobuyer explained that Burger King Venezuela has engaged in a commercial alliance with the company.

Nos complace anunciar nuestra alianza comercial con @BurgerKingVE. A partir de hoy podrás comer como un rey y a tu manera pagando con #bitcoin #dash #litecoin #ethereum $BNB y #tether.

Disponible sólo en CC Sambil #Caracas#Venezuela @30Dic #FelizLunes pic.twitter.com/wOreB9wDPM

— Cryptobuyer (@cryptobuyer) December 30, 2019

Cryptotobuyer explains that today onwards, “you can eat like a king and in your own way paying with Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Ethereum.” Cryptotobuyer was quick to specify that the new feature was only available in Caracas Sambil.

First of 40 Branches

The first branch of Burger King that will accept these kinds of payments, is situated in the Sambil shopping mall in one of the largest stores in the country, based in Caracas. The chain is making plans to push the crypto payment system to all of its 40 outlets, spread across Venezuela by the end of 2020. The idea is to have more forms of crypto be accepted as payment, as well.

Through the use of Cryptotobuyer, customers will be capable of making instantaneous payments, should there be funds available within their applicable mobile Bitcoin wallets.

Prime Crypto Real Estate

Venezuela serves as a prime spot for crypto development and has been the subject of a hard push for the adoption of cryptocurrencies because of it. The reason for this comes from the need for an alternative or at least more reliable, a form of payment compared to the country’s fiat currency.

A small history lesson of Venezuela shows that its national currency, the Bolivar, has been rendered all but worthless. This is thanks to an insurmountable amount of inflation laid bare thanks to the worst humanitarian and economic crisis the country has ever faced in the entirety of its history.

In the wake of this staggering rate of inflation, sometimes clocking in as high as 10 million percent, it’s to be expected that many Venezuelan merchants have moved away from it. These merchants only accept various foreign currencies, such as the Brazilian Real, the Colombian Peso and even the American Dollar.

With the Bolivar in a constant state of freefall, exchanging it for foreign currencies is a hard task, to say the least. As a result, many Venezuelans are incapable of paying for basic living essentials like medicine, or even food. All the while, the value of their savings drop into the floor even more.

The Petro Situation

Even the country’s ruling socialist regime has taken notice of the widespread adoption of crypto. Back in 2017, Nicolás Maduro heralded his country as the first one to ever launch a state-owned cryptocurrency, going by the name of Petro. The claim was that the country’s massive oil reserves were used to back the coin, serving as a way to circumvent the heavy sanctions imposed by the US. The validity of these claims has come into question many times, with no satisfying answer ever being given.