Tahini’s Restaurant to follow the footsteps of MicroStrategy and use cryptocurrency as the primary reserve asset
A Canada-based Middle Eastern Restaurant, with three locations across Ontario, has decided to convert its entire cash reserves to cryptocurrency.
Tahini’s Restaurant took to Twitter to announce the key decision yesterday. The restaurant’s switch to crypto was motivated by the financial crash in March and the downfalls of the Canadian Government’s assistance program for businesses to support themselves during the pandemic.
Tahini’s — “the best Middle Eastern restaurant in the world,” explained its move was as a result of the US and Canadian Governments printing money to prop up their ailing economies. The restaurant industry has faced a major crisis during the pandemic as lockdown restrictions forced restaurants to close.
However, a bigger challenge, the restaurant says, was to bring employees back to work after the lockdown was relaxed:
“The government assistance programs in Canada made it very hard for us to bring back our partners (employees) as they were making more money staying at home and not working,” the owner of the restaurant Omar Hamam said. “All of a sudden, we went from an economic crisis to everyone having a lot of money,” he added.
The fear of increased inflation due to governments across the world pumping money into the economy to deal with the crisis has led many individuals and businesses to bank on cryptocurrency as a hedge.
Hamam explained that he was concerned handouts and money printing would devalue fiat currency. “It was apparent to us that cash didn’t have the same appeal,” he said. “That eventually with all the excess cash circulating the economy that cash would be worthless,” the owner emphasised.
The financial system is “a game of musical chairs being played right now and the music will stop and some people will get left out,” Hamam explained.
Explaining how Bitcoin was chosen as a suitable alternative, Hamam said, “As time went on I was constantly trying to learn and grow my knowledge about finance. I heard people in the Bitcoin community saying you have to hear about Bitcoin at least seven times before you get into it. 100% accurate”.
The restaurant said that they might continue to use Bitcoin as a reserve asset forever if they do not feel a need for fiat currency. It “offers a much better alternative to saving cash,” the announcement said.
Business intelligence company, MicroStrategy, announced a similar financial plan and declared Bitcoin as its primary reserve asset. MicroStrategy purchased 21,454 BTC for roughly $250 million.
Written by Harshini Nag
