Doing their bitcoin for fish and crypto
IF your cryptocurrency is burning a hole in your digital wallet, a Palm Beach business is on board to help you cash in for chips.
The 7th Avenue Fish & Chips shop is one of two local businesses to join the TravelbyBit network, allowing customers to swap their bitcoin, ethereum, dashcoin or litecoin tokens for a tasty parcel of calamari, crispy battered fish or whatever else they fancy.
The system generates a QR code of the transaction on a tablet at the counter, the customer scans it with their device and payment is transferred to the business’ account in Australian dollars via the TravelbyBit system.
Shop owner Kyle Tinsley said he’d only had two customers use the system so far but that he thought more would use it once word spread.
“My wife and I are into cryptocurrency and have been following it for a while and investing in it,” he said.
“We’re really going to give it a go, a lot of people are very interested in it but I think it’s more of a novelty at the moment.”
Mr Tinsley said the network was becoming faster and the fees lower as more people joined the network.
He said fees for the transaction varied day-to-day and between coins, with bitcoin the highest with about 10-20 cents in fees for a $10 fish and chip deal.
Customer Pete Whelan contacted the Bulletin after seeing the bitcoin sign at his local chippie.
“I think it’s fantastic, it’s obviously the way forward, it’s great to see new technology used on the Gold Coast,” he said.
“Crypto is a really exciting space at the minute, not one that’s penetrated massively into the mainstream but hopefully it will happen more and more into the future.”
The only other Gold Coast business listed with the Brisbane-based TravelbyBit service is JAMROC Jamaican Jerk Chicken.
The network aims to boost tourism by allowing travellers and others to use their crypto more easily and more often.