BENGALURU: Young city-based restaurateur Tejas Suryawanshi started accepting Bitcoin payment at his Indiranagar restaurant Suryawanshi as early as November last year. His may be the only restaurant in the city to have done that. The first Bitcoin payment of Rs 530 that he received is worth twice as much today. He has five bitcoins as of today.
An intriguing aspect about his restaurant, apart from the fact that it serves Marathi cuisine, is a sticker behind the cashier which reads ‘Bitcoin accepted here’. This results in conversations around the cryptocurrency. “I must have explained what the digital currency is to at least 10 customers who enquired after seeing the sticker,” Tejas told Express.
A government-appointed panel recently submitted its report on Bitcoins to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley as India lacks regulatory and legal structures to govern digital currencies.
In countries like Japan, a law has been passed to legalise Bitcoin as a form of payment.
“A friend of my father introduced me to Bitcoin. I read up on it and initially bought only one coin. At that time it cost only Rs 42,000. Today it costs more than Rs 2 lakh,” Tejas said, explaining that Bitcoins are more like stocks or investments rather than currency. As on August 9, one Bitcoin equalled Rs 2,07,717.
What is a Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is completely digitised money. It is a peer-to-peer payment network without any central authority or middleman. All transactions are settled in about 10 minutes and are recorded permanently on a distributer ledger. A Bitcoin wallet is an app that allows you to send and receive Bitcoins.
Is it fraught with risks?
The reason why people have inhibitions about adopting this digital currency is that it can deflate in value. “If I am investing Bitcoins in companies, then I need to be worried about losing my money. But as far as just holding currency in Bitcoins is concerned, its value will only increase with the number of potential buyers,” Tejas said. The next time you want to dine at Suryawanshi, you might get a spoonful of information on terms like ‘blockchain’ - a decentralised database or ledger of transactions.