More than a year after a Canadian-based Middle Eastern restaurant chain converted its cash reserves to Bitcoin, the owner reported that the move helped save the business during the pandemic.
According to a Tuesday story from the Canadian media outlet Toronto Star, when Tahini restaurant owners Aly and Omar Hamam and their cousin Ahmed decided to convert the company’s savings into Bitcoin (BTC) in August 2020 because it offered “a much better alternative than saving cash,” the price of the crypto asset was approximately $12,000. Aly Hamam reported that the business had benefited from the initial investment.
“We made the move to corporate balance on a Bitcoin standard way back in August 2020, and since then, we have earned over 300% of our initial investment,” Hamam said. “It has really done its job of protecting us against inflation and has worked as we intended.”
BTC price surged to an all-time high above $67,000 in November before falling to $41,729 at the time of publishing this story. Despite the fact that the company’s sales fell 80% in a week at the beginning of the pandemic, Hamam said that the investment in the flagship cryptocurrency had allowed them to go from three restaurants to nine at a time when many in the sector is experiencing financial difficulties, and that it planned to increase that number to 25 by the end of the year.
“We keep three to six months of working capital in cash, and then the rest goes into Bitcoin,” Hamam said. “So every time we have an expansion, we’re not forced to sell our Bitcoin to fund that expansion. We try to operate conservatively, where we never have to sell our Bitcoin and just keep accumulating in our treasury.”
#bitcoin is hope for both big and small businesses alike
— Tahinis Restaurants (@TheRealTahinis) January 19, 2022
None of Tahini’s locations in Ontario currently accept BTC or other cryptocurrencies as a payment method, but each hosts a Bitcoin ATM, allowing customers to purchase tokens before, during or after meals. At the time of the initial investment – the amount of which is still not entirely clear – Hamam hinted that the business would continue to use Bitcoin as a reserve asset indefinitely if there was no “need for fiat”.
“We’re going to keep striving to make the best food we can…and with Bitcoin, we also want to help people financially.”
While restaurants like Tahini’s do not seem to be targeted by regulators in the Canadian province, the same is not true for local businesses that handle cryptocurrencies. The Ontario Securities Commission has taken action against crypto exchanges operating in the region, including Binance, OKEx, Bybit, KuCoin, and Polo Digital Assets. On January 14, Bitfinex announced that it would close the accounts of Ontario resident customers who have no balance on the platform, while many users “will no longer have access to any services” as of March 1.