Want Starbucks Coffee or a Tesla? Buy It with Bitcoin

Blockchain technology revolutionised our ability to securely assign provable signatures to digital goods. The forerunner of how this could be used to advance society was the advent of Bitcoin, the world’s first cryptocurrency.

A natural progression for the advancement of cryptocurrencies was the ability to gamble with and for it. However, it was soon found that due to the way in which crypto mining works even non-gambling games also allowed for users to be rewarded with micro crypto payouts as rewards for simply playing the game in question.

Most recently the blockchain has brought us the NFT (non-fungible token) which has found massive success in the art and collectables arena. Whether it is a celebrity digital artwork, a series of virtual Garbage Pail Kids cards or a rare online-only NFL trading card from Panini, the ability to prove the authenticity of a digital asset has been a game-changer.

 Get Your Caffeine Kick

The one area where Bitcoin was beginning to fail in its original intent is that rather than becoming a daily peer to peer transaction method it was becoming another form of wealth gathering – and one that favours the already wealthy.

That being said, there has been a drive to honour Satoshi Nakamoto’s desire to shake up the financial sector and companies like Bakkt have been hard at work creating digital wallets that focus on making Bitcoin as easy to spend as the money in your wallet.

In a landmark development in mainstream integration Bakkt has partnered with ever-popular coffee chain Starbucks.

“We are excited that customers now have the opportunity to use Bakkt to load their Starbucks Card in the Starbucks app and then use it to pay at Starbucks.”

Starbucks customers can now get their morning caffeine boost without resorting to cash money or even their credit card. All that is needed is to install the Bakkt app on your Android or iOS device, connect your crypto wallet and you can purchase a Starbucks coffee at any of their 30,000 locations around the world.

 Electrifying Car Sales

Another leading brand to accept Bitcoin in return for the product is the electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla. Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, is an outspoken crypto evangelist who Tweets and shares his thoughts on the value and potential impact of the technology on a daily basis.

This is why, unlike wallet solutions such as Bakkt where your Bitcoin is converted into an equivalent fiat currency and then used to purchase the required product, Tesla will be accepting direct peer to peer BTC transactions as payment.

Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, clarified this saying:

“Tesla is using only internal & open source software & operates Bitcoin nodes directly. Bitcoin paid to Tesla will be retained as Bitcoin, not converted to fiat currency.”

It is his faith in the future of the blockchain that saw the company divest nearly 8% of its portfolio, around $1.5 billion, into Bitcoin earlier this year.

While the option to buy a Tesla online with Bitcoin is only available in the US at the moment, Musk did confirm that international BTC sales would be available later this year.