Betty’s Place, a restaurant in Kenya, has achieved a first for the area by allowing guests to pay their bills with cryptocurrencies. The Nyeri County eatery allows customers to use Bitcoin (BTC) to pay for their meals and beverages.
The restaurant’s owner, Beatrice Wanjiru, claims that the minimum BTC trading volume is Sh100 (currently 0.000035 BTC).
Customers need a digital wallet, which enables users to manage, store, transmit, and receive digital assets, in this case, Bitcoin, to pay for services at the restaurant.
Since the establishment of the restaurant in 2016, Wanjiru has since then accepted Bitcoin as a form of payment.
During an interview, she stated, “Money is evolving and it has been doing so since the barter trade. Cryptocurrency is beyond Kenya, it’s a worldwide revolution so we better follow suit or we will be left behind.”
Recently, Bitcoin advocate, Paco De La India visited the restaurant as part of his Run with Bitcoin tour that is focused on Bitcoin awareness all over the world.
In her conversation with Paco, Wanjiru revealed that she is very interested in crypto and she is an avid investor and trader.
However, the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) has still blacklisted virtual currencies and warned banks against dealing in them, citing security concerns.
CBK Governor, Patrick Njoroge emphasized, “There are risks associated with cryptocurrency, particularly on consumer protection, fraud, hacking and loss of data and they are prone to be used as pyramid schemes.”
He also recently stated that Kenyans should avoid peer-to-peer (P2P) cryptocurrency transactions since it is not regulated.
He said, “There are people who are excited about cryptocurrencies because they see it as a sort of investment that they can win big because prices are going up quickly, so they believe they would see a huge return from their investment. But I think that is why we say for every person who wins something, there are hundreds who lose”
However, despite the warning, many Kenyans are still actively getting involved in the crypto industry.