Dubai: 10 customers use cryptocurrency to pay for their coffee at this cafe

Bake N More, the first café to accept payments in cryptocurrency in Dubai, made over 10 payment transactions using cryptos in the first two days of accepting the new and fast-growing mode of payment.

The newly-opened café began accepting cryptocurrencies as a mode of payment on March 29, becoming the first café to accept cryptos in the emirate.

"A lot of people are coming and using cryptocurrency as a mode of payment. It has been a good experience. More than 10 transactions took place in the first two days of accepting cryptocurrencies. The acceptance level is very high," said Mohammad Al Hammadi, the owner of Bake n More.

Al Hammadi said people were happy to be able to use the cryptos they kept in their wallets for a whille.

"The transactions and calculations are done in real-time prices, and the customer actually gets a tax invoice because it is recorded in the POS system. It is similar to a cash invoice," he said, adding that it's not wallet to wallet payment that doesn't have the record.

"The five per cent VAT transaction is also recorded in the transaction. Hence, the customer actually gets the tax invoice," added Al Hammadi.

The contemporary café's open-source payment platform is handled by Mixin Network which allows customers to pay for their purchases with Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether and three other major cryptocurrencies. All existing payment methods like cash, cards and online payments are accepted.

Meng Chan Shu, global ambassador of Mixin Network, says Mixin Messenger is not just a normal chatting app but also a decentralised crypto-wallet connected to 41 public chains with more than $2 billion under assets.

"These are the popular ones, but we are not limited to these. If there is a new token or a crypto tomorrow which becomes popular, we can add it too," he added.

Mixin Network's partners include Emirates Draw, Trident, BigONE and Links, among others.

Al Hammadi revealed that people who are using cryptocurrency as a mode of payment are a mix – both expats and nationals and men and women.

"But most of the users are young generations."

Meeting of the like-minded

According to the Triple-a.io website, there are close to 300 million crypto users globally and approximately 150,000 users are in UAE, with numbers growing fast.

Bake N More's owner said awareness about how the payment transaction will take place is surprisingly quite high.

Al Hammadi revealed that they intend to have a gathering of like-minded people every month to discuss trends in Metaverse, NFT and other new technologies.

"We met a quite fair bit of crypto users, and one of the things about which they are extremely happy is that they want to use this place as a meet-up place for the crypto community," he added.

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- waheedabbas@khaleejtimes.com

• Dubai