Despite the recent participation in some kind of blockchain project, Starbucks has denied accepting cryptocurrency as the form of payment for their coffee. Starbucks wishes to be transparent while keeping the interest of those customers alive who still hesitate to do transactions in crypto.
On Friday 3rd August 2018 number of companies including BCG, Intercontinental Stock Exchange, Microsoft, and Starbucks itself announced that are forming Bakkt, a comprehensive network that leverage on Microsoft cloud solutions to create a global ecosystem for digital assets. This started a rush of news contemplating that soon people will be able to pay for Frappuccinos in the form of Bitcoins.
The company took the charge after the news hit the social networks that the venture is still not interested to let people leverage their internet money for caffeine.
According to a source, Starbucks spokesperson makes it clear that the company does not have any neediness for Bitcoins but they are in the initial stage of developing applications for a system which will convert cryptocurrencies to cash. He clarified that they will not accept any digital asset but instead of accepting they will transact the digital asset and will change the cryptocurrency to real cash. So for now, at least they would launch a trading and conversion of cryptocurrency like Bitcoin.
To sum up the statement he clarified that consumers would not be able to pay for their coffees, as of for now with cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin.
Many platforms such as Expedia, Subway, Shopify, PayPal, Overstock etc do accept cryptocurrencies like Bitcoins, Ethereum for goods and services. Starbucks wishes to join the trend later so that it can make things easier for some of their customers, especially those who rely on this currency system.
Maria Smith, the Vice President of Partnerships and Payments at Starbucks said that Starbucks will play an important role in developing factual, credible and controlled applications for customers to convert their cryptocurrencies to real cash for their use at Starbucks. She further says that as they are currently leading in the E-Pay system with over 15 million users, the coffee chain is dedicated towards increasing the mode of payments for their customers.
We know that Starbucks does accept payments digitally through widely used e-wallets like Google Pay and Samsung Pay which are renowned among all the users. Bakkt seems to be a controlled launch pad which will smooth the uncertain fluctuations and might replace credit cards in the future.
Thinking rationally it seems that paying cryptocurrency like Bitcoin for a daily routine thing like coffee is not a good idea as sometimes the fee of the transaction may increase and we may have to pay much more amount than we usually pay.
The time we put in to transact certain transaction may increase. Nevertheless, we don’t know what future beholds for us but for now if someone wants to blow up their treasures on something like a combination of a blockchain and coffee he/she needs to wait a bit.
