Burger King Venezuela Starts Bitcoin Payments in First of 40 Stores

Bitcoin has come to Burger King in Venezuela as a new partnership opens up cryptocurrency payments at the fast-food chain.

Confirmed in a tweet on Dec. 30, a single Burger King branch in the Sambil area of Caracas now accepts Bitcoin, along with altcoins Ether, Litecoin, Binance Coin and Dash, as well as stablecoin Tether.

Cryptobuyer is a Panama-based cryptocurrency merchant gateway startup that also runs a fleet of Bitcoin ATMs. It offers conversion of cryptocurrency funds for businesses, which it then pays out in fiat currency.

Venezuela continues to suffer from major economic turmoil, giving rise to efforts to boost cryptocurrency usage.

The government has shunned borderless payment methods, imposing heavy restrictions on foreign currency access.

Instead, Petro, the highly controversial state-backed cryptocurrency, is the official weapon of choice for combating the crisis.

Burger King Venezuela meanwhile stopped short of publicly acknowledging its crypto foray.

As various commentators have noted, despite claims by ex-Dash Core Group CEO Ryan Taylor that the altcoin is the country's most popular, overall cryptocurrency traction among merchants remains low.

While P2P trading volumes for Bitcoin regularly hit new highs when denominated in Venezuela's ailing Sovereign Bolivar, the data speaks more to the fiat currency's weakness than Bitcoin adoption.

Burger King's experiments with Bitcoin have meanwhile fallen flat in the past.