Chipotle lovers can now buy bitcoin and ether burritos

Customers in Chipotle will now be able to pay for their burrito with cryptocurrencies, including bitcoins, ethers and dogecoins, which could help cryptocurrencies become more mainstream, according to trade publications. Restaurant business. But there is only one important caveat: Chipotle will receive the crypto through a payment system called Flexa, which is far from the decentralized technology that cryptocurrencies have promised for more than a decade.

Flexa announced an agreement with Chipotle in a blog post Wednesday and one Twitter user in Florida even posted a video yesterday shows how the process works. Curiously, Chipotle no poppye official announcement of the reception of cryptocurrencies on Wednesday, when the new function was launched. But Chipotle’s PR team confirmed the report to Gizmod on Thursday morning.

“We are constantly researching innovations that will enhance our guest experience and now include accepting payments in digital currency using Flex at Chipotle’s American restaurants.” Curt Garner, technical director at Chipotle, Gizmodo said in an email statement.

Customers who want to pay for their burrito dishes with cryptocurrencies will first need to download Flexa SPEDN or Gemini. They can then attach their digital wallet from applications such as Metamask or Coinbase, which store their digital currencies or stablecoins. If you don’t know what that means, you probably understand why cryptopayings haven’t made it into the mainstream yet. But it is still important that such a large national chain dips its tip into crypto water.

There is also the problem that, technically, customers don’t even pay the cryptocurrencies as they imagined – as a peer-to-peer system, completely decentralized. Flexa is a highly centralized cryptocurrency solution and facilitates paying retailers such as Chipotle, either in fiat currency or cryptocurrency. And while we’re not sure yet, we’d guess Chipotle decided to take the cool American cash from Flex. Tesla kept bitcoins in her books for a while, but that was probably the only way to do it look profitable for a quarter.

Probably the biggest argument against the widespread adoption of cryptoplates is the fact that prices are too volatile. The price of bitcoin is currently 5.17% lower than 24 hours ago. If you believe that the price of bitcoin will recover and rise significantly in the coming days, why would you want to spend this bitcoin for a burrito right now? Next week, you may be able to buy two burritos for the same amount of bitcoins. Or you may be able to buy the entire Chipotle store in ten years, provided the crypto-timers are right. Why waste it, like the guy who bought two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins back in 2010? So many bitcoins are now worth over $ 300 million.

Twitter users also reported that they failed to launch Flexa applications in Chipotle on Wednesday one person in New York said no one in the restaurant knew how to make them pay this way. Another user has usefully suggested that the cashier must select “voucher”In the offer of payment options before customers will be able to pay using the Flexa system.

Of course, it still solves problems, but in theory it shouldn’t be too difficult if Flexa takes all the risk by accepting the cryptocurrency and guaranteeing Chipotle real money during the process. Flexa even offers a 10% discount for users the next time they order something from a fast and informal chain.

Go ahead and get a guaca. You can tell them you know it’s extra. But with Magic Internet Money, you killed. (Yes, that’s a real coin you can pay via Flexa.)

Updated 9:42 ET by Chipotle.