AUTHOR: TOJU OMETORUWA
Last week, Starbucks announced that it would be working with Microsoft, BCG and the International exchange to form a new company called Bakkt, which is described as a “A Global Regulated Ecosystem for Digital Assets”.
Major news outlets broke the story as confirmation that Starbucks would be finally accepting Bitcoin in their stores, a bullish signal for the crypto market.
Unfortunately, the reality was much less exciting, as it turned out that Bakkt would “only let users trade and convert Bitcoin into fiat currencies”, which they would use to pay for items at Starbucks.
In other words, Starbucks role in the venture is simply to help Bitcoin holders easily convert their money to fiat.
“Customers will not be able to pay for Frappuccino’s with bitcoin” said a spokesperson at Starbucks.
Like most other major institutions, Starbucks is still weary of embracing Bitcoin due to the many regulatory concerns. Yet as Bitcoins price currently sits around $7,000, we ask what the potential impact to its price would be if Starbucks actually accepted the cryptocurrency as a form of payment
