Starbucks, the ubiquitous coffee chain, has made headlines in the last year for everything from Christmas cups to racist restroom policies. Now we can add cryptocurrency to that list.
The Seattle based coffee maker announced via an August 3rd press release that they were partnering with Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the owner of the New York Stock Exchange.
Atlanta, New York - August 3, 2018 - Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE:ICE), a leading operator of global exchanges, clearing houses, data and listings services, announced today that it plans to form a new company, Bakkt, which intends to leverage Microsoft cloud solutions to create an open and regulated, global ecosystem for digital assets. The new company is working with a marquee group of organizations including BCG, Microsoft, Starbucks, and others, to create an integrated platform that enables consumers and institutions to buy, sell, store and spend digital assets on a seamless global network.
The press release goes on to say, "Its (Bakkt) first use cases will be for trading and conversion of Bitcoin versus fiat currencies, as Bitcoin is today the most liquid digital currency. The effort is designed to address evolving needs in the estimated $270 billion digital asset marketplace."
Almost immediately internet stories popped up that Starbucks would be accepting Bitcoin at their stores. This would be great news for the crypto community.
However, the ink from the press release hadn't even dried before Starbucks followed up by saying we're just here for research purposes and will not be accepting Bitcoin.
The company said through an email to Jordan Pearson used in his Motherboard article,“It is important to clarify that we are not accepting digital assets at Starbucks. Rather the exchange will convert digital assets like Bitcoin into US dollars, which can be used at Starbucks.”
Okay, I understand that Starbucks is still sensitive to recent bad publicity and the last thing they want is to make another major gaffe. Starbucks saying they're just here for "research" is akin to saying they just go to Hooters for the wings.
Hey, I'm not judging them. Actually, I see this as a very promising move. Let's not lose site of the fact that the percentage of companies worldwide that accept Bitcoin (or any crypto for that matter) is extremely low. That number gets exponentially smaller when looking at large companies. Sure, there are the exceptions such as Microsoft and Overstock, but even they aren't processing that many crypto related transactions.
For Starbucks to be scared off of making another poor decision is completely understandable. I would argue, though, that the benefits from jumping head first into crypto far exceeds the possible downside. If they were to make such a bold move, they stand to one day being remembered as the domino that was strong enough to knock down all the other pieces that finally made crypto mainstream for everyday use. Currently the majority of Bitcoin owners are either chart trading trying to time the market's movements or they're simply hodling.
Until crypto (especially Bitcoin) is used for everyday purchases it'll continue to be seen as a store of value and compared to gold. When we see the paradigm shift away from the digital store of value to the utilitarian currency is when we'll see the pricing volatility decrease exponentially.
Perhaps we're barking up the wrong tree and it'll be another altcoin like Litecoin that essentially becomes just that. But even if it's the wrong tree, we're definitely in the right forest.
With all of Starbucks' infamous headlines, this could be the one that entirely reshapes their image. Playing it safe isn't what put them on every city block, and now they have a chance to be on every block chain.
If I were in their shoes, I'd want to be able to say that every morning I was everyone's first Bitcoin purchase of the day. Think about that. Starbucks clearly is and I believe that's what they'll ultimately wind up being. Just because they haven't explicitly accepted crypto payments doesn't mean that they won't eventually. It's a slippery slope towards becoming "all in" when it comes to crypto and I believe this initial move will lead them down the crypto primrose path.
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