“But you can’t buy a coffee with bitcoin,” said bitcoin (BTC) critics. Gibraltar, a small British overseas territory in Europe, blew a hole in that FUD as the popular coffee chain Costa Coffee now accepts bitcoin on Lightning.
Hotel Chocolate, Card Factory and Gibraltar Bakery also accept bitcoin as currency in the British Overseas Territory. Well-known franchises leverage Bitcoin’s Lightning Network (LN) to accept customers’ money. LN microtransactions are ideal for cappuccino, postcard payments or ice cream investments, as revealed to reporter Joe Hall during a Gibraltar shopping spree.
Payments are instant, frictionless and charge merchants less than the typical MasterCard or Visa payment rail. Neil Walker, managing director of Sandpiper GI – the group that manages the retail franchise – told Cointelegraph that when using a Lightning-enabled card, “it is no different than using a contactless credit card.”
“It’s as fast as you can tap and pay with a contactless credit card, you can tap and pay electricity, scan a QR code. And until I’ve timed it, I guess.” That it’s almost the same speed.”
CoinCorner, a bitcoin exchange on the Isle of Man, partnered with Sandpiper GI to help equip merchants with bitcoin Lightning point-of-sale (POS) devices.
train race
Bitcoin #lightning pay vs #fiat contactless payment on #gibraltar bakery.
£2.20 loaded on both PoS.
anyone win??
@CoinCorner@CoinCornerMolly pic.twitter.com/b3ezy7FIeq
— Joe Hall (@JoeNakamoto) 25 July 2022
Walker shared that even for bitcoin deniers, the ease with which customers and merchants can transact is a no-brainer. “Whether you believe in bitcoin or not, you can use the Lightning Network to cut your transaction costs and pay via mobile,” he told Cointelegraph. Noting that it is a neutral payment rail, he said that customers can easily cross currencies:
“For a long time, the idea of paying with bitcoin seemed foreign to both businesses and individuals, but with the launch of the Bolt card and the ability to “tap and pay” through Lightning, the user experience was quick, easy and Everyone is familiar.”
Gibraltar welcomes 8 million tourists to the Rock per year from countries including the United States, Canada, South Africa and the United Kingdom. In addition, Walker estimates that around 15,000 cross-border workers commute to Gibraltar from Spain to work on a daily basis. Gibraltar uses the pound while Spain uses the euro, so currency conversion, remittances and tourism could be strong drivers for the adoption of the global, borderless currency.
To pay for coffee in Gibraltar, customers can now scan a QR code or simply tap to pay using the NFC-enabled Bitcoin Lightning card. The most popular payment option among Satoshi spenders is the Bolt Card, a CoinCorner innovation. Molly Spears, head of marketing at CoinCorner, told Cointelegraph that “the Bolt card has been a driving factor for bitcoin adoption.”
Bitcoin adoption is booming in the British Overseas Territories, fueled by the ease of tap-and-go payments. On the Isle of Man, an island with a population twice that of Gibraltar’s 35,000, bitcoin adoption “has exploded over the past 6 months,” Spiers told Cointelegraph. “We’ve gone from almost fi businesses accepting bitcoin to almost 10x now!”
related: Basing on Bitcoin: How the Lightning Network Beats Ethereum for Tipping
While the Isle of Man has branded itself a “Bitcoin Island”, Walker quipped that Gibraltar could be called a “Bitcoin Rock”. Indeed, the household names of Costa Coffee and Hotel Chocolate have joined a growing list of merchants accepting bitcoin in Gibraltar. Essardas Luxury, for example, has accepted bitcoin since early 2021, while smaller independent shops accept cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin and sometimes stable coins, upon request.
