The Middle Eastern restaurant chain in Canada took the crypto leap and switched out all of its fiat cash reserves into Bitcoin
A Middle Eastern restaurant chain based in Canada recently made the bold move to convert all of their fiat cash reserves into Bitcoin (BTC).
The owner of Tahinis, Omar Hamam, published a Twitter thread using the restaurant’s main account that explained the motivations behind their decision.
“As a small company that started in London Ontario Canada we operate 4 corporate locations and 3 Franshise locations about to open up in Ontario. We just converted our entire cash reserves that were originally used as savings into #Bitcoin.”
According to the thread, the coronavirus pandemic dealt a heavy blow to the restaurant because many people refrained from going out to eat. This pushed the restaurant owner, his brother and his cousin to let go of a significant amount of their employees.
For a time, a bulk of the Tahinis workload was taken by the three individuals. This was a difficult decision to make, particularly because the restaurant chain had been going through an expansion phase.
While their determination kept all of their restaurant’s cash flow positive, the owners struggled to bring back their employees, because “the government assistance programs in Canada made it very hard for us to bring back our partners (employees) as they were making more money staying at home and not working”.
With their cash reserves soaring and their business booming, the owners realised that cash did not have the same appeal as before and it was possible that any excess cash that was circulating the economy would lessen in value.
Hamam confessed that while he initially did not believe in bitcoin due to the influence of his idol in investing, Warren Buffett, his interest in the cryptocurrency naturally grew as he continued to encounter it throughout constant self-education on finance and current affairs.
“I heard people in the #Bitcoin community saying you have to hear about #Bitcoin at least 7 times before you get into it. 100% accurate. It wasn’t until I read @Breedlove22 article The Number Zero and Bitcoin where it all clicked for me,” one of the tweets in the thread explained.
Hamam described today’s current cash situation as a “game of musical chairs,” where the music may one day stop and some people are bound to get left out.
“And that’s when we as a company decided to store all of our excess cash reserves into #bitcoin as it offers a much better alternative to saving cash. We will continue to do that over the coming years and maybe forever if we don’t have a need for the fiat.”
Hamam mentioned that this decision was also inspired by MicroStrategy, a business intelligence company.