- A Canadian restaurant chain has invested all its profits in Bitcoin, having started picking up BTC when it was just $12,000.
- The investment is up 460 percent and has allowed the company to survive at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on the hospitality industry.
We often hear the tales of large multinationals that have invested billions of dollars in Bitcoin and made a fortune. Michael Saylor’s Microstrategy and Elon Musk’s Tesla top this list. However, in Canada, a small restaurant chain chose the Bitcoin path, and it has reaped big. The chain has been investing all its profits in Bitcoin ever since one BTC was going for $12,000, and it doesn’t intend to stop any time soon.
Tahini’s is a family restaurant chain based in Ontario, Canada, that specializes in Middle Eastern cuisine. It was started by two brothers, Aly and Omar Hamam who immigrated to Canada from Egypt following the Arab uprising that took down the then-president Hosni Mubarak.
It now boasts of being the only restaurant chain in the world that invests 100 percent of its cash reserves into Bitcoin. The two brothers started acquiring BTC as far back as August last year when it was trading at $12,000. It’s gone parabolic since then and is trading at $56,365 at press time.
Aly, who leads the chain’s marketing efforts, told Business Insider:
We’re up, to date, 460% on our initial investment and we didn’t stop there. We will continue sweeping excess profit into bitcoins. We even bought the [April 2021 price] top and then rode it all the way down, and we just kept buying month after month after month. So it has worked like a charm for us.
“Bitcoin gave us a lifeline”
As with any other company operating in the hospitality industry, Tahini’s was hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. It had to lay off a significant number of its employees as people refrained from eating out. To combat the effects of the pandemic, the Canadian government, like many others, distributed cash to the public to aid in their day-to-day.
This was when the brothers knew that they had to find some better reserve of value than cash. With all the cash floating in the country, it wouldn’t be long before fiat currency lost its value. They had also seen their father’s cash reserves lose over 60 percent of their value in Egypt when the economy was shaken by the Arap uprising. They took the chance on Bitcoin, and it has paid off handsomely.
12) 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.
— Tahini’s (@TheRealTahinis) August 18, 2020
Aly added:
The main problem that we have right now is that dollars are devaluating. Central banks will say inflation is only 5%. But that really depends on what you want to buy. Poultry is up 45%, beef is up 25%, imported goods and spices are up 65%, oils are up 110%. So it made sense to put our money into [bitcoin]and that will outstrip any inflation rates we see for the coming decade.
In addition, the restaurant chain has installed Bitcoin ATM machines in all their restaurants to encourage their customers to adopt BTC. However, they only use Bitcoin for speculation and storing value. They have refrained from accepting the cryptocurrency for payments in any of their stores.
