You can now pay for your McDonald’s meal using Bitcoin…so to speak.
According to Forbes, the fast-food giant is now the first-of-its-kind to accept Bitcoin as a form of payment in El Salvador. The move comes shortly after the Central American country announced that it accepts the cryptocurrency coin as a form of legal tender. The deal was made through the California-based payment processor, OpenNode, which has formed a partnership with McDonald’s to allow these types of transactions to take place.
There are currently 19 McDonald’s throughout El Salvador, and payment using Bitcoin can be accepted in person, online, or through any delivery app.
This is the first major corporation to accept Bitcoin in the country, but it certainly won’t be the last. A spokesperson for OpenNode confirmed to Forbes that they are currently in the process of onboarding several corporations who do business in El Salvador onto their Bitcoin platform.
Just walked into a McDonald's in San Salvador to see if I could pay for my breakfast with bitcoin, tbh fully expecting to be told no.
But low and behold, they printed a ticket with QR that took me to a webpage with Lightning invoice, and now I'm enjoying my desayuno traditional! pic.twitter.com/NYCkMNbv7U
— Aaron van Wirdum (@AaronvanW) September 7, 2021
El Salvador is the first country to adopt the popular digital fiat as a form of legal tender. Questions still remain as to whether other countries — in particular, the United States — will follow suit. For now, though, El Salvador accepts Bitcoin, as well as the US Dollar, as official currency. However, according to reports, Bitcoin took a bit of a tumble in value a few days ago.
“El Salvador’s proclaimed “Bitcoin Day” got off to a rocky start as the cryptocurrency market plunged, with the price of bitcoin falling from over $52,000 to $42,830, its lowest level in nearly three weeks on Tuesday morning. Bitcoin recovered to just under $46,957 by 1:45 EDT, still 9% below a day earlier,” reports Forbes.
As of this writing, one Bitcoin reportedly equals about $44,625 — and a typical desayuno Tradicional (what would be a McDonald’s “Big Breakfast” in the United States) would be about .0001 Bitcoin. Talk about getting your money’s worth!
