Bengaluru, India’s Silicon Valley, is a safe haven for technologists and entrepreneurs looking to succeed in their respective industries. Bengaluru, is one of India’s largest cryptocurrency companies and host of projects. They have a tea vendor who has started selling “chai” in exchange for cryptocurrency payments. If you want to start trading Bitcoin, you can easily sign up here
A tea shop in Bengaluru, India’s startup capital, is gaining traction with the idea of accepting Bitcoin as payment. The store, called Frustrated Dropout, is owned by the famous Shubham Saini, who started the business after dropping out of his BCA course.
A photo shared on Twitter shows a man making tea at a table among Maggi and packs of noodles, with a banner in the background reading “Chal Chai Pite Hi.”
As a graduate of Indira Gandhi University, Saini Rewari went to Bangalore in search of employment opportunities and was gradually introduced to trading in the cryptocurrency market. After the market plunged his 60% in 2020, many investors bought the decline in hopes of reaping potential gains. Saini had invested all of his pocket money and savings into buying cryptocurrencies. “I invested roughly around Rs 1.5 lakh and within a few months my portfolio increased by 1000% of the initial investments. Soon my crypto wallet ballooned to roughly Rs. 10 lakhs+. It was a big deal for a good student,” he told to indianexpress.com.
With time, his investment increased significantly, and he realized the true potential of cryptocurrencies. He stopped asking his own parents for money, paid for school, and lived a life of luxury during crypto profits. At this point, Saini dropped out of the final semester of BCA and switched to cryptocurrency trading full-time. He thought that he was the next ‘Rakesh Jhunjhunwala’ after cryptocurrencies, but life is not easy after all after crypto winter.
A cup of tea in this shop costs 20 rupees. A customer can also pay with her UPI.
Saini told the Indian Express: Soon, my crypto wallet was roughly Rs 300,000, which was a big deal for a student like me.”
Just when Saini thought he was the “next Rakesh Junjunwala of the crypto world,” things took a dire turn in the 2021 crypto market crash. “I was going from £30 to £1 million and back where I started in crypto field. I couldn’t believe that one night would change my life so much,” he added.
That’s when the 22-year-old decided to set up a modest tea stand on the sidewalk with a new ambition. Frustrated Dropout chains minimize the use of plastic and non-recyclable items. The idea for a P2P payment platform came to him in Marathahalli, Bangalore while thinking about crypto. When a customer first tried to pay for chai with Bitcoin, he was surprised and intrigued. Saini said the popularity of using cryptocurrencies to buy simple things like tea has helped his business grow. On average, at least 20 new customers use cryptocurrencies to pay for their purchases each week, Saini said.
Saini told indianexpress.com that he would try to use the Paxful crypto platform to accept crypto payments. “Paxful introduced the Lightning Network to their platform slightly over a year ago from now. It has users in over 70 countries, including India, using Lightning on its Paxful. Promising as the cheapest option for payments. At Paxful, the average sending amount for Lightning in 2022 is less than $30. This is below the average amount sent for Bitcoin.
Interestingly, Saini posted a poster updating the recent INR to dollar rate. “Customers who want to pay simply scan his personal QR code like UPI, convert the INR to dollars, and then pay in cryptocurrencies,” he said to the reporters.
Despite numerous complaints from members of India’s cryptocurrency community, the country’s Ministry of Finance has not changed the tax laws enforced in the virtual digital asset (VDA) sector this year.
The government has also made no attempt to motivate workers in this sector.
A recent market survey found that India failed to secure a spot among the most crypto-friendly countries in the world. Hong Kong tops the list.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman recently called for global cooperation on regulation of the cryptocurrency sector. According to the United Nations Trade and Development Organization UNCTAD, more than 7% of Indians will own digital currency in the form of cryptocurrencies in 2021 and the use of cryptocurrencies worldwide, including in developing countries It says it increased exponentially during the pandemic. India was at seventh.
