Bitcoin accepted here: The tiny family restaurant in India that’s embraced virtual currency

 For most Indians new to the concept of cryptocurrencies, the idea of  making a transaction in real life using bitcoin seems vaguely illicit.  It certainly doesn’t seem like the kind of thing you’d do on a Saturday  afternoon, for instance, after devouring a Maharashtrian thali or snacking on a vada pav. And yet, at the Suryawanshi restaurants in  Bengaluru’s Indiranagar and Whitefield neighbourhoods, that’s exactly  what you can do, because owner Kailash Suryawanshi accepts bitcoin as a  mode of payment, alongside the usual cash, cards, and Paytm. Suryawanshi, originally from the town of Kolhapur in Maharashtra,  moved to the southern city way back in 2004 and worked in the used cars  business. Nearly a decade later, after noticing the glaring lack of  quality Maharashtrian food available, he launched his first eponymous  restaurant in Whitefield, and followed that up with another in  Indiranagar in 2015, gradually making a name for himself by serving  authentic Kolhapuri thalis, loaded with seafood and meats. 

While  the two outlets may not be the first offline establishments to transact  in bitcoin in India (that honour reportedly belongs to a pizzeria in Mumbai,  owned by a bitcoin enthusiast, which began accepting the cryptocurrency  in 2013), they are certainly a rare breed. Though you can buy books or even movie tickets  online using local bitcoin exchange apps, such as Zebpay, Coinsecure,  and Unocoin, the digital currency remains largely unknown outside of a  small, tech-savvy community in the country, and that applies to India’s  Silicon Valley, too. Tejas Suryawanshi, Kailash’s son, says his family was introduced to  bitcoin in September last year and watched the value of its initial  investment grow quickly in just a few months. In November, they decided  to start accepting the digital currency at their restaurants to both  raise awareness about the technology and increase the value of their  investments. To woo tech-savvy Bengaluru locals, they put up stickers  saying “bitcoin accepted here.” But so far, they’ve witnessed just one  bitcoin transaction. “There were a lot of people who came and clicked photos (of the sign)  but apart from that no transactions,” 23-year-old Suryawanshi told  Quartz, adding that one bill worth around Rs500 was paid for using  bitcoin a little over a month ago. Now, the bitcoin earned is worth over  Rs1,000, he said. The price of the cryptocurrency has been shooting up in recent months, hitting an all-time high of of nearly $3,000 last week. There’s a lot of different reasons for this, among them Japan’s decision in April to legalise bitcoin  as a mode of payment. As a result, interest in the digital currency is  growing, even in India, where Zebpay, for instance, said it was adding more than 2,500 new users every day. 

Sandeep  Goenka, co-founder of Zepbay, estimates that there are between 200,000  and 500,000 people investing in bitcoin in India. But most of them  aren’t really using the cryptocurrency for purchases. “Currently, most people are using (bitcoin) to make some alternate  investments,” Goenka said in an email. “According to us, (the) state of  bitcoins as a payment mode in India is still a couple of years away.” That’s in part due to the confusing legal status of digital  currencies in the country. While Goenka and others in the industry  maintain that bitcoin is legal under the country’s existing laws, the  government said in March that the Reserve Bank of India had not authorised the use  of virtual currencies, and that they could put individuals at risk of  breaching anti-money-laundering and terrorism financing laws. Since April, the government has been examining the issue,  and has even invited comments from the public on whether bitcoin and  other digital currencies should be regulated or banned outright. The  responses have mostly favoured legalisation. So far, however, digital currencies remain unregulated in India. 

Without  regulation, there’s no institutional authority to turn to for help if  things go wrong. And that explains why many locals are still a little  wary of bitcoin. “Bitcoin is a very risky platform at the moment… nobody has control  over it, so you don’t know from where the money is coming and where it  is going,” Suryawanshi said. “There’s a fear of being hacked; people  don’t think being online is good enough.” In fact, earlier this month, a report on the website Factor Daily revealed a harrowing story of a Bengaluru techie who lost Rs1.2 lakh  ($1,860) in minutes after his Unocoin account was hacked. Since bitcoin  users (and hackers) can choose to remain anonymous, and transactions  can’t be reversed, it’s not easy to recover the currency once it’s lost. Nevertheless, for the brave few who stick it out in India, there’s big money to be made,  not to mention the promise of at least one offline reward: a delectable  plate of authentic Maharashtrian food, and the cachet of saying you  paid for it with bitcoin.