McDonald’s, Starbucks turn on Bitcoin payments in El Salvador
McDonald’s is now accepting payments in Bitcoin through Lightning Network. But only in El Salvador.
Crypto journalist Aaron van Wirdum broke the news this week after he visited a McDonald’s restaurant in the country and was presented with a printed QR code directing him to an invoice page on Lightning Network.
El Salvador recently become the first country to accept Bitcoin as legal tender.
Businesses are now obliged where possible to accept it as payment. Millions of people are expected to download the government's new digital wallet app which gives away $30 in Bitcoin to every citizen.
"We must break the paradigms of the past," President Nayib Bukele said. "El Salvador has the right to advance towards the first world."
In addition to McDonald’s, Starbucks is also accepting Bitcoin payments in the country.
“Beyond the headlines, there is now pressure on competing nations to acquire Bitcoin, even if only as a reserve asset, as its design massively incentivises early adoption,” tweeted Edward Snowden, the former computer intelligence consultant who leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency in 2013 when he was an employee and subcontractor for the Central Intelligence Agency
“Latecomers may regret hesitating,” he added.
