Canadian restaurant chain Tahini's reports 300% profit on BTC investment in response to outbreak

More than a year after a Middle Eastern restaurant chain based in Canada converted its fiat cash reserves to bitcoin, the owner says the move helped save the company during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In August 2020, Tahini's Restaurant owners Aly Hamam and Omar Hamam, along with their cousin Ahmed, decided to convert the company's savings into bitcoin because it offered "more cash than saving cash," according to a report in Canadian news outlet Toronto Star on Tuesday. Good choice", Bitcoin was around $12,000 at the time. Aly Hamam reports that the company has profited from its initial cryptocurrency investment.

Hamam said: “Back in August 2020, we adopted the Bitcoin standard on our corporate balance sheet and since then our initial investment has grown by over 300%. It has really protected us from inflation , and it worked as we expected.”

The bitcoin price rallied to a new all-time high of over $67,000 in November, before falling to $41,729 as of this writing. Despite an 80% drop in sales during the first week of the pandemic, Hamam said the crypto investment allowed them to expand from three restaurant locations to nine at a time when many in the industry are facing financial difficulties. , and it plans to increase that number to as many as 25 by the end of the year.

Hamam said: “We keep around three to six months of working capital in cash, and then put the rest into bitcoin. So, whenever we expand, we’re not forced to sell bitcoin to fund the expansion. We try to operate conservatively, we never have to sell our bitcoin, we just keep accumulating our fortune.”

None of Tahini’s Ontario locations currently accept bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies, but they each have a bitcoin ATM that allows customers to purchase tokens before, during or after a meal. At the time of the initial investment (the exact amount is unclear), Hamam hinted that without "demand for fiat currency," the company would continue to use bitcoin as a reserve asset indefinitely.

"We're going to keep trying to make the best food we can...and with bitcoin, we also want to help people financially."

While restaurants like Tahini’s don’t appear to be on the radar of Ontario regulators, that hasn’t always been the case with local crypto companies. The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) has cracked down on cryptocurrency exchanges operating in the region, including Binance, OKEx, Bybit, KuCoin and Polo Digital Assets. On Jan. 14, Bitfinex announced that it would close the accounts of Ontario-based users with no balances on the platform, and that from March 1, many users “will no longer be able to use any services.”

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