Bitcoin

Pizza Poised To Help Boost Bitcoin Acceptance

Jp Buntinx · @http://twitter.com/jdebunt | Nov 02, 2015 | 04:14

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Most of the people who have ever heard of Bitcoin will be able to recall the story about how one person paid 10,000 BTC for two pizzas a few years ago. Even though that might seem like a gigantic waste of money in hindsight, this was one of the first times Bitcoin was used as a payment method for tangible goods. A recent study shows how Millennials can’t get enough of pizza these days, which creates an interesting scenario for Bitcoin adoption.

Also read: Bitcoin is “The Real Boy” of Money: No Strings Attached

Young Americans Adore Pizza Over Phones

One of the most common misunderstandings these days is how Millennials seem to be spending tons of money on phones and other smart devices. While there has been an increase in expenses focusing on these gadgets, there are other things that are even more popular; Pizza is one of those things, as it is cheap and quite accessible in the US.

CNNMoney recently received some data from Venmo, one of the popular peer-to-peer money transfer applications used by Millennials these days. Although this data is a less obvious that one might expect, Venmo users will have to include a brief message when sending money to other users. In most cases, this message comes in the form of an emoji, indicating which types of payment are most common when using this peer-to-peer platform.

In cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, and San Francisco, the most commonly used emoji is pizza. While it may seem like a far stretch to automatically assume pizza is one of the most often paid-for items on the Venmo platform, the company strongly feels this is exactly the case. Areas like New York – taxi-  and Philadelphia – beer – show different trending emoji’s, which seem to be on par with what these places are famous for.

The recent growth of Venmo is indicative of how our society will evolve, especially regarding finance and sharing. Peer-to-peer platforms will start playing a bigger role in the future. Now that PayPal has announced Venmo integration in an official capacity, the number of transactions per quarter is likely to keep increasing over the next few years.

Pizza is cheap, accessible, and quite delicious. Millennials are well aware of how the economy works and which products they will prefer over others. As far as electronics go, smart devices and other gadgets will always remain popular in this demographic. But there is a noticeable trend of how people will use peer-to-peer payments when enjoying a social gathering.

Opportunity for Bitcoin and Pizza?

Bitcoin and pizza share quite the history together. Now those statistics confirm this is the item most Millennials seem to prefer using peer-to-peer payments for, there is a huge opportunity for Bitcoin acceptance in this market. The time has come for an educational campaign on how Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer payment platform similar to Venmo, but without relying on traditional payment methods, and with lower transaction fees.

Unfortunately, there are not too many places in the US where Bitcoin payments are accepted in exchange for pizza. All of that can be circumvented by using “temporary” solutions such as a Bitcoin debit card. However, if pizza businesses want to attract this demographic, it would be in their best interest to look into Bitcoin payments sooner rather than later.

What are your thoughts on using peer-to-peer payments for pizza? How can Bitcoin benefit from this trend? Let us know in the comments below!

Source: CNNMoney

Images courtesy of Venmo, Crust AU, Thuisbezorgd