The service Foodler has been a constant presence in 99Bitcoins, since the north-American restaurant delivery company has started accepting Bitcoin payments in April. And the bet on the most famous cryptocurrency of all has proven to be a success: the payments with virtual coin have grown by 30 percent each month since the platform began offering the option.
Bitcoin still constitutes less than 1 percent of the business, according to the co-founder Christian Dumontet, but the amount of crypto-payments keeps growing with an average of 9 BTC deposited in Foodler accounts each day. With this decision, the company has avoided paying 2 percent or more in credit card fees: they just had a .001 BTC fee to every customer deposit of .1 BTC or more.
According to Dumontet, the firm is composed by “software enthusiasts”, so the bet on Bitcoin seemed natural at the time. The technical curiosity aroused by cryptocurrency “was the initial motivation”. And although Bitcoin payments still have a small expression on the company’s accounts, the most important consequence was the huge amount of media attention that the experiment brought to Foodler.
The co-founder of the food-ordering service, which coordinates deliveries for over 12,000 restaurants, claims that accepting Bitcoin was very easy. However, after the initial work, the implementation process wasn’t completely done and the team realized they had to ensure their customers’ privacy with more coding. Fast-forward that period of adaptation and here we are: seeing Foodler grow at a steady pace.
Now, it’s a matter of understanding if the Bitcoiners are using their digital currency regularly to buy food. Well, if this is happening, it’s probably happening mostly in San Francisco, the source of 20 percent of Foodler’s Bitcoin orders. Washington DC comes second, with 16 percent. Foodler just couldn’t figure out yet what Bitcoin users really like to eat, but let’s wait until the company pulls some data and reveals that information.