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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Cash, cards and now crypto. Using bitcoin to pay for a slice of pizza or a trip to the barber is becoming easier across North Carolina as more businesses begin to accept the digital currency.
According to BTC Map, a dashboard that tracks merchants accepting bitcoin, verified bitcoin businesses are already up more than 50% over the past year.
The surge is in part to a new feature recently rolled out by Square that allows millions of businesses to take bitcoin payments at the tap of a button.
For owner Oliver Mulligan, the feature also allows his business to reach new clients. Mulligan owns the Great Wagon Road Distilling Company, one of the oldest distilleries in Mecklenburg County.
“We were the first people in Mecklenburg County to get a distillation permit, and we were the first company in the state to have its own cocktail bar,” Mulligan said.
But if you ask Mulligan, creating a distillery from scratch didn’t just come on a whim.
“My grandfather was arrested for making moonshine in Ireland, so myself and a buddy of mine decided I did enough of the engineering business, and we decided to open a distillery together,” Mulligan said.
Thirteen years later, the distillery is still paving the way, pouring whiskey, vodka and accepting bitcoin.
“I knew about bitcoin from my engineering days. And actually there was a bar in Dublin maybe 15 years ago that was taking bitcoin. So I thought, ‘this is interesting.’ So I said, ‘well let’s go, let’s give it a go,’” Mulligan said.
Bitcoin can sound complicated, but at the distillery, Mulligan says it’s simple.
“We process the payment through this little terminal and then we convert it to cash so we can pay our staff and pay our taxes at the end of the night,” Mulligan said.
Bitcoin is digital currency that can be bought and traded online that does not involve a bank.
“It’s a sound monetary instrument that allows people to take what they’ve earned while they’re working and hold onto it and not have it changed through inflation,” said Maxx Mannheimer, a bitcoin consultant with Sovereign Bitcoin Consulting.
At the distillery, the cryptocurrency is also simple to use. Through Square, customers scan a QR code with their phone and the payment goes through in seconds.
Mannheimer says it’s a win-win for customers and business owners.
“When you pay for it, it’s the same to the business. They receive it in whatever currency they want. They get to reduce their fees through credit cards because credit cards are charging 3%, and bitcoin charges significantly less than that,” Mannheimer said.
The Great Wagon Road Distillery is part of roughly 90 other businesses across Charlotte that take bitcoin as payment, a trend that Mannheimer says is not going anywhere anytime soon.
“It’s gone from almost absolute obscurity into something that’s incredibly important. I think that trend will continue, everything’s going digital. That trend is not reversing,” Mannheimer said.
For Mulligan, he says accepting digital dollars has brought new customers and conversations.
“It is growing, which is good, and I think it’s worth the risk. And you know what? It’s kind of fun, because we hold on to the bitcoin, convert it to cash and pay our staff and our taxes and it’s fun to log in every now and again and see how it’s going,” Mulligan said.
Right now, Mulligan says bitcoin only makes up a small part of the distillery’s sales but believes adding digital dollars to the mix is only the beginning.
“As the old saying goes, the tide lifts all boats. So the more places that begin to take bitcoin, we’ll just see the whole industry grow,” Mulligan said.
According to Bitbo, there are over 106 million people who own bitcoin and over 400 businesses that accept the currency across North Carolina.
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