Even though the Gulf countries do not appreciate the Bitcoin arrival on the market and still regard it untrustworthy, Pizza Guys company from Dubai has decided to take the first step towards cryptocurrency in United Arab Emirates. Just this Tuesday Cointelegraph has posted an article that the UAE and its neighbor countries do not possess the right environment for the widespread of Bitcoin, as people and government are prefer more conservative solutions. The lack of stability, which digital coins have become notorious of, doesn’t help either.
However, not everyone believe with the unspoken agreement of Bitcoin distrust. There are individuals in UAE, who are do believe in the future of the cryptocurrencies and positive effects these can have over the global economy. Among these rare people stands Rami Badawi, the founder of the New York chain of pizzerias from UAE, who gave a small interview for Arabianbussiness.com.
First, Mr. Badawi stated that he had fully understood the suspicion of his compatriots towards the Bitcoin, as the current volatile nature is a variable that not any business can or is willing to afford in its equation. However, he is positive about the tomorrow of the digital coin that is why he, despite the common practice, is not using services such as Bitpay, GoCoin and others. Instead, he collects digital currency and waits to see what would become of the exchange rate in the near future.
The decision to manage new income that way has quite a logical reasoning. Mr. Bawadi sees the opportunity of long-term investment of the Bitcoin, as the 21 million BTC cap and the growing mining difficulty causes this cryptocurrency to be deflationary. Businessman does not deny the volatility of it now, but the digital coin is not that widespread to seriously hit his enterprise. If the exchange rate seriously goes down, they could easily cover for it. So the compensation would not be too high, the Bitcoin payment in Pizza Guys has a cap of its own. They do not accept more 1000 Arabic Emirate Dollars a day, that’s roughly equal to $272 of US green.
Well, the fact that after first five days of their announcement the company had only 2 orders paid by Bitcoin explains a lot. Surely this number will only grow as the pandemic of Bitcoin is spreading in all directions, but for now it allows a minimum risk and a slow hoarding of the crypto for Mr. Bawadi.
The limit on the Bitcoin emission is what attracted Bawadi to Bitcoin in the first place, as he believes that the system that allows the printing of money on demand is a dangerous game to play. In his (and not only his) opinion the financial crisis of the 2008 had struck us because of the aforementioned reason.
Another benefit of Bitcoin in the eyes of Pizza Guys’ founder is the easiness of implementation – practically a phone App is everything that is needed to start trading.
Never have I thought that the first business of UAE would accept Bitcoin not through the immediate transformation into fiat but in the raw cryptoform, as it is usually the privilege of individuals who do not spend a lot and can waste a buck or two due to jumping price. Another category are the long-term investors, who prefer to wait it out, having the clear picture of what is now and what it will become. Finally there are a bunch of true hardcore crypto-enthusiasts who won’t turn a single satoshi into fiat unless it’s absolutely necessary.
Rami Bawadi seems to be on the intersections of all of these categories and maybe, just maybe this model is a next big thing in the swirling vortexes of cryptocurrency businesses.