Three restaurants and a nightclub (so far) are accepting bitcoin for the bill along Massachusetts Avenue, where a bitcoin ATM also popped up recently. Hungry customers looking to lighten their virtual wallet can grab sushi at the Thelonious Monkfish, pan-Asian cuisine at Moska, a meat-free meal at Veggie Galaxy, or a drink at Naga before restocking their bitcoin account by depositing cash at the Liberty Teller Bitcoin ATM.
According to the restaurant owners, there seems to be a bonus for being first on the bitcoin bus in the area. “If we’re the first restaurant in New England accepting bitcoin, it’s a no-brainer,” Jamme Chantler, owner of the Thelonious Monkfish, told the Boston Globe. “There’s a big group of people willing to drive 50 miles just to use it at my restaurant.”
For bitcoin enthusiasts, the “Bitcoin Boulevard” concept is not only a way to raise awareness about the benefits of cryptocurrency, but also to promote the development of a community spirit.
“For us, this was largely about small business coming together to make a statement about the future of electronic commerce and the cost of doing business,” wrote a Reddit user who identified himself as Nikhil, posting under the handle BTCBoulevardUS. “They [the business owners] know they are not in this for a big Bitcoin windfall, but are embracing new ideas which may be quite important to their margins in the years to come.”
As more forward-thinking businesses take steps toward accepting cryptocurrency, Nikhil said, more “Bitcoin Boulevards” will develop across the country.
Coincidentally (or not), this particular avenue is located just next to the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which is participating in a bitcoin promotion program to distribute $100 worth of the currency to every MIT undergraduate student this fall. The two students who founded the project, Jeremy Rubin and Dan Elitzer, said they fundraised the nearly $500,000 for the idea from MIT alumni and bitcoin enthusiasts.