According to a Tuesday report from Canadian news outlet Toronto Star, when Tahini’s restaurant owners Aly and Omar Hamam and their cousin Ahmed decided to convert the company’s savings into Bitcoin (BTC) in August 2020 because it offered “a much better alternative to saving cash,” the price of the crypto asset was roughly $12,000. “We made the move to the corporate balance sheet on a Bitcoin-standard back in August of 2020, and since then, we’re up more than 300 percent on our initial investment,” said Hamam.

Despite the company’s sales dropping 80% in a week at the start of the pandemic, Hamam said the crypto investment had allowed them to expand from three restaurant locations to nine at a time when many in the industry are facing financial difficulties, and it planned to increase that number to up to 25 by the end of the year. “We keep a working capital for about three to six months in cash, and then the rest all goes into Bitcoin,” said Hamam. 

By Amy Liu