Starbucks Partnership Aims to Bring Crypto Mainstream
By: Ivy Riane
Tags: Bitcoin, Business, Investing, News, Finance

Photo Retrieved from Bitcoin Exchange Guide

I’ve written for months now about how crypto going mainstream would help the price of crypto rise but challenges to actually becoming mainstream have been blocking mass adoption.

One major challenge for the crypto community has been that big names in the public sector have talked about getting involved and have set up entire divisions within their companies to research crypto possibilities but none have actually jumped into the space yet.

Having a big name company get involved would open some big doors for the crypto space and other big companies will likely get involved quickly too, so as not to be outdone by their competitors. If this happens, we should see a run up in trading volume and in the price of well-known cryptos.

Having big business involved in crypto may be good or it may be bad for us but it is going to happen either way sooner or later.

Starbucks partners with BAKKT

News has been released of a partnership between major coffee retailer, Starbucks, Microsoft, and Bakkt. Bakkt is a proposed regulated crypto platform being formed by the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) with the goal of helping move crypto into the mainstream.

“In bringing regulated, connected infrastructure together with institutional and consumer applications for digital assets, we aim to build confidence in the asset class on a global scale, consistent with our track record of bringing transparency and trust to previously unregulated markets,” said Jeffrey C. Sprecher, Founder, Chairman and CEO of ICE.

Not a lot of detail has been released yet on what the platform will look like or what this partnership will look like, only that Bitcoin will be the first offered upon release of the platform.

Microsoft will be helping to build out this platform. Starbucks will be serving as the flagship for this project with the aim to have consumers convert their digital assets into US dollars and use it at Starbucks.

Wait a Minute!

Cryptocurrency is meant to be decentralized and this suggests that consumers have to trade their crypto in order to get US dollars to spend at Starbucks so is this process decentralized and does this actually qualify as being a crypto platform?

Retrieved from YouTube

I really would love to hear thoughts on this because the way its being presented in the media right now I would say that this doesn’t qualify as being an actual crypto process.

What this could mean for crypto

Starbucks does serve millions of customers each day so the fact that they want to draw attention to crypto may be a good thing for ultimate mass adoption.

Photo Retrieved from Unhashed.com

Getting consumers to actually use crypto as a currency by spending it was the original intent of crypto so this may be a step forward but I’ll need more detail before I’m convinced.

This company and exchange are not online yet or even in production yet from what I understand. Its still purely theoretical right now so we will have to wait and see what becomes of all of this.

Do you think this is a viable step forward for crypto or just more smoke being blown at us? I would love to hear your thoughts!

Thanks for reading,

Ivy