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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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Hack Drains FriesDAO Restaurant Project of $2.3M in What Looks Like Potentially Lethal Blow

Late last month, FriesDAO, the organization that made a splash when it raised over $5 million via a token offering earlier this year, saw its treasury raided and drained by a hacker.

According to a postmortem created by the DAO’s admins, hackers were able to access the DAO’s treasury and take all of the group’s USDC tokens:

On October 27th, 5:58PM UTC, friesDAO contracts were exploited by an attacker taking control of our own deployer address through a profanity attack vector. The hacker was able to drain the treasury of its USDC through the refund contract, drain the FRIES tokens in the staking contract, subsequently selling it all into the Uniswap pool.

The document goes pretty deep into crypto-speak to explain what happened, but the bottom line is a hacker was able to access the DAOs treasury via a crypto exploit called the Profanity flaw. There have been a number of Profanity-exploit related crypto hacks over the past couple of months and, unfortunately for FriesDAO, they are one of the latest.

The news looks like a potentially crippling blow to the DAO, which had been deep in negotiation to buy its first restaurant. Those within the DAO are continuing to try and figure out who stole the funds and figure out next steps, but things are not looking good. The overall tenor in the group’s Discord is one of resignation as they try to figure out if they can salvage the acquisition, start anew by raising new funds, or if they should just take their losses and move on.

It’s a huge bummer for an innovative organization that looked like it would be the first to create the world’s first DAO-owned restaurant. More broadly, this type of news will no doubt potentially plant seeds of doubt among decision makers at bigger brands who had been evaluating moves into the world of Web3.

Web3 & Bubble Tea: FriesDAO Closing In On First Restaurant Acquisition

FriesDAO is closing in on its first restaurant purchase.

The group, which managed to raise over $5 million via an initial token offering in the spring of 2022, has identified a boba tea/frozen yogurt store in New York City that it describes as an “absentee store (no daily owner operation needed).” The group says the location is currently profitable.

To make the deal even more interesting, the FriesDAO team says “a very popular NFT collection” has offered to give the group full support with possible partnership implications if the DAO chooses to brand a store with the NFT. In a post on Snapshot, FriesDAO explains that partnering up with the NFT collection (which they do not name) is attractive because, in part, any commercial revenue restrictions from the NFT license would be removed.

“This would potentially allow us to own the store directly, explore and set our own policies, increase community engagement through creative endeavors, and possibly start our own franchise.”

Over the past six months, the group has been sifting through various proposals with mixed success. In a previous announcement, FriesDAO disclosed they had been in discussions with an operator of a Jersey Mike’s franchise to buy its location, but the deal fell through once the operator backed out.

The DAO now looks like it’s found a purchase target. After getting nearly unanimous consent from backers via an online poll, the DAO is planning to send a Letter of Intent (LOI) today, FriesDAO advisor Bill Lee told The Spoon.

If the deal (which will cost about $165 thousand) goes through, I’ll be curious to learn which NFT collection the group has been in discussions with. The success of Bored & Hungry has shown that branding a restaurant with a popular NFT can add buzz and drive customer visits.

The group’s choice of a boba tea spot makes sense, since spin-up costs for new locations are likely to be much lower than that of a traditional fast food joint. Lower capex costs could help accelerate expansion should the DAO move forward with an NFT-branded franchise model.

SimulATE Spring Video Sessions: The Food Web3 Summit

Earlier this month, SimulATE Spring convened the leaders pioneering in food & web3. Now you can watch all the sessions here!

The second installment of the SimulATE event series, we explore how the world of web3 will impact restaurants, CPG, ag, community building, and more.

Subscribers to Spoon Plus can get access to all of the sessions below.

Fatburger Dropping 500 NFTs Good for a Free Burger on National Hamburger Day

Another burger joint has joined the NFT boom.

This time it’s Fatburger, who has partnered up with Supper Club, a Web3 focused food club, to create the burger chain’s first NFT drop.

Unlike some of the early moves by fast-food chains into NFTs, Fatburger is making it worth your while by adding some real-world utility to their token. Those who sign up early enough to get one of the 500 limited edition NFTs will get a coupon to redeem for a free Fatburger.

Unfortunately, however, to get access to the NFT and coupon they have to jump through a few technical hoops. From the release: Guests can access their specialty NFTs through their Solana blockchain wallet and will be able to redeem a coupon for a free Original Fatburger on their online purchase, starting June 1 through the end of the month. Once a user links their wallet to their browser, the Fatburger online ordering website will register if a user has an NFT in their Solana wallet and the coupon can be applied. Coupons will be redeemable once per NFT owner and will not include add-ons.

Maybe it’s no big deal for anyone who’s already fluent in NFTs and web3. I’m also sure there are enough Fatburger fanboys out there who will spend the time venturing into the world of web3 for the first time to learn how to install a wallet plugin on their browser, save their recovery phrase, and then connect to the Fatburger website to redeem the coupon.

But like we’ve said before (and others like Adam Brotman have been evangelizing), the consumer user experience needs to be much easier than it is now when it comes to using NFTs. My guess is it will get there- someday – where it will be as easy as tapping your phone or scanning a QR code to buy and use NFTs. Unfortunately, that point is definitely not now.

If you’d like to scoop up a Fatburger NFT on National Burger day, head on over to the Fatburger mint page early on May 28th.

What Do NFTs and Web3 Mean for Small Restaurants?

So while it may not be surprising that a restaurant concept by alpha-adopter and Internet celebrity Gary Vaynerchuk can raise millions of dollars selling NFTs, what about that mom & pop place on the corner?

In other words, how does a small restauranteur that doesn’t have the followers, fame and early adopter advantage of a Vaynerchuk take advantage of web3?

This is a problem Adam Brotman has been giving some thought to. As the former head of digital for Starbucks and CEO of a company that powers digital loyalty programs for restaurants big and small in Brightloom, he’s been imagining what a world looks like when more consumers know what an NFT is and how to hold it.

I asked him how a corner restaurant like the one in my neighborhood called Portofino’s might eventually use an NFT. According to Brotman, local restaurants like the one at the end of my street will eventually be able to put NFTs to use, but not in the same way celebrities as Vaynerchuk can.

“Portofino’s could say, ‘Yeah, we know who our best customers are, either by name or some loyalty program,'” Brotman said on the Spoon podcast. “And they give them an NFT. Say, ‘here’s a code to claim your free NFT. And by the way, we’re only giving there’s only ever going to be 300 customers that can own the Portofino’s NFT.’

Brotman says that there are plenty of benefits popular smaller restaurants can give loyal customers that would make an NFT valuable such as reservations whenever they want, free valet parking, special offers, and events.

Brotman acknowledges some things need to fall into place before small guys can use NFTs, the first of which is to make the onramp for customers to buy and hold NFTs a whole lot accessible.

“99% of their customers wouldn’t even know how to hold an NFT,” said Brotman. “You have to have a crypto wallet today. They ask, ‘what is a crypto wallet? How do I get one?'”

Brotman says the entire crypto tech space is working on this problem and believes big consumer-facing crypto companies like Coinbase will eventually offer easy-to-use solutions.

He also thinks the cost needs to come down, both in terms of transaction fees and the impact on the environment. He believes newer blockchain platforms that claim to be carbon neutral like Solana will help here.

Brotman also admits better tools are needed since offering something like an NFT is beyond the capabilities of most restauranteurs and says that this is a problem that Brightloom is working on.

Brotman also thinks the broader metaverse holds potential for restaurants, but it will be a while before all that is figured out.

“I think we’re a ways off from that,” said Brotman. “NFTs being used multi-purpose loyalty, access identity, digital collectible community formation tool is going to be more relevant first before there’s going a critical mass of people living in some virtual reality.”

But, just in case restaurants are already thinking of moving into the metaverse, Brotman doesn’t think they should be overly focused on being transactional, but instead on enabling experiences that are on-brand.

“If I’m a Starbucks in the metaverse, I’m not just serving coffee. I’m growing coffee. I’m giving people tours of my farm in Costa Rica. What are the things that I wish I could transport people to experiences that I can’t scale in real life because of distance or cost or physics?”

You can hear the rest of my conversation with Brotman in the latest episode of The Spoon podcast.

This Farmer’s Market Vendor Has Accepted Bitcoin for 5 Years. Here’s How Things Have Changed.

Back in 2017, before much of the general public had given cryptocurrency a second thought, Alessandro Stortini started accepting bitcoin as a form of payment at his local farmer’s market stand, La Pasta.

Since that time, virtual currencies have become mainstream as everyone from grandmas to pro athletes have jumped into the world of crypto. In fact, from 2017 to 2022, the number of crypto wallets went from under 12 million to over 81 million by January of 2022.

If you’re like me, you’d figure with almost seven times as many cryptocurrency wallets out there, the number of people looking to spend their virtual currency to buy pasta at their local farmer’s market would have gone up. Not so, according to Stortini.

“We got way more customers paying with bitcoin in 2017,” Stortini said.

Stortini told me the reason for that is because back in those early days, crypto owners were more willing to use it as a form of payment.

La Pasta’s QR Code for accepting crypto payment

“There was more buzz back then and more people not doing it as an investment, but instead just spending it.”

According to Stortini, as bitcoin and other crypto markets crashed in 2017-18, many continued to spend their cryptocurrency as they tried to unload it. However, as cryptocurrency values hit the stratosphere in recent years, that’s all changed.

“More people are holding than ever,” Stortini said. “It’s harder to get it out of people than back then.”

Stortini operates at 18 different farmer’s market locations across the Puget Sound region per week and gets, on average, one or two cryptocurrency transactions per day at each location. The type of coin varies depending on the location.

“Edmonds (a city north of Seattle) is the more heavy crypto market. Edmonds is all bitcoin. West Seattle and Capitol Hill are really obscure coins. A lot of Monero and trendy coins like Doge.”

Stortini, who’s helped a couple of his fellow farmer’s market vendors get set up to take crypto payments, says accepting bitcoin and other coins has just gotten easier over the years.

“It’s just like scanning a Venmo. A lot of the vendors at this point have a QR for their Venmo or for other things.”

So what does Stortini do with the virtual currency he gets from his customers? Like other crypto enthusiasts nowadays, he’s long on bitcoin and other coins.

“I’ve never cashed out any of this stuff we’ve taken through the business. But, with one or two transactions a day, it’s better to let it sit.”

It Started as a Meme. Now friesDAO Is On Track to Buy a Restaurant After Raising Over $4M Selling NFTs

When Bill Lee and Brett Beller started talking about the idea of using a DAO and NFTs to buy a McDonald’s, they were mostly joking around.

“There was always this joke since the beginning of crypto where if you just traded very poorly, or if you lost a lot of money, you could always work at McDonald’s,” said Lee, an advisor to friesDAO, in a recent interview with The Spoon. “And we just thought it would be hilarious if we got together and said let’s try and buy McDonald’s as a DAO so we can guarantee ourselves a future job.”

The two continued talking and became intrigued enough by the idea to start a Discord server, tell a few folks, and see what happens. Within a few days, a couple thousand had joined the Discord, and it became clear that what started as a meme was now something many were taking very seriously.

“As people started joining, we realized that the pressure is on now,” said Lee. “People are actually wanting to do this for real.”

Different members of the server offered to pitch in, and before long, they had assembled a crew to make it happen. One person started a website. Another registered a domain. Someone put together the documentation. And just like that, a Discord server that had launched after Christmas was a DAO with momentum and real money: As of this week, friesDAO has over $4 million in a treasury.

In the short time the project has been together, Lee and the rest of the team have given lots of thought to how it might work. For token holders, Lee said that while they will have a say in the oversight and direction of the restaurant and get access to real-world benefits like free food, what they won’t get is any ownership equity in the restaurant. That would essentially categorize the effort as equity-based crowdfunding and subject it to much stricter regulatory oversight.

As for the purchase structure and ongoing oversight of the business, the group’s considered a number of ways to do this. While one idea is an outright purchase of an existing restaurant through a contracted third party, another possibility they’re exploring is structuring the deal as a loan to an existing franchise operator to buy another restaurant. This would allow the DAO to rely on the operator’s expertise in running a restaurant, preserve capital, and scale to more cities, all while negotiating real-world benefits for token holders into the terms of the deal like coupons for free food.

With (as of today) over $4.3 million in the treasury, the DAO already has enough to buy a restaurant, but the question is what kind? Lee said the group has priced out everything from a Subway to different nationally recognized burger franchises, but they will likely go after a smaller franchise first, essentially giving them a “practice run” before scooping up a bigger franchise like a McDonald’s.

According to the group’s roadmap, that first purchase should take place around June of this year.

You can listen to my full conversation with Bill Lee of friesDAO below, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

If you missed SimulATE, The Spoon’s food Web3 summit last week where we talked with others working on restaurant NFTs (including BurgerDAO and Flyfish Group), you can watch all the sessions here with a subscription to Spoon Plus. (Also, make sure to not miss SimulATE II, coming in May).

Dinner DAO is Creating IRL Dinner Clubs Built Around NFTs

After eating at home for much of the past 18 months, most of us are itching to get out into the real world and have dinner with interesting people. If this is you, may I suggest a new way to break bread: An NFT dinner club.

That’s the idea behind Dinner DAO, a new community creating IRL (in real life) dinner clubs using non-fungible tokens.

Here’s how it works: Prospective diners become members of a club – or Dinner DAO (DAO stands for ‘decentralized autonomous organization’) – by buying a Dinner DAO NFT. The cryptocurrency raised during the sale of the NFT is pooled in a shared treasury and used to purchase meals whenever the club gets together throughout the year.

Like many NFTs, Dinner DAO uses Ethereum because of the cryptocurrency’s built-in smart contract functionality. Dinner DAO NFTs are minted using a platform called Unlock, which creates the locks and keys for NFT membership. Membership can take the form of a season pass or even one-off dinner tickets.

Dinner DAOs are location-based, meaning members join together for dinner in a specific city. Members discuss potential restaurants using the Dinner DAO Discord, which acts as the central gathering spot for the community. From there, they vote on where to eat using Snapshot.org, a decentralized voting site popular with the crypto crowd.

The Dinner DAO concept is the brainchild of artist and designer Austin Robey. Robey, who lives in Brooklyn, created the first Dinner DAO NFT for New York City, and the first meal was at a restaurant in Little Italy called Shoo Shoo Nolita. I asked Robey how his club paid for the meal since memberships are purchased in virtual currency and most restaurants want dollars or another government-backed currency. He told me that one of the members of the club had a Coinbase debit card (Coinbase is a company that operates a cryptocurrency exchange, and where many users keep cryptocurrency balances stored in the Coinbase wallet). The group transferred Ether from the pooled treasury to the member’s debit card and Coinbase converted it to US dollars when the bill was paid at the restaurant.

“I think it feels like it would defeat the purpose if everyone’s paying with a Bank of America credit cards,” said Robey.

If this all sounds like a lot of work, it is, at least for those not well-versed in cryptocurrency and NFTs. But for crypto converts, creating a Facebook group and paying for things with a regular credit card goes against the organizing principle of the virtual currency and NFT movement: decentralization. Robey and other Dinner DAO members are ok with taking more time to create a crypto-based dinner club because, in doing so, they are pioneering a new way to meet for a meal without having to rely on big technology companies or banks. In other words, they are getting together in real life by putting their dinner club on the blockchain.

“I have just have been interested in collective ownership within tech and collective governance within tech,” said Robey. “Which is part of the reason why I’ve been excited about digging into things that Unlock can do in the web three in crypto space to enable these new forms of human and corporate organization.”

Those who want to organize a new Dinner DAOs can do so by joining the Dinner DAO Discord and creating a proposal for a new city. Users vote on potential cities and, once awarded, the new Dinner DAO chapter lead will mint an NFT and put it on an exchange such as Opensea. Chapter leads are only allowed to invite two in-real-life friends and the rest must be new acquaintances. Once the eight seats are sold (each Dinner DAO club has a total of eight members), chapter members vote on a location and, finally, get together and eat a meal.

The newest Dinner DAO chapter is in Portland. The city lead is web anthropologist Amber Case, who was attracted to the idea of Dinner DAO because she felt the old-world way of splitting a check was such a pain. In her application for the Portland chapter, Case wrote she had at one point tried to create a dinner club, but “when we looked at the fundraising aspects of it, it quickly became annoying. My former co-founder and I even tried to make a startup to make it easier to split the check! We put that idea on ice while we waited for something better to emerge.”

Almost a decade later, Case has found her something better in Dinner DAO. If you’d like to look into creating a Dinner DAO, you can check out the group’s website.

The Culinary NFT Trend Is Just Beginning

If you thought the romance between the culinary world and NFTs was a quick spring fling, I have some news for you: This relationship looks set for the long haul.

The latest evidence of an embrace of non-fungible tokens by restaurants comes in the form of new promotion launches over the past few weeks by both Burger King and Dave & Buster’s.

The Burger King NFT promotion is part of an effort to raise awareness around the company’s Keep It Real campaign, a marketing initiative in which it is eliminating 120 artificial ingredients from its menu. Here’s how the program, which is powered by the Sweet NFT platform, is described in Restaurant Dive:

“Guests can scan a QR code on each Keep It Real Meal box to receive one of three collective NFT game pieces, according to details shared with Marketing Dive. When the full set is collected, guests are programmatically provided a fourth NFT, a reward that could be a 3D digital collectible, free Whopper sandwiches for a year, autographed merchandise or a call with one of the campaign’s celebrity ambassadors.

In short, the burger chain is creating a loyalty program that entices consumers with real-world rewards like burgers. In other words, a modern equivalent of the old McDonald’s Monopoly game, only built on the blockchain.

Much like Burger King’s effort, Dave & Buster’s is an NFT powered loyalty program that promises prizes, even if the odds are longer and prizes are essentially just more game tokens. The program, which also uses Sweet’s NFT platform, offers digital cards and tokens in exchange for tickets won by customers playing games in the restaurant. According to the announcement, each location will offer a unique game card and coin, and the first customer to collect all the locations will win a “1 of 1 Super Master NFT and a $10,000 Dave & Buster’s Power Card.”

Beyond these efforts by the big chains, NFTs are also making their way into higher-end cuisine. In July, chef Marcus Samuelsson turned his chicken recipe into an NFT and threw in the opportunity to eat at the chef’s restaurant. In August, food critic Agnes Chee Yan-Wei announced she’s collaborating with NOIZchain.com to create an NFT marketplace for chefs. And then there’s Gary Vaynerchuk’s NFT restaurant, where he plans to offer exclusive membership dining privileges for owners of one of the restaurant’s NFTs.

While much of the early forays into the NFT trend seemed a bit forced, the latest efforts are encouraging for a few reasons:

These NFTs offer real-world rewards, not just digital art. Digital art isn’t a bad thing, but the reality is if NFTs are ever to become mainstream, they need to translate to tangible rewards. Burger King is offering free food, while Buster & Dave’s offers the promise of free gameplay.

The rewards are available to everyone. Sweet, whose NFT platform underlies both Burger King and Dave & Buster’s offerings, call their approach “broad-scale”. What this means is there’s more than just one single copy of a digital asset everyone bids up to the stratosphere, and instead the programs offer rewards that are seemingly within reach and have similar odds to other more traditional game contests.

For those that want it: exclusive real-world experiences. For those who want to pay the price for membership, NFTs can also be a blockchain-powered ticket to exclusive real-world experiences. Vaynerchuk’s NFT restaurant and Chef Samuelsson’s NFT offer tangible but exclusive things high-end foodies would be excited about, like actual food.

So while early efforts to capitalize on NFTs may have been slightly cringe-inducing, the world of food is beginning to fine-tune their crypto offerings into something that real-world consumers might actually want.

Crypto Comes for Food Tech

I’m a little embarrassed to admit this now, but at the start of the year, I sort of dived head first into the world of cryptocurrencies. I hoovered up books like The Basics of Bitcoin, The Infinite Machine, and Kings of Crypto. I bought my first cryptocurrencies and was transfixed as the value kept going up and up.

To be fair, I was, and am, more interested in the mechanics of blockchain and smart contracts, the technology powering Bitcoin and Ethereum. So when Internet omnipresence Gary Vaynerchuk introduced his new NFT restaurant concept and Brave Robot announced it was accepting crypto payments, my knee-jerk reaction was eye rolling, but after sitting with it, I get it.

On Friday, Vaynerchuk’s VCR group announced the forthcoming NFT restaurant, which doesn’t appear to have a name yet, and won’t open until the fall of 2022. The website describes the restaurant as follows:

To experience the restaurant, guests will require a membership. Memberships can be purchased through an NFT (Non-Fungible Token).

The NFT will represent ownership of your membership which will provide access to the restaurant throughout the month, in addition to unlimited enjoyment of the cocktail lounge and access to private culinary experiences.

There will be 3 different NFT Tokens representing a multitude of experiences in the restaurant.

Each NFT is an asset and can be sold or transferred in the secondary market.

Emphasis on that last part is mine, but it’s also why I’m not just going to trash Vaynerchuk’s idea outright. Membership restaurants aren’t a new idea, but typically when you’re done with your membership at one, you’re done. You have nothing to show for it except the memories. With the NFT concept, however, you could potentially sell your spot for a profit if the value of the restaurant’s NFT increases. Vaynerchuk didn’t mention this outright, but because your membership is a smart contract, it could include provisions that ensure his restaurant gets a cut of any secondary or subsequent sale of that membership. That’s additional revenue for the restaurant.

Listen, I’m not saying it’s a great solution, or that more restaurants should adopt it, or that I would ever purchase such an NFT (I wouldn’t). But at least it’s an NFT with some utitility. Unlike the digital collectibles from Taco Bell, or the virtual dining NFT, Gary V’s idea gets you access to an actual meal you can eat.

The NFT restaurant wasn’t the only bit of blockchain news in the world of food tech last week. On Thursday, Brave Robot, which makes animal-free ice cream out of Perfect Day’s fermented dairy proteins, announced that you can now pay for your pints of ice cream with cryptocurrencies. The company’s direct to consumer site will accept payments in Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, DAI, Ethereum, Litecoin, or USD Coin. Cryptocurrencies are pretty volatile, so this could wind up being either a really good idea or a bad one, depending on which way the markets go.

What both of these announcements have in common, however, is showing how cryptocurrencies are steadily creeping further into the mainstream — and how the food industry is adapting to these changes. Creating restaurant memberships out of smart contracts and accepting Litecoin for ice cream is a far cry from the 10,000 bitcoins Laszlo Hanyecz paid eleven years ago to get a Papa John’s pizza delivered. But they aren’t ridiculous notions either.

As Brave Robot noted in its announcement, part of the reason for its acceptance of digital currencies was because millennials and Gen Z are adopting the technology. That’s not a guarantee that young folks will carry cryptocurrencies to become the de facto payment method of the future, but neither Gary V or Brave Robot should be embarrassed by their recent blockchain moves.

More Headlines

Forthcoming Tesla Humanoid Robot Will Get Your Groceries, But Should it? – Instead of building a biped, why not just send a self-driving car to get your groceries?

Melt&Marble Raises €750K Seed Round for its Fermentation-Based Fats – The B2B ingredient company can create different kinds of plant-based fats for different types of plant-based proteins.

Slice Launches Tiered Packaging for Its Pizza-Centric Tech Platform – Shop owners that need more digital capabilities can graduate to the Slice Premium level, which gives them access to online ordering, a customized website, and boosted search rankings on the marketplace.

Creator Re-Opens With a New Burger Making-Robot Customers Can Control – The new robot allows users to customize their burgers with seasonings, spices and sauces dispensed to the precise milliliter.

You Can Now Buy Brave Robot’s Ice Cream with Crypto

Brave Robot is entering into the brave new world of cryptocurrencies. The company announced today that consumers can now by its ice cream made from fermented flora with Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, DAI, Ethereum, Litecoin, or USD Coin. Crypto payment is available on Brave Robot’s direct-to-consumer website and was made possible through a partnership with Coinbase Commerce.

Brave Robot’s ice cream is made using Perfect Day’s technology, which ferments micro-flora organisms to recreate dairy proteins. The result is animal-free milk, ice cream and other dairy products that closely mimic “the real thing.”

In its press announcement, Brave Robot explained the crypto move by writing:

With millennials and Gen Z adopting decentralized currencies and blockchain technology becoming one of the most significant technological innovations, Brave Robot is thrilled to integrate cryptocurrency payment options for consumers to facilitate secure online transactions through Coinbase Commerce. 

Cryptocurrencies have made headlines throughout the year because of a combination of sky-high values (one bitcoin was worth as much as almost $65,000 in April of this year) and its volatility (bitcoin fell to $29,000 per coin in July before rebounding back up to $46,000 as of this writing). This creates a bit of a dicey proposition for Brave Robot. The crypto people use to pay for ice cream today could be worth a lot more or a lot less in the coming weeks depending on the markets (excluding USD Coin, which stays at $1).

But raging volatility aside, cryptocurrencies represent a totally new way of thinking about money, just as Brave Robot/Perfect Day represent new ways of thinking about dairy. And at the very least, this stunt could help establish crypto as a legitimate payment method. So the marriage of the two actually makes sense.

A Virtual Restaurant Brand to Support Bitcoin, ‘Take On’ Big Pizza

Bitcoin Pizza Day is coming up, which makes it an apt time to launch a bitcoin-themed virtual pizza restaurant. Anthony Pompliano, an entrepreneur and investor, announced today he is launching Bitcoin Pizza, a pop-up restaurant brand that will partner with independent pizza shops to deliver pies from May 22–29. (May 22 is the official Bitcoin Pizza Day.)

May 22, otherwise known as Bitcoin Pizza Day, will mark the 11-year anniversary of the world’s first commercial transaction done with digital currency — for two pizzas, as it happens. Papa John’s provided the pies at the time, but don’t expect it or any other major chains to be a part of Pompliano’s pop-up shop this weekend. The brand’s website flatly states that “Bitcoin Pizza is the first decentralized pizza brand uniting our favorite neighborhood pizzerias under one roof to take on Big Pizza.”

To do that, the brand has partnered with indie shops around the country, which will make and deliver a special menu of five different pies. Sides and drinks will also be available. Customers can order for delivery or pickup from the Bitcoin Pizza website. So far, participating cities include San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, Austin, Houston, Miami, Washington, D.C., NYC, Boston, and Chicago. More are slated to be announced.

Proceeds go to the participating restaurants, and some to the Human Rights Foundation’s Bitcoin Development Fund. “Every pizza benefits open-source developers working to make the Bitcoin network more private, decentralized, and resilient,” states the Bitcoin Pizza website. 

There’s just one thing Bitcoin Pizza doesn’t do: accept crypto for currency. Right now, customers that order pizzas can pay with a credit card or Google Pay. According to an interview with Restaurant Business, Bitcoin Pizza is looking into adding crypto as a payment option. Which would make sense, given all of the above.

Bitcoin Pizza is a temporary brand for now. According to Popchew, with whom Pompliano worked to launch Bitcoin Pizza, the brand will relaunch as a permanent operation in the near future.