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Monica & # 39; s Restaurant in Pompton Lakes accepts bitcoin and litecoin as a way to attract new customers.(Photo: David M. Zimmer / NorthJersey.com)
The Monica & # 39; s Restaurant now accepts a new payment method for its characteristic Italian dishes which include fried mozzarella, calamari and stuffed mushrooms – cryptocurrency.
Do not clink in your pocket, it is not in the checkbook and can not be deleted on a credit card reader. Cryptocurrency is virtual.
The Pompton Lakes restaurant on Lakeside Avenue has recently joined a small number of restaurants that accept decentralized virtual currency, or cryptocurrency, in the form of bitcoin and its clone currency.
Apart from the personal interest in cryptocurrency, owner Atila Ajdinovski said he hopes to attract new and young customers to the Italian restaurant through alternative payment systems.
"Right now, we have an older clientele," Ajdinovski said. "I hope you bring the younger crowd".
Is cryptocurrency the future?
Jon Moore of Nationwide Merchant Solutions, a New Milford-based payment processing company, said that Monica is now among the 20 companies in New Jersey that helped embrace the cryptocurrency.
Many take care of online sales, where the security, speed and ability to track bitcoin and litecoin limit the risk of disputed transactions while reducing commissions and accelerating payments, he said.
"Credit cards are based on the honor system," said Moore. "When you're dealing with people all over the world you do not know, the honor systems do not work, and we're already seeing that it does not work with all the frauds in the payment system."
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Today buyers can purchase a wide range of retail products with bitcoins. Online shoppers include Newegg for electronics, Overstock.com for home, Expedia for travel and Tesla for cars. There are also walk-in shops such as Jeffersons Apparel & Accessories in Bergenfield and local service providers such as Boiling Point Mechanical in Wanaque.
A restaurant to sit down, however, is different, said Moore. The high-volume, hectic and in-person business offers a daily application for people who get used to what is probably the future of payment, he said.
"It's an exciting place to have it," said Moore. "Most places are not as visible to the public".
Moore said he hopes to personally help 50-60 New Jersey retailers start using cryptocurrency within the next six months. Among the upcoming there are Sendai Sushi in Emerson and Giovanni's Deli in Secaucus, he said.
Power of the mining computer
Bitcoin and litecoin are not commodities or stocks, but virtual currencies that can be purchased by providing users with goods and services or "extracted" with the power of the computer.
As virtual currency, transactions are protected and processed with the help of the Internet. Instead of being done in a centralized location like a bank, transactions are documented everywhere on the Internet.
"It's safer than any network out there," Moore said.
Internet users who provide the huge computing power now needed to process bitcoin transactions are called miners. The miners are compensated with newly created bitcoins, which become increasingly difficult and consequently expensive for mine.
"[The mining of] it uses as much electricity as the country of Argentina, "Moore said.
Historically, those with money and hardware for mine are rewarded. The value of the currency remained at around 2.5 times its extraction cost.
Litecoin is similar to bitcoin, although it uses a less complex cryptographic algorithm, said Moore. Because of its low transaction fees, Litecoin is a better payment system, he said. However, the currency itself does not maintain its value as well as bitcoin, he added.
How to use cryptocurrency
Although it is easier to implement for online sales, Moore said that cryptocurrency transactions in Monica are simpler for the business and its customers than paying by cash or credit card.
The Italian restaurant has a QR code, which is a pixel matrix barcode seen on almost all the items sold today, within its receipt holders. By analyzing the code, users are able to transfer money from their virtual wallets to Monica.
The process allows the restaurant to know almost instantly how much he paid and offered a supporter, making some disputes questionable, Moore said. There is no waiting for change or to sign a receipt. There is also less concern, said Ajdinovski.
Transaction records are permanently stored on the Internet, but account information is not shared.
"When they have your credit card, they have an expiration date, they have all the codes," Ajdinovski said. "They can turn around and steal your credit card without you knowing it."
Creating a virtual wallet is also relatively simple, said Moore.
Smartphone apps such as LoafWallet from Litecoin Foundation create an encrypted virtual wallet to hold currency. Losing the phone does not necessarily mean that the money has gone, however. A series of unique words for each user, that Moore has advised to write and store in a safe, can be used to find the virtual wallet.
A floating market
Among the first and only restaurants to start accepting bitcoins was Helen's Pizza in Jersey City. The restaurant had its first bitcoin transaction in 2014, said Nicholas Kalcanides, whose family has owned Helen & # 39; s Pizza since 1968.
Kalcanides said that the use of bitcoin started slowly, about one transaction a month. Transactions have become more regular with increasing the value of bitcoin and $ 400 around January 2016.
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Since the currency broke the $ 1,000 threshold in January 2017, he said there were no users beyond the three or four regular customers who recently started using it again as the value was declining.
"Once we fired a lot, we did not get any transactions," he said. "The only recent thing is that some customers have started using it again in the last two weeks."
The restaurant offers a 10% discount for cryptocurrency users, due to the relatively low transaction fees of 10 to 20 cents per bitcoin and about 2 cents per litecoin – compared to 2 to 3 percent for credit cars. The pizzeria started accepting litecoin about three months ago. He had yet to register a litecoin transaction until mid-October, Kalcanides said.
Value of virtual money
Litecoin was created in 2011, a year after the first bitcoin purchase. The user bought two pizzas with 10,000 bitcoins. Now (October 19), this translates into $ 64.4 million.
The bitcoin logo.
The New Jersey Taxation Division requires taxpayers to determine the fair market value of the cryptocurrency in dollars at the time of receipt for tax purposes. Kalcanides said that the accounting process does not change much with Helen's Pizza, except for one fact. The company has kept faith with every bit of a bitcoin that has ever traded for a slice.
"It's fine because they store their value and the value has increased, so we're happy," he said. "We did quite well."
They touched around $ 20,000 per unit by the end of 2017. It is now valued at more than $ 6,400. However, the bitcoins that bought a slice a few years ago could buy whole pies today.
Monica's Ajdinovski said he is not sure what he will do with virtual currency. He is thinking of keeping it, but he said he "still has to pay the bills". Many retailers are opting for immediate conversion into dollars, due to the perception of a volatile market, said Moore.
Where to buy bitcoins
Although expensive, Bitcoin fractions can be purchased on the Internet or with $ 20 banknotes in special ATMs. Elizabeth's Royal Fried Chicken has one, as does Wayne's T-Bowl Smoke Shop.
Rocky Gandhi of George & # 39; s Market on Hamburg Turnpike in Pompton Lakes, put a Bitcoin ATM in his corner corner in April.
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Every two weeks, the deli sees about 15-20 users depositing cash in the car and charging bitcoins on their smartphones, Gandhi said.
Regardless of whether the ATM Bitcoin will remain in the long run it is still undetermined. So how it is, Gandhi said he receives a flat rate from the owner of the ATM.
"Let's see how my committee goes," he said. "I have to see if it's worth it for me to have it or not."
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