Chipotle

Chipotle takes ‘buy the dip’ literally with new $200K crypto giveaway

The restaurant chain will give away Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, Avalanche and Dogecoin through an online game.

United States-based fast casual restaurant chain Chipotle has started an online game which will give customers the chance to win more than $200,000 in crypto.

In a Monday announcement, Chipotle said that, through July 31, fans would be able to play its “Buy The Dip” game using their rewards accounts. The company will give away $45,000 in Bitcoin (BTC), $10,000 in Ether (ETH), $13,750 in Solana (SOL), $14,250 in Avalanche (AVAX) and $14,250 in Dogecoin (DOGE) via the game.

“We want to build the next generation of Chipotle fandom by connecting with the Web3 community,” said Chipotle chief marketing officer Chris Brandt.

The restaurant chain gave away $100,000 in BTC in April 2021 as part of a promotion for National Burrito Day. In June, Chipotle announced its roughly 3,000 restaurants in the United States would accept 98 cryptocurrencies as payment through digital payment provider Flexa.

Other major fast food chains in the U.S. have organized similar crypto giveaways as the space grew. In November 2021, Burger King partnered with Robinhood to give away BTC, ETH and DOGE as part of customers’ purchases. McDonalds’ China arm started a campaign for customers to win 188 nonfungible tokens in celebration of its 31st anniversary, while its U.S. operations later filed multiple trademark applications suggesting an entry into the Metaverse.

Related: How can the Metaverse help the food industry?

Many users have been buying dips in the price of Bitcoin following significant volatility in the entire crypto market. Chipotle said it would give prizes based on the exchange rate on the day of the award rather than at the end of the campaign. ProShares, on the other hand, recently began offering investment vehicles with exposure to shorting BTC amid many reports a crypto winter had arrived.

Taco tokens: Chipotle adds crypto payments via Flexa

Nearly 3,000 Chipotle restaurants across the U.S. will accept 98 cryptocurrencies as the Mexican-style fast-food chain partners with Flexa to support crypto payments.

The popular Mexican fast-food chain Chipotle is now accepting cryptocurrency payments through digital payment provider Flexa at all of its over 2,950 United States-based restaurants.

Flexa announced the partnership on Wednesday which will see Chipotle accept all the 98 cryptocurrencies Flexa currently supports including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and seven U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoins like USD Coin (USDC). Chipotle’s website does not contain any information on the announcement, however.

The fast-food giant is the latest Flexa partner joining other large businesses such as cinema operator Regal Theaters and Bancoagrícola, El Salvador’s largest financial institution, where Flexa enables both retail and merchant Bitcoin transactions for the bank’s customers.

Chipotle has briefly experimented with cryptocurrencies in the past. In April 2021 to celebrate National Burrito Day, it gave away $100,000 worth of Bitcoin along with free burritos and claimed it was the first U.S. restaurant brand to offer a crypto giveaway.

For the so-called “chiptocurrency” giveaway, Chipotle partnered with former Ripple chief technology officer Stefan Thomas, creating a game where players guessed a code possibly winning either a burrito or up to $25,000 worth of Bitcoin.

The game parodied Thomas’ experience of losing over 7,000 BTC due to forgetting the password for his crypto wallet which today would be worth over $208 million.

Other fast food names have explored or signaled interest in crypto and metaverse applications for their brands. Burger King partnered with trading platform Robinhood in Nov 2021 and gave away free Dogecoin (DOGE) BTC and ETH with meal purchases.

Related: How can the Metaverse help the food industry?

McDonald’s, known for poking fun at Crypto Twitter, filed multiple trademark applications in February including plans for “a virtual restaurant featuring actual and virtual goods” in the Metaverse and “operating a virtual restaurant featuring home delivery.”

With crypto adoption in the U.S. remaining high despite market turbulence, merchants have expressed a desire to implement payment solutions to capture the growing interest.

A Crypto.com global survey of merchants released in February showed only 4% were already accepting cryptocurrency payments, but nearly 60% of merchants responded with interest in accepting crypto payments within the next year.

Although enthusiasm from merchants overall was high, only around 25% of the hospitality industry respondents were keen on crypto payment adoption.