Tahini’s restaurants, a chain of quickly random Canadian restaurants specialized in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cuisine, has integrated Bitcoin in its activity in 2020 and has since perfected its strategy. Today Bitcoin constitutes over 70% of their reserves and has made a fundamental difference in their expansion in 62 restaurants in just over a decade.
“We continued to put more and more money in Bitcoin.” Omar Hamam, CEO and co-founder of Tahini’s, told Bitcoin Magazine. Omar and his brother Aly Hamam founded the company in 2012, starting from a restaurant in London, in Ontario. Since then Tahini has grown up to 62 restaurants across the country, their expansion amplified by their adoption of a strategy of the early Bitcoin treasure, partly inspired by Michael Saylor in 2020. The bold move gave them a pool of capital with which they could compete with the giants of the rapid-capsual food industry.
“We are competing with McDonald’s and Chipotle,” said Omar, adding: “All these companies have more money than 100 Tahini. So, having an advantage of the genre, where we have a treasure and a budget strategy that puts us in a comfortable place financially, which allows us to preserve our wealth over time and space … it was the best decision for our business.”
The company has implemented multiple innovative strategies during its journey, including the deployment of Bitcoin automatic branches to many of their franchises, a new media strategy that, according to Aly, has put them in the air “three billion views in the last five years on all social media platforms”, including a YouTube channel with over 3.2 million subscribers and, of course, their Bitcoin strategy Treasury.
The charm of Aly for post-covid bitcoin, influenced by the devaluation of the Egyptian currency
Aly Hamam was the main pilot behind the restaurant’s bitcoin strategy. He endured by the experiences of his family with the aggressive deviations of the Egyptian pound in the last 20 years, the catastrophic consequences of the inflation on the run have been deeply personal for him, an experience that created him well to discover Bitcoin during the collapse of the March 2020 market. “So, I came from Egypt, and in the last two decades, I saw the Egyptian pound probably falling by 85%. I saw our family fight.
When the panic of the Covid-19 market took place in March 2020, the Bitcoin price went from a maximum of $ 10,000 to $ 4,000 in weeks. “The bought a quitle bit as a gimmick and because it was just down so much, i was like, yeah, i might as well buy it. … the More i studied, i fell down the rabbit hole hard. Over the next few months, i just kept buying more and more and more, and you know. First Three Months when you discovery Bitcoin, It’s Just Like a Never-Ending Consuming Over Every Appeal of Your Life, Listening to Podcasts, Reading Books, and Just Buying More and More and More, “ALY explained.
After the accident, Bitcoin bounced up to about $ 10,000, where he consolidated for months while governments all over the world prepared their Covid-19 response and triggered trillion dollars freshly printed in the global economy. Interest rates in the United States descended to zero and Covid-19 support controls started flowing towards anyone in Canada has compiled a form. Omar recalled that “the government was literally printing money without stopping. And it was not only the Canadian government. It was every single government out there. So, we knew there would be an inflation problem.” Half of Bitcoin was also taking place at that time, a further fundamental force that probably led to one of the most impressive bull races in its history.
This was the same era in which Michael Saylor entered the sector and has become the most famous Bitcoin Toro to date. However, Saylor’s numerous speeches and documents on how to structure a corporate bitcoin strategy and how to convince the board of directors or other commercial partners were just starting to hit the Podcast circuit and the Bitcoin Treasury PlayBook was still at the beginning.
Once Aly was “in” 100% in “, he started putting his family orange.” So, I started to put my commercial partners around orange, my brother, my cousin, and they started buying it personally. “Personally they started buying bitcoin in small quantities, but the use of the company’s reserves was a much more difficult process, Aly explained that” it was not fast. It was a step back and forth where I wanted me to put the company’s money in Bitcoin, and they were a bit at the limit. “It is a crazy idea.” “This” and “and then we continued to go back and forth, until Michael Saylor announced that the first purchase.
Acquisition price, DCA strategy and persistence through the bear markets
Tahini’s Bitcoin investment strategy differs from today’s public companies, which issue shares (and other financial instruments) to buy Bitcoin and add to their reserves. As a private company that started to accumulate Bitcoin before the ETF in the United States was approved, Tahini adopted a simpler approach: buy as reasonably possible every month. According to Omar, Bitcoin today represents over 70% of the company’s reserves.
While their timing was excellent, having started to buy Bitcoin for their treasure at around $ 10,000, the strategy known as “media dollars” costs works very well regardless of the price, even in a bears market. Take a look at this DCA calculation, for example.
If you started putting $ 1,000 in Bitcoin every two weeks at the top of the Toro market of 2021 – almost $ 70,000 per coin – every time you made a purchase at a lower price later, you would lower the average purchase price. The result is that at the road exit from the bears-in market this example, above about $ 30,000 to Break-Even and you would be perfectly positioned for the next Bull market. The only requirement is to have long -term investment mentality.
“Purchase every month, every single month. High and low. I know that it seems too simple, but in reality, this is the only way to do it. Just. Just buy, don’t try to overcome the system in cunning, in my opinion, unless you are really good. He added that” I have this conversation with many people. Friends, family, all. And I always say, I listen, they begin somewhere. Don’t put a great amount and see how it works for you. Right. So, let’s say that you put a thousand dollars and look at it like a number that you will not commit you if there is not a bit if there is not a bit if you don’t like it, if you don’t have a little if you don’t like it a little, if there is not a little if you like it is a little bad. Right?
Although there are no difficult rules on the optimal frequency of the DCA strategy in Bitcoin, both for people and for people, Tahini opted for monthly purchases, since it made sense to give their accounting processes. “Every month, we have a p & l. Every month, we see our profits and losses. And we decide at the end of the month, Okay, we will set it aside,” explained Omar.
When it comes to amounts, Omar explained that they do not invest a fixed amount or percentage. “Is it also, are we investing this month in the sector? Are we not? How are our expenses? Do we have big payments? So you know, sometimes you have all these expenses at the end of the year. So you have the maximums and bass of your bass and so on, but the key is to remain consistent in putting money. How much it is what you need to decide every month.”
To sell or mortgage your bitcoin?
When it comes to monetizing their Bitcoin Tahini, he opted for the simple strategy. When the right time and commercial opportunities require it, they sell some bitcoin and later regain it, according to their standard DCA strategy, and integrate the tax on the capital gains in their accounting flow. Omar explained that “When the time comes to reinvest, you know, you always need money. So, let’s say you want to make a huge marketing campaign as a franchise, right? You have to immerse yourself in those savings. And when you have money, you have power. The more money you have, the more you can be free to make the right decision for the company instead of doing what you can afford.”
Challenges with the acceptance of Bitcoin payments and the POS integration
As one of the first steps in their Bitcoin integration, Tahini explored the possibility of accepting Bitcoin as payment in their restaurants; However, a series of challenges arose that forced them to rotate. Many of these challenges remain for companies all over the world and involve the entrenched, closed models and with the walled Garden of popular payments processing systems.
“Many of these store systems companies make their own processing of payments and do not have the ability to accept bitcoin in their system,” explained Omar in the world of Mercantile level POS. Many of these systems are a closed source with very restrictive bees in which the Bitcoin economy cannot easily integrate, a moat that has been a problem for the adoption of Bitcoin’s payment since its institution.
However, the friction for the adoption of the merchant is deeper than a simple pose; The list of features The merchants must remain competitive is very complex and most of the Bitcoin payment systems are still late today:
“The POS system does not only concern payment. It also concerns the way they build the menus in the background. The POS system gives you relationships. It gives you an analysis of what you have sold, when you sold it, what these shops are doing, at what time of the day they are busy, what time, is not busy, as it is not occupied, as it is not just asking for payment. System.
Finally, the POS systems that integrate Bitcoin should also support Fiat currencies to be feasible to normal traders today, increasing the barrier at the entrance and competition very further.
As a result, Tahini did the next better thing: they added ATM Bitcoin to 10 of their restaurants in collaboration with Bitcoin Well, a Canadian Bitcoin ATM company, opting to obtain all profits from Bitcoin machines and assigning it to isolated accounts for each restaurant. Although Aly reports that these automatic branches were bringing only about $ 250 each per month, since 2021, these “SAT flows” – as some people in the sector call them – add up and with the price of Bitcoin increasing, each of these restaurants now have more than $ 40,000 of Bitcoin for corresponding restaurant, a very significant balance.
However, Omar is optimistic that these barriers will fall, since the interest in Bitcoin’s payments is stronger than ever. “I think Bitcoin is really growing quickly, and now it is adopted by many companies and people are learning more and more on Bitcoin and are becoming much more aware of Bitcoin. So, I think it’s just a matter of time.”