There is still a vibe out there in the world that bitcoin is a sketchy currency that people either sit on forever, hoping it will continue to grow exponentially, or use for sometimes questionable purchases they don’t want tracked. But that’s not actually true—the universe of uses is so much bigger and more interesting, and also more common, than reputation dictates. Bitcoin can be used for almost anything, from the most mundane exchange to the most extravagant purchases. People use it to buy their lunch at Chipotle, or a Bentley at a luxury car dealership. NBA players can get paid in it (technically, players convert their paychecks to bitcoin, but you get the drift.). Exotic dancers prefer it to crumpled dollar bills, dentists accept it, and local farms will let you buy pork chops with it. If there’s something you need, a good to purchase, a service to pay for, there’s probably a way to use bitcoin for it. To prove how expansive the world of bitcoin is, we tracked down seven of the weirdest, coolest, smartest, most unexpected ways people used their bitcoin—and none of it was even close to illegal.
Bryce
At Star View Farm, we raise a little bit of everything, as naturally and organically as we can. Beef, pork, lamb. Australian Lowline cattle, which are sometimes referred to as a miniature Angus. We also raise British Whites, and Wagyu. The thing that made me take to farming was the quality of the food. The pork chops don’t get dry. The turkeys we raise have so much flavor; so juicy and tender. We sell our meat all different ways, but for the most part, people give me a call or text me to see what’s on sale. We offer whole pigs and sides of pork, and sides of beef and beef quarters. A lot of people buy them and share them with their families.
But no one wanted to spend their crypto. It took about five years until the first person used bitcoin. They put down a deposit on a side of pork. And that person timed it so perfectly. He sent it over, and within an hour, the price started to go down. Soon, people started asking to pay in crypto more and more. Now as much as 15% of our sales are in crypto. It’s brought in a lot of new customers–a lot of people you’d never expect to show up to a farm to buy something. The crypto people come in groups, and say. Hey, can we see the animals? That’s the thing that draws them in; the fact that you spend bitcoin is the bonus on top. One person, we call him the Crypto Pirate, he shows up when he thinks the market is going to turn, and spends $50 to $400 at a time. He’s one of those people who brings friends along. I think they’re serious city people. When they come over, we have baby animals going on. And they love it all. I get a lot of enjoyment seeing the joy on people’s faces. Especially city people who have never touched a sheep or a lamb and then they’re just exploding with happiness. A couple of them are genuine good-hearted nerds. He knows I’m a nerd too, and we usually have good nerd conversations while enjoying the animals.
MIKE AKA “MUZZ”
I used to own a tiny bar on the Lower East Side in Manhattan, called Old Man Hustle. We started taking bitcoin early on, in 2013, when there were maybe five businesses in all of Manhattan that accepted it—one flower shop, two bars, one guy renting luxury cars. We did it through these very primitive early websites. And if you were a bitcoiner at the time, you usually strolled through just to see what was going on.
And then one day, it was SantaCon in New York.
For that one day, you will see drunk Santas from 8am until close.
This particular SantaCon, I’m in the bar, and it’s 11 am and snowing and miserable. There is no business. And then all these Santas start coming in. And all of them are paying in bitcoin. Every drink, every tab. We did hundreds of dollars in bitcoin sales, at a time when a beer was $6. By four pm, it was a full-on blizzard, and we had to close and send everyone home. But it was a very rare day.
Mandrik
My family is Greek, and I started working in my dad’s diner when I was 11. I end- ed up hanging out with all the women in the kitchen. I learned to bake from my mom and my grandma, and baklava was the first dessert I learned how to make. In my teen years, I was a LARPer, and I would accept in-game money for baklava. That’s my origin story.
In 2011, I lost my corporate job and moved to New Hampshire as part of the Free State Project, small-to-no-government types who move there for more freedom in their lives. I didn’t want to go back to a corporate job, and just wanted to give something a try. I’d been selling baklava online since 2009, via Etsy, eBay, and crappy websites, so decided to do it full time. If I failed, whatever.
I started advertising on a Free Talk Live, a libertarian radio show based in New Hampshire. A guy named Roger heard it, and asked if he could pay for a tray of baklava in bitcoin. That tray went for 14 bitcoin. As 2012 went on, I was getting more and more baklava orders. At first, I was cashing it out. But over time, I really started to see what made bitcoin special. Eventually, I wanted to earn 100 percent of my income through bitcoin.
In 2012, I decided I was not going to take on some corporate job. As other NH freesters got into bitcoin, I started to be like, “Hey, I’ll do personal chef work or clean your house. I literally scrubbed toilets for bitcoin. And I started selling sandwiches at a big festival in the White Mountains called the Porcupine Freedom Festival. People paid two bitcoin each for the sandwiches. And some of them paid in physical bitcoin rounds a guy named Mike Caldwell made in 2011. They’re brass coins, with a sticker on the back you could peel off to reveal a mini private key that gave you one whole bitcoin. I had a stack of them, and I saved one. I consider it my family heirloom. Like a restaurant hangs the first dollar on the wall. I’ll pass it onto my kids. It’s a reminder of where I started.
