London food stall sells burgers for 0.0131 bitcoins (£7.50 to you and me)

 
Taste of things to come: Ryan Holder with a burger and his Bitcoin wallet
Miranda Bryant12 December 2013

A London streetfood vendor claims to have sold the capital’s first “Bitcoin burger” after becoming one of the first in the UK to accept the digital currency.

Burger Bear, near Silicon Roundabout, has started accepting Bitcoin as an alternative to Sterling.

The currency is constantly fluctuating but at the time of writing, a burger from Burger Bear was valued at 0.0131 BTC (£7.50). Tom Reaney, 28, from Peckham, who founded Burger Bear last year, became interested in the cryptocurrency about six months ago when he bought a Bitcoin for about $100 (£61). He saw its value soar and was inspired to promote it as a payment method.

Since his first Bitcoin burger sale last week to Ryan Holder, a developer who has been using bitcoin for a number of years, dozens of people have flocked to the stall to spend the currency.

Mr Reaney said: “Many people from the technology scene are really keen to make transactions. I’ve got people from all around the world now wanting to buy my burgers. There aren’t many things you can physically spend your coins on so people want to come and play with their imaginary money.”

Payments are completed via iPhone without any physical money being exchanged.

If a customer wants to pay using Bitcoin, they must be part of the network and have a Bitcoin digital “wallet”. They simply scan Burger Bear’s QR code to transfer the payment.

Unlike a normal bank or building society card payment, which can take days to go through, transactions generally take less than 10 seconds.

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