London,
A young Pakistani-British businessperson, Tayyab Shafiq, 26, has become the first to start a “Chai Ada” café which accepts payments in multiple cryptocurrencies in Britain.
He established the Chai Ada coffee shop outside Westfield in Shepherds Bush, West London, to sell a variety of Pakistani and Asian chai(tea), parathas, biryani, kebabs, and rolls.
Chai Ada decorated with Lahori truck art and situated next to the White City Bus station, it has become an instant hit as colorful chairs outside decorated in Pakistani truck art and gain a public’s attention.
Earlier, Shafiq had made headlines in UK after opened a Biryani center in London using the iconic red phone box. He had to sell the phone box business as the local council and the English heritage didn’t allow him to continue his takeaway service due to regulatory issues. Now Shafiq has come up with unique idea on a much larger scale.
Customers can pay at Chai Ada using digital currencies like classic Bitcoin as well as Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, XRP, Verge, Litecoin, and Horizen. Shafiq has set up an mobile app which is connected to his new business and payments are made from crypto wallet accounts against the British pounds.
While Speaking to Pakistan based News channel, Shafiq said
The response is impressive, within a week of opening about 20% of the payments are in bitcoins and other digital currencies.
While, the growing trend of crypto currencies, there are extreme risk while using Crypto currencies and several regularized international financial institutions have warned against the use of digital currencies.
Shafiq said that he was aware about the risks but this is the future.
“We have to look into the future. I honestly believe that crypto is the future. It’s here to stay and it’s already working well. It has become a reality. When establishing Chai Ada, I believed that the Crypto, NFT, Metaverse (digital world) are the future and I just wanted to play my little part to encourage the use of cryptocurrency.”
