Can You Really Pay For Starbucks With Bitcoin?

You know how our frequent flyer miles sat untouched for about a year? Well now, you can use those bad boys to purchase yourself a vanilla latte at Starbucks! In addition to frequent flyer miles, customers can also use bitcoin to pay for their favorite handcrafted Starbucks beverages, per Business Wire.

However, there is a catch — you can't walk up to a Starbucks cashier and physically pay with bitcoin. If you'd like to use bitcoin, frequent flyer miles, or any other kind of digital assets or cryptocurrency, you'll first have to convert it into U.S. dollars on the Bakkt app. Then, through Bakkt, you can transfer your now-USD to a reloadable Starbucks gift card on the Starbucks app. It sounds like a lengthy and tedious process, but it's not really. Plus, this way, you're actually using the digital assets you probably forgot you even had!

According to Food & Wine magazine, an estimate of 0.0068% of one bitcoin is needed to purchase one latte. Starbucks is always looking for ways to move forward as a company, and finding a way to allow customers to pay with cryptocurrency (even if it's through a third party) is a major step in that direction.

You may find yourself wondering "what is Bakkt?" and you're not alone. For some, cryptocurrency isn't part of their everyday lives; however, for others, it's a fun, convenient, and increasingly popular way to digitally store money and make single peer-to-peer transactions. This is where Bakkt comes in.

According to Business Wire, Bakkt Holdings LLC was created in 2018 as a digital asset marketplace for those with cryptocurrency and digital assets. More recently, the company has expanded into the Bakkt app, which works as a digital wallet for all your cryptocurrency and digital asset needs. On the app, all your assets live in one place and should you want to, you have the means to convert these assets like bitcoin into real U.S. dollars. The objective is to streamline cryptocurrency and digital assets (i.e. frequent flyer miles) into one easy payment option at large retailers. Starbucks is the first company to put this into motion. 

"The average consumer holds a wealth of digital assets — from gift cards to loyalty points to bitcoin — but lacks the tools to adequately track and utilize their value," Bakkt's CEO, Gavin Michael, told Business Wire. As of right now, Bakkt is working with other big name retailers, including Best Buy, Choice Hotels, GolfNow, and Fiserv, to integrate a similar cryptocurrency program like the one Starbucks has adopted. The fact that Bakkt already has Starbucks on its side is huge.