This Is The Only Country Where You Can Pay For McDonald's With Bitcoin

McDonald's restaurants in El Salvador are now serving up burgers and fries with a side of futuristic cryptocurrency. On Tuesday, September 7, El Salvador became the first sovereign nation to begin recognizing bitcoin as a form of legal tender, according to Dazed. The fast-food chain has taken advantage of the new development by allowing bitcoin payments at their El Salvador locations through a new partnership with the California-based bitcoin payment processor OpenNode, as Forbes reported. 

Aaron van Wirdum, a journalist for "Bitcoin Magazine," alerted the world to the new currency change in a Tuesday morning tweet. "Just walked into a McDonald's in San Salvador to see if I could pay for my breakfast with bitcoin, tbh fully expecting to be told no," he posted. "But low and behold, they printed a ticket with QR that took me to a webpage with Lightning invoice, and now I'm enjoying my desayuno traditional!"

There are 19 McDonald's locations throughout the country, all of which are now accepting bitcoin as payment both in stores and online. Although the new currency worked just fine for van Wirdum, who was seemingly able to make his McDonald's purchase without a hitch, the first day of bitcoin adoption didn't go so smoothly everywhere. According to Forbes, El Salvador's proclaimed "Bitcoin Day" started off with the cryptocurrency market plunging from over $52,000 to $42,830 in just one day, and the government's bitcoin-storing app crashed just hours into the launch.

"OpenNode has worked with all types of large businesses in El Salvador to enable bitcoin payments in under two months. From digital wallets to mobile network operators, large retailers to insurance companies, fast food restaurants to industrial firms," Julie Landrum, head of growth at OpenNode, stated of the new development, via Dazed. "For countries like El Salvador, bitcoin represents incredible economic opportunity. We really couldn't be more thrilled to preview the future, and demonstrate the power of better payments for better money."