The Bitcoin Financial Strategy of the Canadian Fast Food Chain Tahini's

Tahini is a Canadian fast food chain that focuses on Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cuisine. Since incorporating Bitcoin into its business in 2020, the company has continuously optimized its strategy. Currently, Bitcoin accounts for over 70% of its reserves, and this decision has played a key role in its expansion to 62 restaurants in just over a decade.

Omar Hamam, the CEO and co-founder of Tahini's, stated: "We continuously invest more funds into Bitcoin." Omar and his brother Ali Hamam founded their first restaurant in London, Ontario, in 2012. Since then, Tahini's has grown into a network of 62 restaurants across the country. In 2020, they were inspired to adopt an early Bitcoin financial strategy. This bold move provided them with a cash reserve that enabled them to compete with fast-food industry giants.

Omar pointed out: "We are competing with large fast food chains that have funding more than a hundred times that of Tahini. Therefore, having such an advantage—a financial strategy that makes our financial situation more robust and allows us to maintain wealth across time and space—is the best decision we have made for the business."

During its development, the company implemented several innovative strategies, including the deployment of Bitcoin ATMs in many franchise stores, as well as a brand new media strategy. According to Alibaba, this media strategy has brought them three billion views across all social media platforms over the past five years, including a video channel with over 3.2 million subscribers. Of course, their Bitcoin financial strategy is also one of the highlights.

Alibaba's Obsession with Bitcoin: From the Devaluation of Egyptian Currency to Insights After the Pandemic

Tahini's Bitcoin strategy is primarily driven by Ali Hamam. His inspiration comes from the profound impact his family has suffered over the past 20 years due to the drastic devaluation of the Egyptian pound. The ongoing hyperinflation has taken a heavy toll on his family, and this experience led him to discover the potential of Bitcoin during the market crash in March 2020.

Ali recalled: "I come from Egypt, and over the past twenty years, I have witnessed the Egyptian pound devalue by about 85%. I saw my family struggle, and my parents were struggling as well. Their savings have almost been wiped out over these years in Egypt. Sometimes, in Egypt, this situation can happen like a lightning crash. The government might devalue the currency by 50% within a month."

In March 2020, as the pandemic triggered market panic, the price of Bitcoin plummeted from a high of $10,000 to $4,000. Ali explained: "I bought a little at that time, purely because it had dropped so much, I thought, why not buy some and try it out. As I delved deeper into my research, I completely fell down the Bitcoin 'rabbit hole'. In the following months, I kept buying more Bitcoin. During the first three months of encountering Bitcoin, it almost occupied every corner of your life—listening to podcasts, reading books, constantly buying."

After the market crash, Bitcoin rebounded to around $10,000 and consolidated around this price for several months. Meanwhile, governments around the world injected trillions of new dollars into the economy to cope with the pandemic. The United States lowered interest rates to zero, and Canada also began issuing pandemic relief payments to eligible residents. Omar recalled: "The government was basically printing money non-stop. And it's not just the Canadian government; almost all governments are doing this. So, we knew that inflation was coming." At the same time, the Bitcoin block reward halving occurred during that period, which contributed to one of the most spectacular bull markets in Bitcoin's history.

When Ali fully "invested" in Bitcoin, he began promoting it to his family. "I started promoting Bitcoin to my business partners, brothers, and cousins, and they began to purchase it personally." Ali explained that personal purchases of Bitcoin are simple, but using the company's reserves is much more difficult. "It's not a quick process. I hoped we could invest the company's funds into Bitcoin, but they were hesitant. 'It's a crazy idea.' 'One way or another,' we kept discussing back and forth until a well-known investor announced his first purchase. I had all the accounts and preparations ready. So, when he bought the first batch of Bitcoin, it pushed us. A week later, we invested all of the company's funds into Bitcoin."

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Purchase Price, Dollar-Cost Averaging Strategy, and Sticking It Out in a Bear Market

Tahini's Bitcoin investment strategy differs from that of today’s publicly listed companies, which issue stocks (and other financial instruments) to purchase Bitcoin and increase their reserves. As a private company that started accumulating Bitcoin before the approval of ETFs in the US, Tahini took a simpler approach: buying Bitcoin as reasonably as possible every month, never stopping. According to Omar, Bitcoin now accounts for over 70% of the company’s reserves.

Their timing was perfect, starting to buy when the price of Bitcoin was around $10,000. However, the so-called "Dollar-Cost Averaging (DCA)" strategy works well at any price, even during bear markets.

Omar explained: "Buy every month, buy every month. The ups and downs don't matter. I know it sounds too simple, but this is actually the only way to do it. Right? You just buy, don't try to outsmart the system unless you're really good at it. Set aside a portion of funds every month, and it will work. If you look back over the past four years, you'll find that your investment has multiplied by 2 to 30 times."

He added: "I've had this conversation with many people. Friends, family, everyone. I always tell them, listen, start from somewhere. Don't invest too much, see how it goes. For example, if you invest 1000 dollars, watch its changes. If next year that 1000 becomes 1200 or 1500. Imagine what would happen if you had 100,000 or 1,000,000?"

Although there is no strict rule regarding the optimal frequency for a regular investment strategy in Bitcoin, both individuals and businesses, Tahini has chosen to purchase on a monthly basis as it aligns with their accounting process. Omar explained: "Every month we have a profit and loss statement. Every month we see our profits and losses. At the end of the month, we decide, okay, we want to allocate this amount."

As for the investment amount, Omar explained that they do not invest fixed or percentage-based amounts. "It also depends on whether we are investing in the business this month? How are our expenses? Are there any large payments? Sometimes there are many expenses at the end of the year. So you have highs and lows monthly, etc., but the key is to keep investing. How much to invest each month is something you need to decide."

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Bitcoin: Sell or Mortgage? Tahini's Financial Strategy and Payment Challenges

In terms of how to realize Bitcoin liquidity, Tahini chose a straightforward strategy. When the timing is right and business needs are urgent, they would sell a portion of their Bitcoins and then buy them back later according to a standard dollar-cost averaging (DCA) investment strategy, integrating capital gains tax into their accounting process. Omar explained: "When you need to reinvest, you always need funds. For example, if you want to conduct a large marketing campaign as a chain store, right? You need to tap into those reserves. With funds, you have power. The more funds you have, the more freely you can make the right decisions for the company, not just what you can afford."

The Challenge of Accepting Bitcoin Payments and Integrating POS Systems

As the first step towards Bitcoin integration, Tahini explored the possibility of accepting Bitcoin as a payment method for restaurants. However, a series of challenges forced them to pivot. Many of these challenges still exist in businesses around the world, involving closed-source payment processing systems and walled garden models.

Omar explained: "Many of these point of sale system companies handle payment processing themselves, and their systems are not capable of accepting Bitcoin." Most of these systems are closed source, with strict API limitations, making it difficult to integrate Bitcoin into the economy. This has been a barrier to Bitcoin payment adoption since the inception of Bitcoin.

However, the friction faced by merchants is not just a barrier of the POS system; the list of functionalities required for merchants to remain competitive is very complex, and most Bitcoin payment systems still lag behind this.

"A POS system is not just about payments. It also involves how to build the menu in the backend. The POS system provides reports, analyzes what you sold, when you sold it, the store's operations, which times are busy, which times are not, and how to request what you've ordered. It's very complex, right? So payment is just the last piece of the puzzle. Therefore, when we choose a POS system, it's not just about the payment system, but also about their functionalities and the strengths and weaknesses of the system as a whole."

In addition, the POS system integrated with Bitcoin also needs to support fiat currency in order to be viable among today's ordinary merchants, which further raises the barriers to entry and competition.

Therefore, Tahini chose the next best option: they partnered with a Bitcoin ATM company to install Bitcoin ATMs in 10 restaurants, opting to receive all profits from the machines in Bitcoin and distributing them to independent accounts for each restaurant. Although Ali reported that these ATMs generate only about 250 CAD in revenue each month, since 2021, these "sats flows" (as some in the industry call them) have accumulated, and with the rise in Bitcoin prices, each restaurant now has a Bitcoin balance of over 40,000 CAD, which is quite significant.

Nevertheless, Omar is optimistic about overcoming these obstacles, as interest in Bitcoin payments is stronger than ever. "I believe Bitcoin is growing rapidly, many companies are adopting it, and people's understanding of Bitcoin is increasing, along with their awareness of it. So, I think it's just a matter of time."

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