The café that is planning on starting its cryptocurrency is offering free investment consulting for customers. The Thailand government said earlier this year it would begin to regulate the use of digital assets as payments, warning of potential risks to financial stability.
Cryptocurrency traders in the northeast of Thailand have discovered a new home in a café that features screens showing the latest market movement and offering investment advice alongside coffee and cake.
According to a report on Reuters, customers who visit the HIP Coffee and Restaurant glance at their laptops while taking sips at their iced coffee in a country with surging interest in cryptocurrencies but with worried regulators. 35-year-old crypto trader Detnarong Satianphut stated:
“It’s exciting for me to be here because I get to meet people who share the same interests […] we (traders) get to exchange information because, in the trading world, we are coming up against millions of people.”
The customer base has since doubled
Bitcoin has had a rough start in 2022, with cryptocurrency prices hitting an all-time low. The café enables traders to exchange information, which they say offers them a good chance of success. The HIP cafe has been around since 2013, but it got the crypto makeover only in 2020 and claims that the customer base has since doubled.
HIP café Manager Oakkharawat Yongsakuljinda told Reuters the cafe provides alternative investment opportunities for people in the surrounding Nakhon Ratchasima province. This is happening in the backdrop of an early January announcement that Thailand would start to regulate the use of digital assets as payments.
The manager announced that the café is offering free investment consulting even as it plans to start its cryptocurrency coin. The café’s patrons told Reuters trading in the cafe offered them the best chance of success in a volatile market, in which the most well-known cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, hit six-month lows this week. 23-year old trader Apakon Putnok said:
“Having so many screens helps a lot […] we immediately know and get to analyze crashing factors and whether we should buy.”
Services related to the use of digital assets as payments
Thailand recently announced plans to ban digital asset operators from facilitating the use of crypto as a means of payment for goods and services, its central bank and market regulator said on Tuesday, in a bid to limit risks. Cryptocurrency business operators have expanded their businesses to cover services related to the use of digital assets as payments, which may result in the broader adoption of such activity.
In a joint statement, the Bank of Thailand, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Ministry of Finance said that could potentially impact financial stability and the overall economic system.
Tom is a freelance writer with over 10-years’ experience in content creation, blog writing, and SEO specializing in the blockchain and cryptocurrency niche. As a philosophical figurehead, he believes that to make our world a better place, we must invest in incorruptible products and procedures, of which Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are leading examples.
