Shubham Saini, who hails from Rewari, came to Bangalore in search of employment. Two years later, he ended up opening a tea stall. It’s called ‘The Frustrated Dropout’ and it accepts crypto.
The 22-year-old alumnus of the Indira Gandhi University in Rewari, Shubham was introduced to crypto trading during his days in Bangalore. In 2020, when the crypto market plunged as much as 60 percent, Shubham aligned with other crypto investors and bought into the dip with all his life savings and pocket money and got good returns later.
“I had invested Rs 1.5 lakh, and in the matter of a few months, I witnessed a 1000 per cent jump in my portfolio. Soon, my crypto wallet increased to Rs 30 lakh, and this was a big deal for a student like me,” said Shubham, in an interview with Indian Express.
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But things turned rough for Shubham in April 2021 when the market crashed by 90 percent. The crash brought Shubham back to square one. “I was back exactly where I started, from Rs 30 lakh to Rs 1 lakh. I couldn’t believe that one night could change so much in my life,” he said.
Shubham then opened a modest tea stall. Minimising the use of plastic and non-recyclable items was one of the USPs of Shubham’s shop. One day a customer tried paying for tea with Bitcoin. This led to Shubham introducing cryptocurrency as one of the payment options at his tea stall. Shubham claims to welcome at least 20 customers a week who are willing to pay for chai with cryptocurrency.
Shubham uses a crypto platform named Paxful, which is currently being used in more than 70 countries, including India. Paxful uses a network called Lightning which makes it easy and cheap to make micropayments using Bitcoin. Shubham, at his shop, has also displayed a placard that is frequently updated with the INR to USD conversion rate, making it smoother for customers to pay for the eatables at ‘The Frustrated Dropout.’
(Edited by : Sudarsanan Mani)
