Bitcoin Lightning Payments

[colecarden]

Dear Toast Team,

As a forward-thinking company at the forefront of restaurant management technology, integrating Bitcoin payments via the Lightning Network would be a strategic move that aligns with the evolving financial landscape. Bitcoin, as a decentralized digital currency, offers a secure, global, and cost-effective payment solution that can attract tech-savvy customers and differentiate Toast from competitors. The Lightning Network, a second-layer protocol on top of Bitcoin, facilitates instant and low-cost transactions. By integrating this technology, Toast can offer smaller transaction fees, as low as fractions of a cent per payment, compared to the 2-3% of Visa, increasing profit margins and reducing overhead costs. Block, Inc.'s Square and Cash App, which allows customers to pay with Bitcoin, has already demonstrated the success of this approach by providing a seamless and user-friendly payment experience.

This integration also opens up opportunities for international customers to make payments without the need for currency exchange, further broadening your customer base. Block's Square also offers dollar-cost averaging into Bitcoin and automatic Bitcoin investing through their business finance options from a percentage of your restaurant's revenue. By following this example, Toast can provide restaurants with a valuable tool for hedging against inflation via money printing, ensuring financial stability and growth through the coming financial instability of the US dollar. The successful integration of Bitcoin payments by Block's Square POS through Cash App further underscores the feasibility and benefits of such an implementation. 

I would like to quickly note that Bitcoin is the only real and applicable crypto asset, evidenced by its mechanisms like proof of work and the flooding institutional adoption of BTC ETFs, pension funds, nation-states, and banks. 

Does Toast have any plans to expand it's payment avenues to support the Bitcoin Lightning network to remain competitive with Square?

Best regards,

Cole, Elliott Bay Brewing Co.

[Rob]

Thank you for taking the time to provide this feedback. I’ve passed your comments on to our team for consideration. I cannot say whether we will accept them in the future, but if our customers make this an overwhelming request, this could affect whether we will or not.

Accept Cryptocurrency as Payment

[RadBlueSnake]

As an owner of 3 restaurants exclusively on Toast, I would love to have ANY integration to allow us to accept and self custody Bitcoin for payments. It would be great if you considered using a layer 2 such as the Lightning network just as Block is doing on Square POS. I love Toast but I would even consider switching to another POS system to easily integrate Bitcoin as a payment option.

We’ve considered going back to Square to be able to accept Bitcoin seamlessly without using calculators and uncoupled 3rd party payment service such as BitPay Checkout coupled with adding a new form of tender in Toast. This is how we have been planning to do it before Block / Square made the announcement of a much simpler option. Please seriously consider integrating with someone or developing the technology yourself. We want to accept Bitcoin NOW.