70% Bitcoin reserves, how does the Canadian fast-food restaurant Tahini's stand up to McDonald's?

Author: Juan Galt

Compiled by: Shenchao TechFlow

Tahini's, a Canadian fast-food chain, boldly embraced Bitcoin in 2020 to combat inflation and compete with industry giants like McDonald's. Here are their Bitcoin financial strategies.

Tahini's Restaurant is a Canadian fast-food chain specializing in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cuisine. Since integrating Bitcoin into its business in 2020, it has continuously optimized its strategy. Today, Bitcoin accounts for over 70% of its reserves, a decision that has played a key role in its expansion to 62 restaurants in just over a decade.

"We are continually putting more funds into Bitcoin," said Omar Hamam, CEO and co-founder of Tahini, in an interview with Bitcoin Magazine. Omar and his brother Aly Hamam opened their first restaurant in 2012 in London, Ontario. Since then, Tahini has grown to 62 locations across the country. In 2020, they were inspired by Michael Saylor to adopt an early Bitcoin financial strategy. This bold move provided them with a capital reserve that allowed them to compete with fast food giants.

"We are competing with McDonald's and Chipotle," Omar said, "the funds these companies have are more than a hundred times that of Tahini. So, having such an advantage—a financial strategy that makes our financial situation more robust and allows us to maintain wealth across time and space—was the best decision we made for the business."

During the development process, the company implemented multiple innovative strategies, including deploying Bitcoin ATMs in many franchise stores and a brand new media strategy. According to Alibaba, this media strategy has generated three billion views across all social media platforms over the past five years, including a YouTube channel with over 3.2 million subscribers. Of course, their Bitcoin financial strategy is also one of the highlights.

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) 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 suffered over the past 20 years due to the significant devaluation of the Egyptian pound. The ongoing hyperinflation has dealt a heavy blow to his family, and this experience led him to discover the potential of Bitcoin during the market crash in March 2020.

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

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

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 dollars into the economy to respond to the pandemic through new money printing. The U.S. reduced interest rates to zero, and Canada also began providing pandemic relief funds to eligible residents. Omar recalled, "The government was just printing money non-stop. And it wasn't just the Canadian government; almost all governments were doing this. So, we knew the inflation problem was coming." At the same time, Bitcoin's block reward halving occurred during this period, which contributed to one of the most spectacular bull markets in Bitcoin's history.

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This is the era when Michael Saylor entered the Bitcoin industry and became one of the most prominent Bitcoin advocates. However, Saylor's speeches and documents on how to build a corporate Bitcoin strategy and how to persuade the board or other business partners have just begun to gain popularity in podcasts, and Bitcoin financial strategies are still in their infancy.

When Ali completely "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 buy 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 want us to invest the company's funds in Bitcoin, but they hesitated. This is a crazy idea. 'One way or another,' we kept going back and forth until Michael Saylor announced the first purchase. I had all the accounts and preparations ready. So when Saylor bought the first batch of Bitcoin, it propelled us. A week later, we invested all the company's funds into Bitcoin."

) purchase price, regular investment strategy, and perseverance 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 began accumulating Bitcoin before ETFs were approved in the U.S., Tahini has taken a simpler approach: buying Bitcoin as reasonably as possible on a monthly basis, never stopping. According to Omar, Bitcoin now accounts for over 70% of the company's reserves.

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

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For example, if you invested $1000 every two weeks to buy Bitcoin at the peak of the bull market in 2021—when the price was close to $70,000—each time you bought at a lower price, you would lower your average purchase price. The result is that when the bear market ends—for instance, when the price exceeds $30,000—you will break even and be ready for the upcoming bull market. The only requirement is to have a long-term investment mindset.

"Buy every month, buy every month. The ups and downs don't matter. I know this sounds too simple, but in reality, this is the only way to go. Right? You just need to buy and not try to outsmart the system unless you are 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." Omar explained. 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 and see how it goes. For example, if you invest $1000, observe its changes. If next year that $1000 turns into $1200 or $1500. Imagine what would happen if you had $100,000 or $1,000,000?"

Although there are no strict regulations on the best frequency for a regular investment strategy in Bitcoin, whether for individuals or businesses, Tahini has chosen to buy monthly, as this aligns with their accounting processes. "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 set aside this much," Omar explained.

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

) Bitcoin, sell or mortgage? Tahini's financial strategy and payment challenges

In terms of how to realize Bitcoin liquidity, Tahini chose a simple strategy. When the timing is right and business needs are urgent, they would sell part of their Bitcoin, and then buy it back later according to a standard Dollar-Cost Averaging (DCA) investment strategy, incorporating capital gains tax into the 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, rather than just doing what you can afford."

Accepting the challenge of integrating Bitcoin payments and POS systems.

As the first step in integrating Bitcoin, Tahini explored the possibility of accepting Bitcoin as payment in restaurants. However, a series of challenges forced them to turn away. Many of these challenges still exist in businesses worldwide, involving the closed-source code and walled garden model of popular payment processing systems.

Omar explained, "Many of these point-of-sale system companies handle payment processing themselves, and their systems lack the capability to accept Bitcoin." Most of these systems are closed-source, with strict API restrictions, making it difficult to integrate Bitcoin into the economy. This has been a barrier to the adoption of Bitcoin payments since its inception.

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

"POS systems are not just about payments. They also involve how to build menus in the backend. POS systems provide reports that analyze what you've sold, when you sold it, the operation of the store, which times are busy, which times are not, and how to request what you ordered. It's quite complex, isn't it? So payments are 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 pros and cons as a system."

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

Therefore, Tahini's opted for the next best solution: they partnered with the Canadian Bitcoin ATM company Bitcoin Well to install Bitcoin ATMs in 10 restaurants, choosing to collect all profits from the machines in Bitcoin and allocate them to independent accounts for each restaurant. Although Ali reported that these ATMs only generate about 250 CAD in revenue per 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 holds 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 think Bitcoin is growing rapidly, many companies are adopting it, people are learning more about Bitcoin, and their awareness of Bitcoin is increasing. So, I think it’s just a matter of time."