Steak 'n Shake says bitcoin is "faster" and saves 50% in processing fees \ stacker news ~lightning

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Steak 'n Shake says bitcoin is "faster" and saves 50% in processing fees bitcoinmagazine.com/news/steak-n-shake-reveals-bitcoin-payment-success-at-bitcoin-2025-conference

914 sats \ 16 comments \ @k00b 27 May lightning

Steak ‘n Shake is also saving significantly on processing fees. “Bitcoin is faster than credit cards, and when customers choose to pay in Bitcoin, we’re saving 50% in processing fees,” said Edwards. “That makes Bitcoin a win for the customer, a win for us, and a win for the Bitcoin community.”

I'm not sure I'd trust his math here, but it sounds nice:

According to Edwards, Bitcoin transactions are already outperforming expectations. “The day we launched Bitcoin, 1 out of every 500 bitcoin transactions in the world happened at Steak ‘n Shake,” he said.

BM didn't transcribe or report on it, but they're also accepting bitcoin for franchise fees. One of my high school girlfriend's parents managed a fast food chain and they regularly talked about licensing a franchise so I'm somewhat familiar with economics. We'll probably sooner have existing franchisees become bitcoiners, but I'd love to see existing bitcoiners become Steak ‘n Shake franchisees.

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90 sats \ 7 replies \ @kepford 27 May

Yeah, I am skeptical of the pitch here too but its is great to see.

43 sats \ 0 replies \ @petertodd 12h

It's pretty obvious what they're doing: pressuring the credit card companies to lower interchange fees. Or at the very least, not raise them further.

Completion is good.

181 sats \ 5 replies \ @SimpleStacker 28 May

Why? A typical credit card transactions results in a 2-3% fee to the merchant. The typical lightning transaction charges fees of around 0.1%, paid by the sender.

I'd say the fixed costs of maintaining a lightning wallet may favor tradfi, but I'm not even so sure about that. I'm sure all the point-of-sale terminals and whatever software they use for their payment processing also charge fees.

40 sats \ 1 reply \ @kepford 28 May

I'm more skeptical of the pitch man... and it being 50%. I can see them saving money and it being faster in some cases. Call it my BS detector.

I think lightning is better than the fiat payment rails. Especially if you consider final settlement.

83 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker 28 May

I'd be curious to see whether the customers themselves were satisfied. I imagine there being some hiccups when trying to pay with lightning, that probably don't show up in terms of fee or sales metrics

30 sats \ 2 replies \ @Bell_curve 28 May

Have you been to one? I have not seen any in California

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @SimpleStacker 28 May

I think most of them have been closed out here in CA

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 28 May

Yep. Been to many of them but not in Cali

20 sats \ 0 replies \ @CruncherDefi 28 May

1 out of every 500 bitcoin transactions in the world happened at Steak ‘n Shake

Yeah, how possibly could they know that? They cannot. LN transaction are not broadcasted to the world. It's a bullshit statement.

10 sats \ 3 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 27 May

I hope they get the sufficient use by customers to make this worthwhile. What percentage of their sales are BTC denominated?

7 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b OP 27 May

I'd guess near 0. It's been like a week.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 27 May

If I was able to I would go and try them- here in New Zealand we have very few retailers accepting although there is some uptake in Queenstown where there is a lot of international tourism coming in and a startup offering a payments platform via LN - they've got about 20 retailers so far accepting. I like to try any food outlet or bar that accepts LN/BTC as they tend to be better than average. But if Steak n Shake do not get enough customer uptake they may just become another failed adoption attempt that does not gain sufficient increased turnover to justify the effort required.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @tony_ 28 May

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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @LibertasBR 28 May

It's great to see bitcoin being used as money.

It's more satisfying to see and hear reports of use by small merchants and local businesses, but this one made me happy too. Maybe it will open the doors for more companies to adopt it and I hope they keep the system decentralized or with companies that don't mix Sats with crap as a "solution for lightning" like Spark.

The numbers he presented are strange and it's worth charging for data. Maybe he considered the fees of the machines and card companies, banks, I don't know what math he used.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @BitcoinIsTheFuture 28 May

Free marketing

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @FutureProofDad 14h

When you look at credit card fees for a $10 transaction at Steak ‘n Shake, you’re typically hit with 3% ($0.30). Switch to Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, and you can cut that in half—easily! Raw LND fees are tiny (~0.01%–0.08%, or $0.001–$0.008 for $10 @ $107k/BTC), and even with a processor like Strike, you’re looking at ~1.5% ($0.15). It’s no exaggeration to say that’s a 50% cost reduction, making Lightning a game-changer for merchants and Bitcoiners alike!