Steak ‘n Shake Reports ‘Dramatic’ Increase In Sales After Bitcoin Adoption

bitcoinistPublished on 2026-02-18Last updated on 2026-02-18

Abstract

Steak 'n Shake has reported a dramatic increase in same-store sales since adopting Bitcoin as a payment method in May 2025. The company also established a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve (SBR) using proceeds from BTC transactions. In January, it added $15 million to this reserve and introduced a Bitcoin bonus scheme for hourly employees, granting $0.21 in BTC for every hour worked after a two-year vesting period. The firm attributes its success to combining its operations with Bitcoin's transformative power. While treasury company Bitcoin buying has recently declined to 70%, as noted by an analyst, Steak 'n Shake's strategy has proven effective. Bitcoin is currently trading around $68,000.

American fast food brand Steak ‘n Shake has said same-store sales have dramatically increased since the firm started accepting Bitcoin payments.

Steak ‘n Shake Has Seen A Boost In Sales After Accepting Bitcoin

In a new post on X, Steak ‘n Shake has shared an update on how the burger joint’s Bitcoin strategy has been going. The firm first opened itself to the cryptocurrency back in May 2025, allowing customers to make payments in BTC at all its locations.

Monday marked exactly nine months since Steak ‘n Shake made the move, and according to the company’s official X handle, same-store sales rose “dramatically” during the period.

Steak ‘n Shake’s Bitcoin strategy doesn’t only include accepting BTC payments; the firm has also been maintaining a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve (SBR) using proceeds from BTC payments.

In January, the company also added to the reserve through purchases, increasing its holdings by a total of $15 million in notional value. In the same month, the firm announced a new scheme for its workers: bonus payments in Bitcoin.

Under the scheme, all hourly employees receive a $0.21 BTC bonus for every hour worked. “Bitcoin payments for Steak n Shake burgers go into our Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, which then funds Bitcoin bonus pay for our employees,” noted the firm.

Though, while all hourly employees receive the bonus, not everyone is immediately eligible to collect it. According to the firm, employees need to have cleared a two-year vesting period before they can redeem the BTC.

Overall, it would appear that the cryptocurrency’s adoption has turned out to be successful for Steak ‘n Shake. “We have combined a decentralized, cash-producing operating business with the transformative power of Bitcoin,” said the company.

A BTC reserve like Steak ‘n Shake’s is something that has gained traction among public firms in recent years, led by the aggressive conviction showcased by Michael Saylor’s Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy).

While Steak ‘n Shake’s buys from last month are sizeable on their own, they aren’t much compared to the purchases that treasury companies like Strategy tend to make. Last Monday alone Strategy acquired $90 million worth of the digital asset.

The accumulation from treasury companies as a whole has seen a slowdown recently, however, as Capriole Investments founder Charles Edwards has highlighted in an X post.

The trend in the percentage of treasury company buyers over the last few years | Source: @caprioleio on X

As displayed in the above chart, the percentage of BTC treasury company buyers has declined to 70% as the cryptocurrency’s price has gone through its bearish price action. “The last time we crossed under this threshold was 2022,” said Edwards. It now remains to be seen whether the trend will continue in the near future or if buying will make a return among these firms.

BTC Price

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading around $68,000, down 1% over the last week.

The price of the coin seems to have been going down recently | Source: BTCUSDT on TradingView

Related Reads

Supply Chain, Energy, and Bloc Formation: Untangling the Core Threads of 2026 AI Investment

The core thesis for 2026 investment is a shift from traditional growth-inflation analysis towards a geopolitical framework of strategic blocs, supply chain reconfiguration, and capital expenditure (capex) direction. The US is moving from a global guarantor role towards a more bounded "camp system," reshaping trade, security, and technology flows. Key investment themes emerge from this realignment: production-capable US-aligned economies (e.g., Japan, South Korea), regional security focusing on Latin America, and the hard constraint of energy/grid capacity enabling reshoring. Europe's strength lies not in macro growth but in its high-quality "pick-and-shovel" industrial, electrical, and automation exporters serving the global capex cycle. AI remains the central US-China strategic battleground, driving massive investment in compute, power, and manufacturing stacks, with robotics gaining prominence. The investment implication is a rotation away from crowded US mega-cap tech momentum toward global beneficiaries of this restructuring: electrification equipment, industrial automation, energy storage, grid infrastructure, and select non-US markets. 2026 will be defined by investment intensity driven by geopolitical repositioning, not near-term commercial maturity.

marsbit41m ago

Supply Chain, Energy, and Bloc Formation: Untangling the Core Threads of 2026 AI Investment

marsbit41m ago

Appeals Court Rejects Sam Bankman-Fried Bid For New FTX Trial

A federal appeals court has rejected Sam Bankman-Fried's bid for a new trial, upholding his convictions in the FTX fraud case. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals denied defense claims of an unfair trial, sharply narrowing his legal options. His team could still petition the US Supreme Court. The ruling reinforces the legal precedent from one of crypto's most consequential cases, keeping focus on FTX's collapse, customer losses, and ongoing bankruptcy proceedings. For the market, the decision underscores the lasting impact of FTX on regulatory debates concerning exchange oversight, custody rules, and asset segregation as the industry works to rebuild trust.

bitcoinist45m ago

Appeals Court Rejects Sam Bankman-Fried Bid For New FTX Trial

bitcoinist45m ago

Apple Also Has to Pay Rent Now

Apple Pays Rent Too: The Two-Way Flow of "Traffic Tax" and "AI Capability Rent" Between Tech Giants For over two decades, Google has paid Apple an estimated $20 billion annually to remain the default search engine on Safari, a "traffic tax" for a critical user entry point. However, in 2026, the direction of this cash flow partially reversed. Apple agreed to pay Google roughly $1 billion per year to license its Gemini AI models, as Apple's own models reportedly struggled with complex tasks. This creates a unique dynamic: Apple acts as the "landlord" in the established search ecosystem, collecting rent from Google for access. Simultaneously, in the emerging AI arena, Apple becomes the "tenant," paying Google for access to cutting-edge AI capabilities it cannot currently match internally. While Apple claims its new models are "distilled" from Gemini outputs and contain "not a drop" of Google's original code, core dependencies remain. Its knowledge base is refined using Gemini's outputs, and its most powerful cloud model runs on Google's infrastructure. Apple has structured the deal as non-exclusive, allowing it to theoretically switch AI suppliers—a hedge against over-reliance. The future hinges on whether advanced AI models become a commodity (cheap and abundant) or remain a concentrated, scarce resource (expensive and controlled by few). Apple is betting on the former, leveraging its massive device ecosystem to be a powerful, choosy customer. If the latter proves true, its bargaining power could erode. This power dynamic is extending to developers. Apple, Google, and WeChat are all pushing for apps to expose their core functions as standardized "actions" or "intents" that their respective AI assistants (Siri, Gemini, WeChat AI) can directly call. The new scarce resource is no longer just app store visibility, but "being selected by the AI." The currency of "rent" has changed from a 30% revenue share to ceding control over how users interact with an app's functions.

marsbit1h ago

Apple Also Has to Pay Rent Now

marsbit1h ago

Missed the SpaceX IPO? WEEX's "First Trade Protection" Lets You Experience US Stock Trading Risk-Free.

With the excitement around SpaceX's recent public listing reigniting interest in the US stock market, Chinese investors face significant challenges accessing compliant and convenient trading channels following regulatory actions against major online brokers. This article explores the available options, highlighting their risks and limitations. Traditional paths for US stock investments remain problematic. Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor (QDII) and Listed Open-Ended Fund (LOF) products, while compliant, suffer from high fees, significant purchase premiums, and a very limited selection of assets. Small, unregulated offshore brokers pose substantial risks, including potential insolvency. While secure, VIP accounts at banks in Hong Kong or Singapore require high minimum deposits (often 1-2 million RMB) and in-person visits, placing them out of reach for most retail investors. The article positions cryptocurrency exchanges, specifically their TradFi (traditional finance on-chain) offerings, as a compelling alternative. Platforms like WEEX are noted for providing access to a wide range of US stocks and ETFs, including SpaceX (SPCXON), through tokenized assets. This method offers advantages such as a single account for both crypto and traditional assets, USDT-based settlement avoiding fiat complexities, flexible leverage, and robust risk management. To attract users, WEEX is promoting a "First Trade Guarantee" campaign. Running from June 15 to July 8 (UTC+8), it features a $30,000 prize pool. Users who trade $500 worth of US stock contracts can qualify for a guarantee on their first eligible trade: 100% loss coverage up to $30 or a 20% bonus on profits up to $30. The campaign is presented as a low-risk opportunity for both crypto natives and traditional investors to experience US stock trading.

marsbit1h ago

Missed the SpaceX IPO? WEEX's "First Trade Protection" Lets You Experience US Stock Trading Risk-Free.

marsbit1h ago

How Difficult is Chip Making? A Division Error Costs 475 Million Dollars

How Hard Is It to Make a Chip? A Division Error Cost $475 Million Chip expert Shi Kan, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a popular tech creator, explains the immense challenges of chip development. Chips are foundational to modern technology, but their creation is extraordinarily difficult. The journey from sand to a functional chip involves complex design and manufacturing, but a critical bottleneck is verification—ensuring the design works flawlessly before costly production. A single, undetected bug can have catastrophic consequences, as illustrated by the infamous 1994 Intel Pentium FDIV bug. A flaw in the floating-point division unit forced a recall costing $475 million. Unlike software, chips cannot be easily patched after manufacture, making "first-time success" paramount. However, industry surveys show only 24% of chip projects achieve this; over three-quarters require at least one costly re-spin due to design flaws. Verification has thus become the dominant phase, consuming up to 70% of the design cycle. The core challenge is a "verification impossible triangle" between high performance, good debuggability, and low cost. Exhaustively verifying a modern CPU core could take 15,000 years with software simulation, or 30 years with advanced hardware emulation—timeframes utterly impractical for development. Despite being essential, verification is often seen as unglamorous "dirty work," receiving less academic attention than fields like AI. Shi and his team are tackling this by developing an agile verification research framework called ENCORE, based on FPGA technology, to improve verification efficiency and debug capability. Beyond research, Shi engages in public science communication through long-form video content, aiming to demystify chip technology, AI, and computer science. He argues for the value of pursuing "hard and long-term" endeavors, whether in the meticulous world of chip verification or in creating substantive educational content, believing such sustained effort is likely the right path forward.

marsbit1h ago

How Difficult is Chip Making? A Division Error Costs 475 Million Dollars

marsbit1h ago

Trading

Spot
Futures

Hot Articles

What is $BITCOIN

DIGITAL GOLD ($BITCOIN): A Comprehensive Analysis Introduction to DIGITAL GOLD ($BITCOIN) DIGITAL GOLD ($BITCOIN) is a blockchain-based project operating on the Solana network, which aims to combine the characteristics of traditional precious metals with the innovation of decentralized technologies. While it shares a name with Bitcoin, often referred to as “digital gold” due to its perception as a store of value, DIGITAL GOLD is a separate token designed to create a unique ecosystem within the Web3 landscape. Its goal is to position itself as a viable alternative digital asset, although specifics regarding its applications and functionalities are still developing. What is DIGITAL GOLD ($BITCOIN)? DIGITAL GOLD ($BITCOIN) is a cryptocurrency token explicitly designed for use on the Solana blockchain. In contrast to Bitcoin, which provides a widely recognized value storage role, this token appears to focus on broader applications and characteristics. Notable aspects include: Blockchain Infrastructure: The token is built on the Solana blockchain, known for its capacity to handle high-speed and low-cost transactions. Supply Dynamics: DIGITAL GOLD has a maximum supply capped at 100 quadrillion tokens (100P $BITCOIN), although details regarding its circulating supply are currently undisclosed. Utility: While precise functionalities are not explicitly outlined, there are indications that the token could be utilized for various applications, potentially involving decentralized applications (dApps) or asset tokenization strategies. Who is the Creator of DIGITAL GOLD ($BITCOIN)? At present, the identity of the creators and development team behind DIGITAL GOLD ($BITCOIN) remains unknown. This situation is typical among many innovative projects within the blockchain space, particularly those aligning with decentralized finance and meme coin phenomena. While such anonymity may foster a community-driven culture, it intensifies concerns about governance and accountability. Who are the Investors of DIGITAL GOLD ($BITCOIN)? The available information indicates that DIGITAL GOLD ($BITCOIN) does not have any known institutional backers or prominent venture capital investments. The project seems to operate on a peer-to-peer model focused on community support and adoption rather than traditional funding routes. Its activity and liquidity are primarily situated on decentralized exchanges (DEXs), such as PumpSwap, rather than established centralized trading platforms, further highlighting its grassroots approach. How DIGITAL GOLD ($BITCOIN) Works The operational mechanics of DIGITAL GOLD ($BITCOIN) can be elaborated on based on its blockchain design and network attributes: Consensus Mechanism: By leveraging Solana’s unique proof-of-history (PoH) combined with a proof-of-stake (PoS) model, the project ensures efficient transaction validation contributing to the network's high performance. Tokenomics: While specific deflationary mechanisms have not been extensively detailed, the vast maximum token supply implies that it may cater to microtransactions or niche use cases that are still to be defined. Interoperability: There exists the potential for integration with Solana’s broader ecosystem, including various decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms. However, the details regarding specific integrations remain unspecified. Timeline of Key Events Here is a timeline that highlights significant milestones concerning DIGITAL GOLD ($BITCOIN): 2023: The initial deployment of the token occurs on the Solana blockchain, marked by its contract address. 2024: DIGITAL GOLD gains visibility as it becomes available for trading on decentralized exchanges like PumpSwap, allowing users to trade it against SOL. 2025: The project witnesses sporadic trading activity and potential interest in community-led engagements, although no noteworthy partnerships or technical advancements have been documented as of yet. Critical Analysis Strengths Scalability: The underlying Solana infrastructure supports high transaction volumes, which could enhance the utility of $BITCOIN in various transaction scenarios. Accessibility: The potential low trading price per token could attract retail investors, facilitating wider participation due to fractional ownership opportunities. Risks Lack of Transparency: The absence of publicly known backers, developers, or an audit process may yield skepticism regarding the project's sustainability and trustworthiness. Market Volatility: The trading activity is heavily reliant on speculative behavior, which can result in significant price volatility and uncertainty for investors. Conclusion DIGITAL GOLD ($BITCOIN) emerges as an intriguing yet ambiguous project within the rapidly evolving Solana ecosystem. While it attempts to leverage the “digital gold” narrative, its departure from Bitcoin's established role as a store of value underscores the need for a clearer differentiation of its intended utility and governance structure. Future acceptance and adoption will likely depend on addressing the current opacity and defining its operational and economic strategies more explicitly. Note: This report encompasses synthesised information available as of October 2023, and developments may have transpired beyond the research period.

364 Total ViewsPublished 2025.05.13Updated 2025.05.13

What is $BITCOIN

Discussions

Welcome to the HTX Community. Here, you can stay informed about the latest platform developments and gain access to professional market insights. Users' opinions on the price of BTC (BTC) are presented below.

活动图片

Top Questions