From Bitcoin to Ethereum, Bengaluru roadside tea shop accepts cryptocurrency as payments, Netizens hail ‘Digital India’

After taking cryptocurrencies as payment at his tea shop, a tea stall owner in Bengaluru is getting all the attention. Shubham saini, who dropped out of college and opened a tea shop under the name of Frustrated Dropout, has put up a billboard in his shop of ‘crypto-payments accepted’ and is now well-known in the IT capital as his social media story gained widespread attention.

Saini started his tea stall at Marathahalli of Bengaluru with an initial capital of ₹30,000. The report also said that he started this tea stall after he lost a huge amount as a crypto trader when the market plunged in the year 2021.

Saini has placed a placard where he updates the prices after comparing the US dollars to Indian rupees for the crypto payments.

According the Free Press Journal, He first started trading cryptocurrencies while looking for a job in Bengaluru and then dropped out of his final semester of BCA to become a full time crypto trader. After investing Rs 1.5 lakh in the virtual asset, a 1000 per cent jump increased the value of Saini’s portfolio to Rs 30 lakh, and he started thinking of himself as ‘Rakesh Jhunjhunwala’ of the crypto universe.

But in the unpredictable world of the unregulated currency, a 90 per cent crash in 2021, dragged the value of his wallet down to Rs 1 lakh. Back to where he had started from, Saini had to sell his iPhone to get by, and finally opened a tea stall on a sidewalk in the city. But crypto came back to his life when some customers tried paying for tea via Bitcoin, and accepting it has made his shop popular among crypto enthusiasts. Saini even updates INR to US dollar conversion rates on a placard, and people can scan a UPI code, convert Rupees to dollars and pay using crypto.

As for Saini, he started off as a student star-struck by crypto traders that became billionaires overnight. But looked for inspiration in entrepreneurs who thrived on innovation, after his fall.