5,200 Tobacco Shops in France Now Sell Bitcoin

French crypto startup Keplerk has relaunched its service, deploying Bitcoin payments in 5,200 tobacco shops across France starting October 10.

The service was first launched in January

According to the latest report on the 10th, Keplerk launched the above service in January, but terminated it in less than two months. The company then stated that its customers will be able to buy Bitcoin in tobacco shops with coupons of 50, 100 or 250 euros.

According to reports, Keplerk's partner Bimedia will deploy Bitcoin payments in 5,200 tobacco shops across France, and the latter will provide payment terminals. According to previous reports, Keplerk's attempt in January only involved 6 tobacco shops, but there were also reports that 24 shops participated in the project at the time. At the time, the company's co-founder Adil Zakhar said that the company planned to expand the project to 6,500 tobacco shops in February, although the Bank of France did not endorse the project.

Bitcoin adoption surges in France

Meanwhile, Bitcoin adoption has seen a notable surge in France. In late September, it was reported that 25,000 points of sale across 30 retail brands in France would begin accepting Bitcoin payments in early 2020, including sportswear brand Decathlon and cosmetics department store Sephora. As reported in early September, Domino’s Pizza launched a competition in France with prizes of $110,000 in cash or equivalent in Bitcoin.

On September 12, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire announced that the French government does not intend to impose a currency-to-currency transaction tax, but will consider imposing a tax on cryptocurrency-to-fiat currency transactions.

Source: cointelegraph