After installing BTM, Deloitte's internal restaurant starts accepting Bitcoin payments

Deloitte’s in-house cafeteria in Toronto, Canada, now accepts Bitcoin as a form of payment for both employees and visitors.

Deloitte, one of the “Big Four” auditing giants, has once again made headlines after installing a Bitcoin ATM (BTM) in its Toronto office last September. Although the BTM was initially placed on the 6th floor of the Deloitte office building for employee use, it was soon moved to the 2nd floor lobby and opened to the public.

Illiana Oris Valiente, head of strategy at Deloitte Rubix, revealed that it took several months to install the BTM. As a blockchain R&D center, the Rubix team specializes in blockchain application R&D with the support of Deloitte.

Valiente said:

We believe it is important to help people learn about and acquire Bitcoin as it is an entry point to further understanding the broad use cases of blockchain.

High acceptance

Since installing the BTM, Deloitte has seen “increasing acceptance and understanding” of Bitcoin. To further popularize cryptocurrency, Deloitte’s in-house restaurant at Bistro 1858 has begun accepting Bitcoin payments.

The idea is to raise awareness about Bitcoin and its use cases among employees, who can buy Bitcoin at the BTM and then use it to pay for their meals at the restaurant.

Ian Chan, partner at Deloitte, said:

Since installing the BTM in the office, we have seen many Deloitte employees download the wallet and buy their first Bitcoin. It is a natural progression to develop the next use case under your own roof.

Deloitte, which co-owns Bistro 1858 with another startup that embraces the new, persuaded bitcoin payment processor BitPay to accept and settle transactions in the cryptocurrency.

Rubix co-founder Valiente has also played a big role in popularizing Bitcoin at Deloitte. He added:

First, we used BTM to buy and sell Bitcoin, and then used Bitcoin to buy lunch. We proved to front-end users that experiencing blockchain applications is not always complicated.

She added:

However, we must be aware that backend technology is constantly changing.

She then pointed out many use cases for blockchain technology beyond Bitcoin.

Deloitte: Big bets on Bitcoin and blockchain

The “Big Four” auditing and services giants have all said they are researching and developing blockchain applications of their own for a variety of purposes, including to benefit their clients.

KPMG has partnered with technology giant Microsoft to launch blockchain research labs in Germany and Singapore. PwC has been more active in this area, believing that blockchain technology is a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" for the financial services sector. In early 2016, after establishing a partnership with Blockstream and Digital Asset Holdings (DAH), the service company also planned to accelerate the development of blockchain technology in mainland China in July 2016. At the end of 2016, PwC also launched its own blockchain platform Vulcan.

Ernst & Young (E&Y) and Bitcoin mining and blockchain technology giant Bitfury Group began to develop blockchain services and applications at the end of last year. This year, EY's Swiss branch also began to accept Bitcoin for its services.

Deloitte is perhaps the leader in blockchain adoption and R&D, with 800 professionals in 20 countries working on blockchain prototypes in areas including digital banking, payments, loyalty programs, real estate and transaction reporting.

The company believes that in 2017, blockchain technology "either wins or loses." They have already invested a lot of resources in blockchain research and development in their public blockchain labs in New York and Dublin.