I recently came across a post by @progressivechef
He is opening a new restaurant in Mauritius and he will be accepting payment in steem or SBD.
PMC Grill and Resto @progressivechef believes will be the first restaurant to do so.
I am sure there are a good number of restaurants around the world that take bitcoin or even other alt-coins like litecoin, but I suspect the PMC Grill and Resto may well be one of a very small number of restaurants in the world running on steem.
Do please let me know if you know of any others...
This got me thinking where else can you use steem or SBD in the 'real world'?
I'm not a cryptoconomist but I'm guessing if steem and SBD had some wider use beyond the steem blockchain then demand would go up and then presumably the price would follow likewise?
Everyone would be happy with that.
So I have started hunting around. A quick search in steemit has uncovered a few other places taking steem :
EINSTEIN Kaffee Bistro in Potsdam, Germany - does anyone know if this is still open?
Urban Reclamations reclaimed furniture shop in Seattle, USA - although it is unclear from their website whether they still accept steem
A post by @fiserman five months ago identified a few other places that accept payment in steem such as Crypto Jeweler and PexPeppers :
@fiserman referenced the Coinpayments.net site. Searching on that site now for steem shows a few more steem accepting outlets :
A couple that caught my eye included Ballistic Bodyboards and Finna Tour & Travel.
While many sites have an easily recognisable 'bitcoin Accepted Here' logo I haven't seen anything similar for steem. We definitely need one.
As well as conventional shops and businesses I have also found a number of steemians with Etsy shops that accept steem such as @elew and @kokibyivana :
I have also found the interesting enterprise of @greatness96 selling foodstuffs to people in Nigeria :
Within steemit itself @SteemBay is beginning to take off :
The new PaywithSteem project is showing promise, and now is offering to supply anything from Amazon wish lists. Although as I understand it that basically involves a 15% markup on Amazon prices :
It is very encouraging to see all these developments. It is still very early days for widespread use of steem in the 'outside world'.
Questions
Is it a good thing for steem to be used outside of the steem blockchain?
Would you want to buy products in the real world with steem?
If you have a business or offer some sort of service would you be prepared to take steem?
On this last question I have thought about it as I have business. And why not. Yes I would take steem for payment for our work. (It is web design and application development by the way).
If anyone knows of any other real world businesses that take steem or SBD as payment please do add in the comments below. I will compile them into a fuller post if there is sufficient demand.
You might also be interested in some of my other posts :
We've made it - 6 months self sufficient in vegetables - what target for next year?
A Directory of Homesteading Skills, Knowledge and Expertise on steemit - contributors wanted?
A Dollar A Day - an update on my way of supporting charitable causes on steemit
Homesteaders & Preppers on steemit - smashing through the 250 mark - v10 [22 Nov '17]
The Truth about Wales - scary statistics revealed. How can we improve the retention rate?
The Steemit Guide to Homesteading : a Global Adventure in Collaborative Curation
SteemTowns - connecting the virtual with the reality - would it be possible?
[graphic by @pennsif ]