Eat at Suryavanshi Restaurant in Bengaluru and pay via Bitcoins

New Delhi: Amidst wide-ranging debate on whether Bitcoins should be banned, regulated or subjected to self-regulation, this Bengaluru eatery made practical application of payment through the Virtual Currenciey (VC).

As per a report in the Bloomberg Quint, Suryavanshi restaurant at Bengaluru's Indiranagar allows its guests to dine in and pay via Bitcoins.

The restaurant's other outlet at Whitefield also accepts Bitcoins as mode of payment.

The two Suryavanshi restaurants are probably “the only outlets in the Karnataka capital and one of the few eating joints in the country that let customers pay through bitcoins,” the website reports.

What are Bitcoins?

Bitcoin is the "new money" - minted and exchanged on internet.

The Bitcoin system is not managed by a central authority as it relies on a peer-to-peer network on the internet.

Anyone can join the network as a user or provide computing capacity to process the transactions.

In the network, the user's identity is hidden behind a cryptographic pseudonym, which can be changed as often as is wanted.

Transactions are signed with this pseudonym and broadcast to the public network to verify their authenticity and attribute the Bitcoins to the new owner.

What is the status of Bitcoins in India?

There are no regulations governing virtual currencies, including bitcoins, in India at present and the RBI has not given any licence to any entity/company to operate such schemes, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had told Parliament early this month.

In a written reply to the Lok Sabha, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley further said there is evidence that crypto currency/bitcoins are being used in the country and the bitcoin market in India has seen notable growth over the last few years.

"At present, there are no regulations governing VCs including Bitcoin (BTC) in India. Further, RBI has advised that it has not given any licence to any entity/company to operate such schemes or deal with Bitcoin or any virtual currency," Jaitley said.

Recently, Jaitley had held an inter-ministerial meeting to examine risks related to VCs like bitcoins.

Recently, a domestic app-based bitcoin exchange Zebpay said it has five lakh downloads on the Android operating system and was adding more than 2,500 users every day.

Bitcoins were in news recently after a massive global ransomware attack 'WannaCry' hit systems in over 100 countries. The cyber criminals demanded a fee of about USD 300 in crypto-currencies like bitcoin for unlocking affected devices.