UK carpet retailer to adopt Bitcoin standard

A British online rug and flooring retailer has followed in the footsteps of Tesla, MicroStrategy and Real Bedford by buying Bitcoin (BTC) and adding it to its balance sheet.

Flooring Hut CEO Paul Brewster explained in an interview with Cointelegraph:

“We think it (bitcoin) is the asset that has the most potential to add to our capital stock growth right now.”

He explained that the company decided not to keep cash reserves in bank accounts because Bitcoin could offer the greatest potential for returns and ultimately better value for customers.

According to Companies House, the government agency that maintains the U.K. company register, Flooring Hut’s 2023 accounts show a cash reserve of £75,105, which at the time of writing allows for purchases of roughly 3.3 BTC.

Also, the company only deals in Bitcoin. “Bitcoin is an asset class unto itself,” Brewster explained, saying it is similar to “digital gold.” While on a personal level, Brewster and his colleagues are interested in the broader cryptocurrency space, “we’re not going to be adding that to Flooring Hut’s balance sheet anytime soon,” he said.

Flooring Hut will not host tokens with crypto firms like Coinbase or the now-defunct FTX. Instead, Brewster added, the company will resist the rug pull and keep the bitcoin in cold storage.

Brewster explained that the bold decision by the online retailer, which operates in the £2bn rugs industry, was particularly surprising because the sector was “one of the very few where there is a serious lack of adoption of technology”. The Financial Times, one of the UK’s most popular traditional financial publications, was quick to swipe Flooring Hut on its pages. alpha city.

inside article’, the FT explained that the ‘Flooring Hut’ news was “clearly concocted as a publicity stunt, a draw for vitriolic bloggers like us. The comment section of the article was even more vitriolic, with some commenters exclaiming: “This is pure comedy!” “

Brewster understands the negative portrayal of Bitcoin in the mainstream media:

“You have to be aware that people pick up on what they read in the media. When they see the word bitcoin, they think, ‘Oh, is this company legit?’”

However, as cash in banks loses value amid high inflation, businesses across the UK are looking for innovative ways to invest capital. The UK and its currency, the pound, have been hit harder than the EU. As Brewster explains, managing a business in such tough economic conditions in 2023 will require “aggressiveness.”

“We will reinvest that money back into the company to deliver greater value to our customers, which gives us a competitive advantage over our competitors.”

The company is following the path of the bitcoin standard — building a business on top of it. Next, it will explore implementing Bitcoin Lightning Network payments to complement its online Mastercard, Visa and PayPal payment options.

Paying with Bitcoin is small but This trend is growing in the UK, especially since the Lightning Network offers lower fees than existing payment providers.