A Bitcoin-Friendly Salon? Now We've Seen Everything
Photo: The Drawing Room New York
The next time New Yorkers go for a haircut, they may not need to pull out cash or a credit card—that is, if they’re down with Bitcoin. This month, The Drawing Room New York became Manhattan’s first salon to accept the virtual currency. Along with taking traditional forms of payment, the salon now accepts bitcoins (B⃦) for all of its services.
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The idea has been a long time coming. A year and a half ago, owner Clyde Elezi discovered the concept of Bitcoin while cutting a client’s hair. “I noticed that [my client was] frequently monitoring an app on their phone,” he says. “Out of curiosity, I inquired what they were playing with so attentively.” It was Bitcoin, and it wasn’t long until Elezi began to use the currency in his personal life. Bringing it to his salon was the logical next step.
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Because the value of Bitcoin constantly fluctuates, Elezi prices the salon services using a BTC-to-dollar ratio. For example, a $80 haircut recently cost B⃦.22344, and a $65 blowout works out to B⃦.18109. Clients can pay by using a wallet app such as Coinbase. “It’s easier than swiping your debit card,” Elezi says. “Just scan, verify, and you’re done.” And because of Bitcoin’s open-source nature, the processing fees are “substantially lower,” he says, than traditional payment methods.
Skeptics may wonder if people will actually pay with bitcoins, but Elezi says clients are already doing it. “We have had quite a few transactions using Bitcoin,” he says. “We sent an email to our consumers asking for their feedback of the system we use, and have had nothing but positive replies from our clientele.”
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It’s been a volatile year for the digital currency, as the value of a single bitcoin has soared above $1,200 last November before settling down to around $350 now. You may have taken a haircut if you bought bitcoins at the wrong time, but look on the bright side: At least you can use your bitcoins to get a haircut, too.
