Popular American fast food restaurant chain Shake Shack (NYSE: SHAK) is reportedly offering BTC rewards for purchases made via Block Inc.’s Cash App.

Shake Shack “started out as a hot dog cart inside Madison Square Park in 2001, and its popularity steadily grew.” In 2004, it “moved to a stand within the park, expanding its menu from New York–style hotdogs to one with hamburgers, hotdogs, fries and its namesake milkshakes.” The company filed for an IPO in late 2014, and the company’s shares had their market debut on 29 January 2015.

Block (NYSE: SQ), which was until 1 December 2021 known as Square, was founded in February 2009, i.e. it is 13 years old, just like Bitcoin (BTC). The three co-founders are Jack Dorsey (who is also the company’s Chairman and CEO), Jim McKelvey, and Tristan O’Tierney. The name change occurred because The Square name had “become synonymous with the company’s Seller business, which provides an integrated ecosystem of commerce solutions, business software, and banking services for sellers, and this move allows the Seller business to own the Square brand it was built for.”

Four years after the launch of Venmo, PayPal’s peer-to-peer (P2P) mobile payment solution, Square launched a competitor called “Square Cash”, a beautiful, simple, and fun-to-use app, which got renamed to “Cash App” later.

Cash App, which is one of Square’s most popular products, allow a user to request money from and to transfer money to another user. Users can withdraw the money via a debit Visa card called “Cash Card” or by transferring it to a bank account.

Cash App started supporting buying and selling of Bitcoin (BTC) in mid November 2017 in a very limited rollout; the feature was officially launched in late January 2018.

Yesterday (March 3), The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that Shake Shack customers would “receive 15% of their purchase back in the form of bitcoin on any Shake Shack purchase made with Cash Card, a debit card available to Cash App users, and by buying items via Cash Boost, a rewards program available to Cash Card members.”

The WSJ report went on to say that “users can search for the promotion in Cash App, under the Cash Boost program and Cash Card tab, through mid-March.”

The report also mentioned that Shake Shack is “testing whether it can reach younger consumers on Cash App” and “if customers are interested in more cryptocurrency options.” Apparently, Shake Shack is hoping that this experiment will help it figure out if it should start accepting cryptocurrency as a form of payment or if it should at a later point in time offer an extended Bitcoin rewards program.

Jay Livingston, Shake Shack’s Chief Marketing Officer, told WSJ:

“You’re always trying to place your bets on those things that truly will be meaningful and not waste resources on the ones that won’t.“

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