Second-hand entertainment store Computer Exchange (CEX) has decided to trial its new Glasgow, Scotland, store as the first of its kind to only accept the cryptocurrency bitcoin.
The company, which recently opened stores in Ireland, made the announcement on its blog. CEX is now looking to see whether its Scottish branch will find much success in its experimentation with the currency that has been making news numerous times over the last few years, but has yet to receive mainstream adoption over fears that it is too unstable to base a retailer’s revenue off.
“To celebrate the online launch we have turned our Glasgow Sauchiehall Street store into a pound free zone from 13 to 15th May and introducing Scotland’s first Bitcoin ATM, only the fourth in the UK,” said the statement. “We’re excited to run such an innovative trial. Like you, we live and breath [sic] technology so it’s only natural we looked at bitcoin as a choice to offer you when you buy and sell games, phones, gadgets and films.”
While arguably more of a publicity stunt given the bitcoin exclusive experiment is only due to last from 13-15 May, on its first day of launch it appears to have gone down successfully with Glaswegians and enticing people from as far away as London.
The store is also home to Glasgow’s only bitcoin ATM and visitors to the store were reportedly queueing up to exchange their pound notes in the machine for the online currency which, at the time of writing, has an exchange rate of stg£1 being the equivalent of 0.00385BTC.
