Bitcoin Magazine

Steak ‘n Shake Says Sales Grew Double Digits Since Bitcoin Adoption

Burger restaurant franchise Steak ‘n Shake has said that accepting bitcoin payments has helped the company grow. 

Writing on its X account Tuesday, the Indianapolis, Indiana-based company said since accepting the largest cryptocurrency, it has achieved double-digit same-store sales growth. 

It added: “And this quarter has been extraordinary, with franchise-partners same-store sales gaining 19%.”

Ever since we started accepting Bitcoin in May 2025, we have achieved double-digit same-store sales growth!

And this quarter has been extraordinary, with franchise-partners same-store sales gaining 19%.

Come have a Bitcoin burger and Bitcoin shake to celebrate!

Thank…

— Steak 'n Shake (@SteaknShake) September 8, 2026

The firm last year started accepting Bitcoin payments, using the Lightning Network to do so. 

It added that it would add the cryptocurrency to its balance sheet and announced in January that it had added $10 million in Bitcoin to its strategic reserve.

Back in April, Steak ‘n Shake Chief MAHA Officer Michael Boes told attendees at the Bitcoin 2026 Conference that Bitcoin has become a core driver of the chain’s business performance. 

Same-store sales rose 11% quarter over quarter in Q2 2025 and accelerated to 15% in Q3 2025, outpacing major rivals including McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and Domino’s. 

He called it the highest same-store sales growth of any restaurant in the industry — and all because bitcoin on Lightning is cheaper and faster than traditional electronic payment methods. 

It works like this: When customers pay with bitcoin instead of a credit card, Steak ‘n Shake saves roughly 50% on processing fees. Traditional credit card processors charge merchants between 2.5% and 3.5% per transaction. 

“Bitcoin is real money made with real energy,” Boes said at the time. 

The company last year also toyed with the idea of accepting other cryptocurrencies but scrapped the idea after a poll on X revealed people thought that only bitcoin was needed. 

This post Steak ‘n Shake Says Sales Grew Double Digits Since Bitcoin Adoption first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Japanese Bitcoin Industry Unveils ‘Aurora’ to Let Global Anime Fans Support $2 Trillion Yen Space

Japan Bitcoin Industry Co., Ltd. has debuted a self-custodial Bitcoin payments platform designed to help Japanese companies sell to international fans who are often shut out by traditional payment systems.

Using this week’s Bitcoin Asia conference in Hong Kong to introduce the product, JPI dropped Aurora — aiming to reach an audience that could not be serviced before. 

The pitch is simple: anime, manga, games, and other Japanese content have a massive global following, but the payment rails supporting that content haven’t kept pace. 

香港で開催中のbitcoinasiaに当社取締役の加藤( @btc_dakara ) が登壇します。ビットコインとステーブルコインの関係について登壇者の方々とお話しいたします。 https://t.co/8e1aKAvjgv

— 日本ビットコイン産業株式会社 (@JBIinc_bitcoin) August 27, 2026

Aurora aims to close that gap by letting international customers pay in Bitcoin over the Lightning Network, while giving Japanese merchants a simple point-of-sale and API layer to manage invoicing, payment tracking, and integrations.

According to JBI, the market for Japanese anime content outside Japan reached ¥2.17 trillion in 2024, up 26% year-over-year — yet many overseas fans still struggle to pay for streaming subscriptions, digital merchandise and limited-access drops due to geographic payment restrictions.

The platform’s core design principle is that JBI never touches the money. Each merchant runs its own self-custodial Lightning node, receiving Bitcoin directly from customers. 

JBI says this setup gives businesses cleaner regulatory footing, since the company isn’t acting as a custodian, while still handling the harder operational lift — node uptime, liquidity, accounting and auditing, and conversion to fiat — that has historically kept enterprises from adopting Bitcoin payments on their own.

JBI says aurora draws on lessons from its existing consumer business, UseBitcoin.jp, which has let customers buy digital gift cards — including au PAY, V-Preca and Kyash cards — using Lightning payments for the past two years.

The company is inviting media, prospective merchants and wallet providers to connect with the team at Bitcoin Asia 2026 in Hong Kong.

This post Japanese Bitcoin Industry Unveils ‘Aurora’ to Let Global Anime Fans Support $2 Trillion Yen Space first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Blockstream Debuts Swaps, Allowing Bitcoiners to Move Between Lightning and Main Network With Ease 

Bitcoin infrastructure company Blockstream has announced a new feature allowing users to make trustless swaps. 

Dubbed Blockstream Swaps, the idea is that Bitcoiners will be able to quickly move between the main chain and Lightning network. 

It comes after non-custodial Bitcoin swap provider Boltz suspended its service after it said attackers were finding vulnerabilities faster than its team could fix using AI. 

“In support of the broader Bitcoin and Liquid ecosystem, Blockstream is launching Blockstream Swaps,” Blockstream said. 

“This initiative was already under development to ensure a resilient suite of utility for the ecosystem, and it complements the providers already doing this work rather than replacing any one of them.”

The idea, added Blockstream, is users can move funds across layers while never losing full control over their funds.

To use Lightning, users will not need to run a node or channel — as is normally needed with Lightning — and can simply hold a Bitcoin or LBTC balance and let a swap convert at the moment of payment.

LBTC is the native asset of the Liquid Network, a Bitcoin layer-2 sidechain created by Blockstream. 

“This initiative was already under development to ensure a resilient suite of utility for the ecosystem, and it complements the providers already doing this work rather than replacing any one of them,” added Blocksteam’s announcement. 

Boltz this month suspended its Bitcoin swap service. It said that a surge in AI-assisted attacks left it unable to continue operating safely.

Crypto hacks have surged, with security experts warning that cybercriminals are using AI to search for bugs in crypto projects and then take advantage of errors auditors may have missed.

This post Blockstream Debuts Swaps, Allowing Bitcoiners to Move Between Lightning and Main Network With Ease  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

BTCPay Server Offers a 3 Bitcoin Bounty for Recovery of Stolen Funds After Wallet Exploit

Supporters of BTCPay Server have committed to funding a bounty of up to three Bitcoins for the recovery of funds stolen through a recently disclosed vulnerability in the open-source bitcoin payment processor, the project said in a statement.

The bounty is set at 10 percent of whatever is recovered, capped at three coins in the event of a full recovery. 

The project even extended the offer to the attacker directly alongside anyone else holding actionable information, directing them to a dedicated security address and offering Signal or other encrypted channels on request. 

Hackers last week managed to extract Lightning Network admin macaroon credentials from affected BTCPay Server instances. The project published technical details and remediation guidance in a separate security advisory.

“To the users who lost funds: we are sorry,” the project said in a statement. “We will examine our mistakes, but regret alone will not help affected users or secure the project. There is no time to waste. We have to learn, improve, and act quickly.”

The BTCPay Server Foundation said it would donate 0.21 Bitcoins to Sparrow Wallet developer Craig Raw and a further 0.21 Bitcoins to the Bitcoin Red Team fund in recognition of their responsible disclosure of the vulnerability.

Separately, the project said it has been contacted by security teams at exchanges, blockchain analytics firms and law enforcement agencies offering assistance in tracking the stolen coins. 

Affected users who have not yet come forward are being asked to share on-chain addresses and transaction details, and to file reports with local authorities and any exchange or service where the funds surface. 

Individual reports, the project said, help preserve records and establish a chain of evidence that improves the odds of funds being frozen.

The project added that improving AI models are making it faster and cheaper to comb large codebases for weaknesses, shifting the balance toward attackers, and that Bitcoin projects are feeling it first because they are unusually valuable targets.

This post BTCPay Server Offers a 3 Bitcoin Bounty for Recovery of Stolen Funds After Wallet Exploit first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.