By Dewan Mukto Browse All
Licensed under CC BY 4.0 （Unless specified otherwise)
St. Johns’ own The Seed Company has begun to accept cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin in exchange for their goods.
Photo by Jievani Weerasinghe on Unsplash
Hearing the name “Gaze Seed Co.” may ring a bell in the minds of many farmers and gardening enthusiasts. Indeed, this firm is notable within the reaches of St John’s, its origin dating back to as early as the 1930s. It is acclaimed for being the pioneer of such seed stores in the province. But last week, the business has decided to undertake a technological “leap” forward – which may or may not surprise you.
In the light of the second decade of the twenty-first century, the firm has been rebranded as ‘The Seed Company’, as it is known today. Despite being a historic organization in the domestic agriculture industry, it is rather curious for a company of such calibre to embrace a layer of “futurism” at a pace so abrupt.
Jackson McLean, the manager of The Seed Company, suggests that a handful of businesses within the vicinity of St. John’s have had to adapt to several technological changes and advancements during the early outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is true since the social distancing restrictions meant that there had to be innovative solutions devised to tackle the challenges, benefits, and responsibilities that digitalization promised.
Beginning to accept cryptocurrency from customer purchases, however, is not their first case of placing a piece forward on the chessboard of business models.
The Seed Company had already utilized other measures to comply with the fluctuating COVID-19 alert levels, including methods for allowing customers to pick up their orders with minimal face-to-face interaction.
As for the cryptocurrencies themselves, they are controversial monetary entities – questioned and debated upon by economists worldwide. Parallel to any modern-day technical breakthrough, they are borne with certain pros and cons behind their primary identity. Cryptocurrencies, being created and fused with high-level concepts of state-of-the-art computer science, are not as easy to understand, for example, as the typical definitions of bank deposits, cheques, and dollars.
On the other hand, cryptocurrencies possess a positive potential that motivates and inspires Fortune 500 companies and other prominent ‘players’ in the global economy, such as Microsoft, PayPal, Amazon, AT&T, Tesla, etc. to nurture the notion of implementing cryptocurrencies as the next monetary generation. If the major businesses endorse them, then why should we fear? Nevertheless, there are experts who argue otherwise.
The present-day owner of The Seed Company, Peter Byrne, also known to be the descendant of the original founder, states that theirs “has always been a forward-looking company”, wishing to renovate their business “into the 21st century”.
He also adds, “Accepting more types of payment, including crypto, is a natural step forward for us, and hopefully, other businesses will come on board as well. If people want to buy beet seeds with Bitcoin (a type of cryptocurrency), why not let them?”
The manager confirmed that they have already pocketed their first payment via cryptocurrency. Thus, The Seed Company continues to maintain their goal of staying up-to-date with the advancements and inventions that the digital millennium has to offer.