Ohio smoothie shop cashes in on cryptocurrency

CLEVELAND — A northeast Ohio business is accepting digital assets for physical products. 

“It’s important to me to be on the right side of this frontier of health,” said Dominic DiGeronimo, owner of Juice Lab.

He said he enjoys experimenting with his business. 

“Almost all organic produce in all the juices that we make,” he said. “It’s all fresh frozen fruit.”

But not just with what he puts on the menu. 

“I want to be ahead of the curve,” he said. “I think at some point very shortly, [cryptocurrency] is going to be very acceptable.”

He accepts the cyber currency at his Brecksville location, but right now the point-of-sale process isn’t quite seamless. 

“I have to get my phone. He has to get his phone out. There’s a bit of a transactional process whereas your typical, stick your credit card in and it’s done,” he said. 

But paying with plastic comes at a cost for merchants, he said, estimating fees are 4%-5% per transaction. 

When it comes to cashing out with crypto, he said the buyer fronts those fees. 

“Anywhere from a half to maybe four cents per transaction. It gives the merchant a break on those costs that are kind of phantomly (sp) worked in,” he said. 

The 25-year-old’s been running the business since December 2020. 

“I know that I have another 25 or 35 or 45 years of hopefully building businesses,” he said. 

He said he wants to be on the forefront of new technology throughout that time, hoping the handful of people who currently pay for his products using digital assets continues to multiply. 

“I want to be remembered as somebody that helped make it easy for everybody,” DiGeronimo said.