The bucket, which contains 10 original recipe tenders, waffle fries, a medium side, gravy and two dipping sauces, cannot be purchased with cash, credit, Apple Pay or any other payment method. Only bitcoin. It is, however, eligible for delivery.
“We don’t know exactly what bitcoins are, or how they work, but that shouldn’t come between you and some finger lickin’ good chicken,” quipped the quick service restaurant (QSR) in a company tweet — adding that a Bitcoin Bucket will be on the house for bitcoin creator Satoshi if he reveals his true identity.
The Bitcoin Bucket may seem bizarre, but it’s not even the weirdest marketing ploy that KFC has introduced in recent months. In November, the company built a branded Faraday cage — essentially an internet escape pod, which blocks cellular and Wi-Fi signals — and listed it for sale at $10,000.
Before that, KFC released limited-edition fried chicken-scented candles, “Extra-Crispy” sunscreen and a chicken-scented bath bomb (file under: “Products not to use before a camping trip”). The company also built its own chicken-themed keyboard, an edible “finger-lickin’ good” nail polish and a pillowcase printed with Colonel Sanders’ face.
All these bizarre products indicate that KFC is probably just riding the bitcoin hype rather than setting some brave new industry trend, but the company did say that it might expand into other cryptocurrencies for future promotions, so maybe the Colonel really is trying to change the QSR space.
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If so, he’s certainly the first to do it by embracing cryptocurrencies. Select franchise locations of other restaurant chains have begun to accept bitcoin as payment, but never before has a parent company made that decision.
