Burritos or Bitcoin? Chipotle Asks Fans To Pick One During Promotion

Which would you prefer: $100,000 in burritos or $100,000 in Bitcoin BTC/USD?

Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc.CMG is making this unlikely choice available in its National Burrito Day contest scheduled for April 1.

What Happened: On National Burrito Day, Chipotle is teaming with Stefan Thomas, founder and CEO of Coil, on a new interactive game called "Burritos or Bitcoin" that encourages fans to conduct a "chiptocurrency" rescue mission to crack the code of a digital wallet. Each player will have 10 chances to guess a valid six-digit code for a chance to win a free burrito or up to $25,000 in bitcoin. Unsuccessful players are eligible for what Chipotle mysteriously described only as a "special offer."

According to the company, 10,000 fans will win one free burrito, 50 fans will win $500 in Bitcoin and three fans will win $25,000 in bitcoin. As for Thomas' involvement, cryptocurrency investors will recall his story from earlier this year when he admitted forgetting the password to the $387 million in bitcoin locked in his digital wallet. (He still hasn't figured out the password.)

The 10 chances in the Chipotle game are inspired by Thomas' dilemma of having a hard drive that gave him 10 chances to access his digital wallet before its contents were wiped clean.

The contest goes live on April 1 at 12 p.m. EDT and ends at 9 p.m. EDT the same day. A player can participate via the burritosorbitcoin.com website and no product purchase is necessary.

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What Else Happened: Chipotle stated his promotion was the first produced by a restaurant chain that included cryptocurrency as a prize.

Chipotle has been raising its media profile with new endeavors including an investment in the $500 million Series C funding round for Nuro, an autonomous delivery service, the opening of its first Canadian eatery since 2018 and its first Super Bowl television commercial.

The company is also expanding its "Chipotlanes" drive-thru service options and is testing the feasibility of expanding digital-only restaurants. The company opened its first Chipotle Digital Kitchen focusing only on pick-up and delivery last November near the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York.

CMG Price Action: Shares of Chipotle are down 1.11% to $1,44.28 on Tuesday morning. 

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(Photo: Chipotle)