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The Wine Spot in Cleveland Heights' Cedar-Lee business district is part of the second Bitcoin Boulevard in the world.

(Laura Johnston, Northeast Ohio Media Group)

CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio –- Cedar-Lee will soon become the second "Bitcoin Boulevard" in the world, accepting the the controversial digital payments.

Sweetie Fry, Mitchell's Fine Chocolates, Shawn Paul Salon, The Tavern Company, Revive, Parnell's Pub, The BottleHouse and The Katz Club Diner all will begin accepting Bitcoin May 1, according to Cleveland Heights-based Bitcoin consultant Nikhil Chand.

Bitcoin is a digital currency created in 2009 and not regulated by any government. You can use an app on a smartphone to pay with your account, generally kept in a third-party online service called a wallet.

The Wine Spot first started accepting Bitcoin in February, becoming the first business in the Cleveland area to accept the digital currency. The only other Bitcoin Boulevard in the world is in The Netherlands.



"The Wine Spot's experience generated interest by neighboring businesses, and soon a vision was shared," Chand said.

He said businesses can save money buy using Bitcoin because the 1 percent processing fee is less than the 2-5 percent charged by many credit card companies.

Chand said the Bitcoin transactions also are safer for customers.

"When you hand someone your credit card, you are giving them all your personal information," he said. "You don't do that with Bitcoin."

Bitcoin accounts are just numbers, not linked to personal information.

Though bitcoins began nearly worthless, as of Friday morning, 1 bitcoin was worth about $477.

People can earn new bitcoins in a process called mining, by using their computers to process transactions and keep the Bitcoin system running, according to the New York-based Bitcoin center. Bitcoins will never number more than 21 million in the world.

There have been problems with the currency, though.

According to

, Bitcoin is not as secure and anonymous as it initially appears, and the mining system to create new Bitcoin has led to unsustainable competition to make more.

In February, the price of Bitcoin plummeted when a Japanese exchange banned customer withdrawals because of technical problems.

Do you feel comfortable using this online currency?

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