Sellers of MacCoins Ask up to USD146 for Free BigMac Vouchers in McCrypto Craze

Xu Zuwei & Liao Shumin

(Yicai Global) Aug. 8 — Speculation on China’s second-hand trading platforms has heated up after McDonald’s presented the country with a new token that is officially only applicable for purchasing BigMacs.

McDonald’s China branch issued the MacCoin on Aug. 6 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the iconic burger product, after which the price of such tokens have risen to CNY1,000 (USD146) for a full package of five different types of coins that are sold on trading platforms such as Alibaba Group Holding’s Xianyu, Beijing Youth Daily reported.

McDonald’s has prepared more than 6.2 million MacCoins in more than 50 countries around the globe, and each coin can be redeemed for a free Big Mac until the end of this year. The US burger chain’s 2,500 China mainland restaurants have distributed 1 million coins that come in five types of design, all given free of charge to customers.

In New Zealand some customers were not too impressed as they refused to take the coins, while the fuzz was much alive in one of McDonald’s Shanghai restaurants, which had a long queue at the door on the day of coin issuing, and someone even fainted in the queue, while others said that they came to collect the coins, not planning to change them for food.

On the trading platforms, the price of a full set of five BigMac-equalling bucks ranged from CNY500 to CNY1,000, while a single coin sold for anything between CNY80 (USD12) and CNY188, as the burger token adopted some of the characteristics of a cryptocurrency.

McDonald’s coin is a souvenir or a voucher, not a currency in the legal sense, reminded Yue Qishan, a senior partner of Beijing Yuecheng Law Firm, as some collectors started calling the item as a “commemorative coin” or falsely as a “blockchain token,” while lacking such technological support.

McDonald’s China Chief Executive Zhang Jiayin said that MacCoin is the world’s first commemorative coin supported by the tangible value of food, without official cash value. Some netizens said that the fast-food restaurant will profit from the publicity stunt in ways that will surely cover the costs of giving out such burger vouchers.

Editor: Emmi Laine