PubKey Shuts Down Bitcoin Payments Amid Mysterious Outage

PubKey, a Bitcoin-centric dive bar in New York City and Washington, D.C., has halted its Bitcoin payment system due to an outage. The announcement was made on August 7 via PubKey's official account on X, stating that the issue would be temporary but providing no further details.

The bar relies on Square's point-of-sale system for processing Bitcoin transactions, which was rolled out in 2025. Whether the problem lies with Square's infrastructure or PubKey's integration remains unclear.

PubKey offers a 21% discount to customers who pay in Bitcoin, a nod to the cryptocurrency's hard cap of 21 million coins. The bar has historically processed around 7% of its transactions in Bitcoin and can likely survive on fiat payments alone.