Midwest Tungsten to accept bitcoin through OpenNode partnership

Good news for folks looking to swap coins for cubes.

Midwest Tungsten, the metals supplier that's become an on-ramp to the tungsten market for the growing community of tungsten cube-crazed cryptocurrency enthusiasts, is planning to accept cryptocurrency, The Block has learned.

Last week, CoinDesk reported that Midwest Tungsten had seen prices for retail cube sales increase by 300% over the course of a week. At the time, the firm said it was considering accepting crypto. Now it says it will take bitcoin through a partnership with bitcoin payments processor OpenNode.

Tungsten — a typically cube-shaped metal known for its sleek look and density — has become a sort of meme commodity as of late, seeing a surge in interest particularly among crypto traders and other market participants, as Bloomberg recently pointed out. CMS Holdings and Castle Island's Nic Carter are among the crypto market fixtures that have recently jumped on the tungsten bandwagon (although Carter claims to be a longtime advocate). 

"Crypto just has a propensity for the density," CMS' Dan Matuszewski told The Block, referring to the rally in interest. 

In Carter's view, the craze could be a "passing fancy." 

"But the cubes will be forever (tungsten is a  very chemically stable element)."

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