You may already know that you can play your game of online craps using bitcoin, but did you know that you can pay using Bitcoin in other places too. Here are just a few of them:
- Travel
OK, so you can’t quite pay for your privately arranged weekend break to Bognor Regis yet, but travel site Expedia now accepts Bitcoin – handy to know! For a future journey that’s further afield, too, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic also allows you to reserve your seat on a future space flight and pay by bitcoin. (You’ll need a fair bit of bitcoin, though – the cost is $450,000, and the deposit along will set you back $150,000!)
- Buy a car
Luxury car specialist, Prestige Cars in Kent, is one of the places that accept Bitcoin as a method of payment, so if your bitcoin balance is much richer than your bank balance, you can head down to Kent to nab yourself the car of your dreams – we aren’t talking about the Ford Fiesta though. This place specializes in truly luxurious brands, with everything on offer, from Maserati to Bentley to Porsche. You’ll certainly be spoiled for choice – with high-end customer service to match, but don’t just drop in; viewings are by appointment only, so make sure you call ahead.
- Buying a house
Surprising as it may seem, the UK has already seen its first house purchase using bitcoin in 2017, the new owner, a bitcoin miner, paid just 65 bitcoin to buy a four bedroomed property (worth around £350,000 at the time). However, the vendor probably got the better deal in the long term; even though the property is a solid investment, those 65 coins are worth a cool £2,045,836.17 today!
- Buying a Yacht
Whether you fancy heading out across the sea or just mooring up at a fancy marina and posing on deck, it’s definitely possible to pay for that new luxury yacht using bitcoin. International yacht broker, Boatshed.com, has been accepting bitcoin since 2015. You can even see the price of a boat in bitcoin as well as in currency when browsing through the listings, where you’ll find everything from a small fishing boat to a luxury multi-million-pound yacht.
If you are really looking to impress, listings currently include a Sunseeker 111 Powerboat, ticketed at just over £4m, though, at that price, you won’t be using it just to go fishing at the weekend!
- Trading online
OK, so trading with bitcoin is nothing new, but thanks to Paypal’s introduction of a digital wallet, it’s certainly possible for absolutely anyone to buy and sell crypto.
So should we expect to see more places accepting crypto for payment?
The answer is yes, with the currency already legal in El Salvador and the Central African Republic, and here in the UK, there are new plans https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60983561 to create ‘stablecoins’ to give people more confidence in using cryptocurrency.
As we’ve seen, there are plenty of ways to use your crypto – however, just because you can spend your bitcoin, should you?
In practice, even though we see more places starting to accept cryptocurrency as a means of payment, the high volatility in the value of most cryptos means it should be viewed as a long-term investment; no financial adviser will be recommending you use it to pay for your coffee. It’s good for buying investments like properties or high-end luxury goods, where you are converting one form of investment to another – taking a digital asset and making it physical. Or, you can blow the lot on a trip to space. We’ll leave that decision to you.