Wealthy Buyer Spends $400,000 in Bitcoin on a Yacht

Move over shiny yellow Lamborghinis. New hopefuls looking to make millions of dollars by punting on Bitcoin are seeking new toys to spend their gains, and the list includes luxury yachts.

As per luxury and lifestyle blog Robb Report, Bitcoin was recently used to purchase a 52-foot Lagoon Catamaran yacht in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The buyer used the asset to finance half of the yacht’s payment—which had an asking price of $839,000—and turned to fiat for the other half.

Behind the transaction was a Florida-based, high-end boat brokerage firm called Denison Yachting. Its president, Bob Denison, said that while most boat sellers have little to no interest in taking Bitcoin—despite reasonable demand—as a payment method, his firm sees a niche opportunity.

“I think we’re the only firm that makes an effort to accept crypto. Our closing department has been trained in that,” Denison said.

Bitcoin’s gained a shady reputation ever since it made its way to the dark corners of the deep web, back in 2010, to finance a variety of drug deals. Surprisingly, ten years and over $400 billion in value later, the asset is still considered somewhat murky among most business owners, leading to a huge demand for Bitcoin-accepting stores but little on the supply-side.

But Denison’s optimistic about Bitcoin’s growing usage, however, and even praised the asset’s fast settlement time. “The day of the closing was faster than a wire transfer—they converted the Bitcoin immediately into dollars,” he noted, adding that all legal compliances, such as identity and fund verification, were duly followed. He added the seller was not even aware of crypto being used in the transaction.

But the small yachting business is not just sticking a “Bitcoin Accepted Here” tag and calling it a day. Denison’s also installed nine Bitcoin miners—complex, expensive machines that carry out millions of calculations each second to maintain the Bitcoin network—to better understand how the asset operates. The firm has also opened a merchant account, which provides the ability to buy cryptocurrencies with debit or credit cards.

So is the yacht market the next big use case for Bitcoin? Not yet, as per Denison. He expects Bitcoin-funded yacht sales to remain a “niche” market for now but sees Bitcoin sticking around for a longer time. “It is volatile, but it seems to have staying power,” he said.

Although with the Bitcoin price having reversed significantly today, it may not be Lamborghini—or yacht—season yet.