Wealthy Customer Shells Out $400K BTC for a Luxury Yacht

Earlier this week, lifestyle blog Robb Report confirmed that a wealthy individual had spent a staggering $400,000 in Bitcoin on a luxury yacht.

Quick, Stress-Free Transactions 

As the news source explained, the Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based buyer splurged the funds on a Lagoon Catamaran yacht measuring 52 feet. The vessel actually costs $839,000, with the buyer completing the payment in fiat currency.

The transaction was reportedly financed by Denison Yachting, a Florida-based yacht brokerage firm for high-end vehicles.

Bob Denison, the company’s chief executive, explained to the news medium that there seems to be reasonable demand from customers to use Bitcoin as a payment method. However, while most boat sellers appear closed to the opportunity, he believes that the asset presents a chance of improving their payment infrastructures. 

Denison was particularly impressed with Bitcoin and the asset’s quick settlement time. As he told the news source, the boating company was able to settle the transaction on the same day – while they also ensured to meet all legal and compliance requirements.

Denison is also going even deeper into Bitcoin. As the news source confirmed, his company is running a small mining outfit that includes nine miners. The company also has a merchant account, which they use to buy digital assets with debit and credit cards.

There are many reasons why companies might remain skeptical about Bitcoin and its potential as a payment medium. The asset doesn’t particularly have a stellar reputation, and there is still the problem of difficulty operating it.

PayPal to the Rescue

The latter challenge is what a company like PayPal is looking to solve. The payment processor announced the launch of Bitcoin acceptance last month, and it has been on a mission to drum up support for it.

Earlier this week, PayPal chief executive Dan Schulman explained to CNBC that they were primarily hoping to improve cryptocurrencies’ utility. As he said, the coronavirus pandemic has increased the ubiquity of digital payments, with 40 to 70 percent of customers no longer willing to handle physical money.

The firm hopes to get to the forefront of this move and ensure that everyone – including individuals and businesses – can access digital payments.

On the business end, Schulman told the news source that PayPal would integrate with existing merchant payment platforms. By doing this, they hope to create a holistic digital payment solution for everyone. The CEO highlighted that 28 million of the firm’s reported 346 million customers are businesses. By bringing easy, seamless crypto payments to them, the firm will significantly improve the assets’ utility.

PayPal appears to be focusing on Bitcoin for now. However, the firm looks poised to add several other digital assets when its crypto service launches fully and gains traction in 2021.