Bitcoin and What You Can Buy with It: From a Goat to Space Travel

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VIPole Secure Messaging and Collaboration

8 min readJul 20, 2017

The best goods and services you can purchase using the cryptocurrency

As bitcoins exceeded $2000, discussions about the further development of the cryptocurrency and dealing with it seem to be never ceasing. As of date, there are over 800 cryptocurrencies. This year is a watershed in this respect, as even some of the retail giants and an increasing number of bricks-and-mortar stores started accepting bitcoin. What can one buy with bitcoin? The list is long actually.

The rise of the digital gold

A few years ago bitcoins were adopted only by geeks and internet entrepreneurs. Then the most advanced companies, especially e-commerce and technology vendors, added this option to attract more loyal customers. A notable breakthrough occurred in 2015, when even more companies supported this trend, and finally more retailers accept the mighty bitcoin. Now the time is not far off when cryptocurrencies will be recognized universally and everyone will use them as easily as credit cards.

The sudden upraise in bitcoin’s valuation this summer aroused interest in the financial world and curiosity among users. The continuous evolution of the blockchain open source technology that forms the basis of bitcoin and increases investor interest it will lead to the successful growth of the value of cryptocurrencies, their ubiquity and worldwide use. The decentralized nature of bitcoin brings about the opportunities that centralized systems fail to provide.

“Instant transactions, no waiting for checks to clear, no chargebacks, no account freezes, no international wire transfer fee, no fees of any kind, no minimum balance, no maximum balance, worldwide access, always open, no waiting for business hours to make transactions, no waiting for an account to be approved before transacting, open an account in a few seconds, as easy as email. This sounds like the best payment system in the world!”
— Trace Mayer J.D., a Leading Monetary Expert on Bitcoin and Gold

Bitcoin is the digital gold, and they have much in common with the precious metal: bitcoin can be mined, and its production in the system is constantly reduced, as the amount is limited by the mathematical formula. In fact, by 2034, 99% of the bitcoins will be mined. As the demand is getting higher and higher, the price is growing, but this growth is unstable. One of the reasons for the growth of the value and the expansion of cryptocurrencies is the entry of investment funds, international corporations and even states into the market. A barely understandable business for geeks a few years ago, bitcoin has now established itself as a financial asset, though volatile and complex.

Investing in bitcoin for ordinary users is beneficial, as this is a diversification of savings. Deposit rates are now below 10%, and bitcoin, although volatile, is growing most often, and the miners are counting on good earnings on the growth rate. However, digital currencies are not purely an investment, and those who have it want to use it to pay for goods and services.

What can I buy with bitcoins?

Although it’s mid-2017, even those who have at least heard about cryptocurrencies have a lot of prejudices about them. Some cannot name even a single way bitcoins can be applied, some suggest that only weapons and drugs can be bought with bitcoin. Sure, they can, but there are so much more goods and services to purchase with bitcoin, including software, food, accommodation, household goods, luxury and even education.

We have made a list of notable and sometimes fun opportunities to spend bitcoins — and you will be surprised how rich and diversified it is. Is it even possible to live buying goods only with bitcoins? With certain limitations — yes, it’s already possible. One man has been living on bitcoins for three years. You can even get medical assistance, education and buy tours with bitcoins.

You’ll probably get a strange look in most restaurants and shops if you ask whether you can purchase anything with bitcoins there. But some businesses have adopted the cryptocurrency and are accepting it for years already. Here are ten goods to purchase with bitcoins. Buying a vintage Porsche or acquiring the northern part of an island in the South Pacific is just not sweet enough to make this list.

A goat

While androids may dream about electric sheep, bitcoin miners may dream about goats. At least goats are on sale with bitcoin and often get into the lists of weirdest things you can buy with bitcoin.

Food

Just like simpletons, bitcoin miners have to eat something. Luckily, the community is constantly growing, and sometimes the same people who make some money flipping bitcoin supply warious kinds of goods, including food.

You can use bitcoins to order pizza and Asian food through Foodler and Pizza For Coins. Geeky cafes around the world also offer this option, including the Pink Cow cafe in Tokyo and the Old Fitzroy pub in Sydney and Nincomsoup in London.

If you have bitcoins, here is where you can buy food using them:

Services and technologies

Obviously enough, companies that sell technologies were the pioneers of adopting bitcoin as a payment option. In 2014, Microsoft added bitcoin to the list of payments options for a variety of digital goods including applications and games. Dell, the multinational company selling computers since 1984 started accepting bitcoin in 2015.

WordPress was among the first popular services to accept the cryptocurrency. Several VPN providers including AirVPN, ExpressVPN, IPVanish and VPNArea offer their services for bitcoins.

Namecheap provides domain services for bitcoins. If you want a little more privacy online, several VPN (virtual private network) providers now accept only bitcoin.

Adding bitcoins to the number of currencies customers can use in our system, VIPole encrypted messenger supports this trend and allows users to stay completely anonymous while managing their personal and team accounts.

Education

With bitcoin, you can invest not just in pizza, but in your future. The first university in the world to accept bitcoins is the University of Nicosia in Cyprus which accepts bitcoins as payment for tuition and other fees since 2013.

If you’re good at mining bitcoins but you are not good at programming, the Makers Academy offers a 12-week course where you can learn the basics of computer programming.

Everyday goods

Monoprix, a major French retailer, accepts bitcoin payments on its website since 2014. “At Monoprix, there are many who believe in it,” said Monoprix’s e-commerce director, Patrick Oualid, in an interview with the Journal du Net. “Bitcoins are not a flash of fire, we have to do it, it’s in our DNA,” he added.

Dating

The Internet has always been on the side of those who are searching, sometimes desperately, for a soulmate. Fortunately, OKCupid and Badoo allow you to hide the transactions within the services from and stay anonymous as you use bitcoins to pay for them.

Luxury

Real estate, yachts and even islands are on sale with bitcoins, including the Riva Super Ego 68' 2012 Italian yacht, Tesla and Lamborghini in Orange Country and a private island off Pohnpei in Micronesia. Check the Bitcoin Luxury Marketplace.

Flights

AirBaltic, the Latvian airline, is the first to accept payments in bitcoin, after adding the cryptocurrency to the list of payment options in July 2014.

CheapAir — an online travel agency that allows to find flights and hotels at affordable prices. The service started accepting bitcoin in November 2013.

Peach Aviation, a Japanese air carrier service offering low-cost air travel, has announced that it will start accepting bitcoin for flights and services by the end of 2017.

Space Travel

You’ve always dreamt of becoming a cosmonaut, but you became a geek, a freak and a bitcoin miner? Space traveling is what you can afford now, if you are a talented miner. Richard Branson’s commercial space company Virgin Galactic accepts bitcoins as payment for their suborbital space flights.

Drugs and weapons

Well, we could have started with it, but obviously you can purchase a variety of illegal goods using bitcoins. The anonymity Bitcoins grants to users covers numerous transactions that could otherwise become the reason for the criminal case. This has causes prejudices in the public opinion about bitcoin which slows the adoption of the cryptocurrency.

Gambling

Along with other entertainment providers, the gambling industry has joined the bitcoin game, though indirectly. Two Las Vegas casino hotels now accept bitcoins, but you will still need US dollars to gamble.

Charity

Probably the most rewarding way of spending bitcoins donating it to charity organizations and non-profits.

The list of charities in the UK that accept bitcoins includes:

You can also make donations in bitcoins for:

On the future of bitcoin

As the development and improvement of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies employs a lot of talented programmers and mathematicians around the world, so the next technological leap will most likely happen in the framework of the existing technology. To join this is risky, it’s not so easy to be engaged in mining. But if you start now, now is the time, because the bitcoin will cost even more, and the market participants will become even more experienced.

The blockchain technology that makes Bitcoin transactions possible will soon extend its functions far beyond cryptocurrencies and create the basis for a global system that will be used as widely as search engines and even replace them at some points. By the time when centralized banking systems, governments and corporations will lose to the decentralized system where every node matters — you will be ready for it.

Bitcoin is more powerful than national currencies and is already making the world better connected and more transparent. Bitcoin can bring people from different countries around the world, regardless the internal economic systems of the countries where they live, into the modern economic system. Only about 10% of countries in the world have fully modern banking and payment systems. The people in other countries cannot get the products and services that are taken for granted in the so-called First World states. Bitcoin is a global payment system, and though it is not as standardized as currencies with a longer history, anyone who has internet connection can use it from anywhere at any time. This is the inspiring time when the technology is about to make the world a better place for everyone.

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