Detailed on the BitcoinTalk forums and verified by Business Insider, a family residing in Austin, Texas sold their 2007 Porsche Cayman S for 300 Bitcoins.
Definitely one of the first public sales of an automobile in trade for the four-year old digital currency, the family wanted approximately $39,000 for the car and had previously attempted to sell the vehicle on Craigslist. While the family accepted a value of approximately $130 per Bitcoin for the purposes of the sale, the current price of Bitcoins has shifted wildly over the last few days reaching up to $147 per Bitcoin recently before plummeting to $117 on Wednesday.
With only 8,200 miles on the 2007 Porsche, the sports car came with leather seats, a Bose sound system, an aftermarket suspension and exhaust system in addition to 19-inch Monolite wheels that cost approximately $8,000.
According to excerpts of the Business Insider interview, the family had previously received offers of 1,000 Bitcoins for the Porsche when the value of the currency was around $26. If the family have agreed to sell the Porsche for $26,000 at the time, those 1,000 Bitcoins would roughly be worth a minimum of $100,000 at the current trade rates.
However, the buyer of the Porsche had originally purchased his 300 Bitcoins for approximately $4 each. That would make his total investment in the vehicle around $1,200. Sharing the details of the transaction, a member of the family said “All four of us were on the phone, me, father, buyer and surrogate while he sent the coins. We watched the transaction make its way through the network over a span of about 30 minutes , then he signed a bill of sale and passed on the title.”
In addition to listing the car for sale, the family is also attempting to sell a 2011 Harley Davidson Sportster for a price of $9,500. That would be approximately eighty Bitcoins at the current market value.
While it cost more money to mine Bitcoins than they were actually worth approximately eighteen months ago, the explosion in the value of the digital currency occurred approximately two weeks ago when the banking crisis in Cyprus spurred a significant amount of interest and investment in the currency.
People living in other European countries took notice and looked into moving a portion of their finances into Bitcoins. Rather than worry about banks shutting down or collecting a portion of their savings to support an organized bailout action, investing money in Bitcoins essentially keeps the money out of the reach of the government in each European country.
Starting at the value of $47 approximately two weeks ago, the value of the Bitcoin hit triple digits extremely quickly. There are currently 11 million Bitcoins in existence with a collective value of approximately $1.28 billion and mining will continue until 21 million Bitcoins are in circulation. The digital currency isn’t regulated by a central bank and all transactions are peer-to-peer.
Some analysts are predicting that Bitcoin value could reach levels as high as $1,000, but the highly volatile price fluctuation of Bitcoins could also result in severe losses for any investors putting money into the digital currency right now. However, this hasn’t stopped people from attempting to sell their possessions for Bitcoins.
Besides the recent Porsche sale, a Canadian man is attempting to sell his Alberta-based home for Bitcoins.
Related Posts
Tesla Model 3 got outsold by an EV from a Chinese smartphone brand
The Chinese smartphone maker delivered 258,164 units of its first EV. Meanwhile, Tesla sold only 200,361 Model 3s, marking the first time since Tesla's Chinese launch that another brand has overtaken it in the world's largest EV market.
Your future BMW electric M3 will still sound like a real M car
Instead of trying to invent a new "sound of the future" filled with abstract spaceship hums and digital warbles, BMW’s Motorsport division is digging into its own history books. New videos from the development team reveal that the upcoming electric M3 will feature a synthetic audio system built from high-fidelity recordings of the brand’s most iconic internal combustion engines. We aren't talking about generic engine noises here; BMW is literally sampling the legends.
This is the tech that makes Volvo’s latest EV a major step forward
The 2027 Volvo EX60 boasts engineering improvements in a package that’s likely to have mass appeal. It’s based on a new architecture that offers improved range and charging performance, backed by software with now-obligatory AI integration. And as a five-seat SUV similar in size to the current Volvo XC60 — the automaker’s bestselling model — it’s exactly the type of car most people are looking for.