Briton Puts House on Sale for 18 Bitcoins or £80,000

Sean Atkinson, a 49-year-old filmmaker and yoga teacher from Grimsby, England, has put his three-bedroom house on sale. The newsworthy bit here is that he’s giving propsective buyers the option to pay 18 Bitcoins or £80,000. He doesn’t seem to be interested in speculating with the cryptocurrency. Instead, Atkinson wants to become part of the revolution as he is excited about “how [the cryptocurrency] can change society.”

However, the Bitcoin quotation is highly volatile, and the equivalent of the house price calculated in fiat money varies. Asked what he would do if the Bitcoin price went up or down sharply, he told Telegraph Money:

“Yes, that will be interesting. I will honour the agreement and we'll agree at what point the sale takes place. If the [bitcoin] price drops through the floor, I'll still honour it.”

He said that two people have already shown interest in the property, one of whom could buy it for next to nothing:

“One of them has held bitcoin since 2012. At that time they were about $10 (£7.65) and now they're over $6,000 (£4,700) so he'd be getting the house for practically nothing.”

Atkinson, who has lived in his present house for over 25 years, said he didn’t want to buy another one but move into his partner’s property. He plans to use his Bitcoin when more merchants and businesses embrace cryptocurrency and accept it for everyday goods.

He added that he was aware the Bitcoin price could collapse.

“Yes, I'd feel awful, people would laugh at me and parents would say 'I told you so', but since I've had bitcoin I've watched the value sink then come back up a few times. If you look at the graphs, it's a continued curve up.”

We recently reported that a group of realtors had advertised the first house in the UK to be sold for Bitcoin. The four-bedroom home was priced at £400,000 in cash but came with a £25,000 discount if the amount was paid in Bitcoin. The price was equivalent to 62.5 BTC at that time.

Elsewhere, a Dutchman went even further and decided to sell everything he had for Bitcoin. That included his house, which was priced at 85 Bitcoin.