The use of cryptocurrency within superyacht transactions is becoming increasingly popular, but it is still relatively unchartered territory for the industry.
But it seems that Cryptocurrency is finally catching on and becoming more and more accepted in the Superyacht world
In 2014, the need to pay for luxury goods using various cryptocurrencies spurred companies such as BitPay and Coinbase into offering an easy way to make payments faster and more secure for individuals and businesses.
Four years later the American based Denison announced the first yacht sale using cryptocurrency in 2016 and in June 2018, the facilitated the first ever Bitcoin-booked charter. This paved the way for making yachting more accessible.
Now Burgess have announced that the owner of motor yacht Vianne will accept, as a world first, NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) and any major cryptocurrency for the sale and charter of the yacht following a 10 per cent deposit (EUR/USD) paid in Fiat.
The news comes about following the sale by auction of Meta Flower the first NFT megayacht in the Metaverse, a virtual-reality space in which users can interact with a computer-generated environment and other users.
The auction marks the highest price ever paid for a NFT asset and was an exciting moment for every member of the Fantasy Community
Although part of the Metaverse, the Meta Flower megayacht went for 149 ETH, the equivalent of USD 650K, making it the most expensive NFT item in The Sandbox virtual world and demonstrating that there is a breed of buyer looking to transact in this way.
And it comes at a time when the concept of metaverse is beginning to echo in gaming and crypto spaces, the news of this purchase was quick to surface on social media
Buying a yacht or chartering a yacht using cryptocurrency as payment makes sense because of low transactions fees, fast transfer, and privacy. The ability to safely accept various currencies, including cryptocurrency, and distribute these funds in U.S. dollars is a valuable service to clients in the superyacht world.