28.03.2024

UK Real Estate Firm Accepts Bitcoin for Sale of 150-Year-Old Church

While the property unit is priced at 1.2 million British pounds ($1.5 million), the final price in Bitcoin is to be agreed and confirmed with the vendor and will depend on the market price of Bitcoin at the time of sale, the listing notes. At press time, the sale price is worth 182.34 Bitcoins.

A 150-year-old English church is being sold for $1.5 million with the vendor accepting payment in Bitcoin.

According to a listing on Rightmove, a major British online real estate portal and property website, a vendor put an 18th-century church converted into a seven-bedroom character property up for sale and is willing to accept Bitcoin as payment.

Vendor is willing to receive payment in Bitcoin

Built in 1871, the converted residential property is the former St. Laurence’s Church in County Durham.

Earlier this year, Cointelegraph reported that major Bitcoin-oriented real estate project Aston Plaza was pausing its operations, while previous reports claimed that the construction of the $325 million venture was stopped in January 2018. According to the Aston Plaza website, the venture still offers studios as well as one- and two-bedroom apartments that can be bought with Bitcoin.

U.K. and payments in crypto

The U.K. has been friendly to crypto-powered payments, according to recent reports. Last week, major local crypto wallet and debit card service firm Cryptopay announced the launch of transfers with the British pound through the Faster Payments Scheme, which purportedly eliminated euro conversion charges.

In April 2019, the U.K.’s largest travel management company, Corporate Traveller, announced that it started accepting Bitcoin for payments, noting that the firm is not concerned with Bitcoin’s price volatility, as received crypto is converted directly into British pounds.

FINRA Approves Grayscale’s Public Quote for Crypto Fund Shares

New York-based digital asset management fund Grayscale Investments has received regulatory approval to publicly quote the shares of its diversified cryptocurrency fund.

First publicly-quoted diversified crypto fund

Grayscale was approved by the United States Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) to publicly quote its Grayscale Digital Large Cap Fund (GDLCF) on over-the-counter (OTC) markets, according to a press release on Oct. 14.

The recent approval purportedly enables the first publicly-quoted security based on a selection of digital currencies in the U.S., the firm stated. The shares will be available for purchase through investment accounts similar to other unregistered securities.

DTC-eligible shares

There will be no trading volume in the shares’ public quotation until they are eligible with the Depository Trust Company (DTC), one of the world’s largest securities depositories. According to the press release, Grayscale is expected to get the shares DTC-eligible in the near future.

The GDLCF comprises of several different major cryptocurrencies.  As of Sept. 30, 2019, the fund was over 80% Bitcoin, 9.9% Ethereum (ETH), 5.8% XRP, while Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Litecoin (LTC) accounted for 2.2% and 1.8%, respectively.

Grayscale added that DLC is not registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission and is not subject to disclosure and certain other requirements mandated by U.S. securities laws.

Grayscale is a subsidiary of major crypto venture capital company Digital Currency Group. The firm’s Grayscale’s Bitcoin Investment Trust, allegedly the sole Bitcoin investment trust in the U.S., reportedly surged 300% this year as of July.

On Oct. 9, Grayscale’s director of sales and business development Rayhaneh Sharif-Askary claimed that the interest of institutional investors in cryptocurrencies doubled in Q2 2019.

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