If you were super rich and could afford to travel to outer space, what better way to pay for that trip than with a space-age currency? Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic announced today that they will now be accepting bitcoins as payment for a trip to space.
Virgin Galactic accepts first bitcoin payment
On Virgin‘s website, the company announced that it had already accepted its first payment for a space trip using bitcoins. It said that a flight attendant from Hawaii has purchased her ticket to outer space via Virgin Galactic using bitcoins. The company said it expects “more to follow in her footsteps” and that all of their future astronauts “are pioneers in their own right.” In addition, it says accepting bitcoins is an additional way they can be forward-thinking.
Branson’s company called bitcoins a “brilliantly conceived idea.”
Cyprus university also accepts bitcoin payments
Virgin Galactic also noted that a university in Cyprus has just become the first university to start accepting bitcoins as payment as well. Wired reports that the University of Nicosia now accepts bitcoins to pay for tuition and other school fees.
The university is basically seeking publicity for a new master’s program which is geared toward digital currency. That program launches in spring of next year and is designed to focus on everyone from entrepreneurs to government officials. It is entitled the Master of Science Degree in Digital Currency and is the first degree of its kind in the world. It looks at the “technical underpinnings of systems like Bitcoin” and how these systems will evolve over time and change society.
Is it a good idea to pay in bitcoins?
So is it a good idea to pay for things using bitcoins? It depends. Do you think their value is going to increase or decrease? At Mt. Gox, bitcoins peaked at around $900 recently, although they plummeted back down hundreds of dollars after that brief peak. Meanwhile regulators are probing the digital currency to see what it can be used for.
So if you pay for something in bitcoins, whether it’s a trip to outer space or tuition for school, you run the risk of overpaying dramatically. However, if the digital currency ends up being worth nothing, you could be getting a steal.
