What Can You Buy With Bitcoin?

With the largest market capitalization of any cryptocurrency in the world, Bitcoin is a hugely popular digital cryptocurrency. But what can you buy with Bitcoin? Given that the value of one Bitcoin is roughly $28,209 as of December 30, 2020, it would seem that you could buy a lot with a single Bitcoin. Many investors will own only a small portion of a Bitcoin, though, and as with most other cryptocurrencies, the number of real-world uses for Bitcoin is increasing all the time. Below, we’ll explore some of the things one can buy with Bitcoin.

Overview for Fast Readers

Thanks to a growing reputation and widespread acceptance, today you can buy most anything using Bitcoin.
In many cases, companies and merchants accept Bitcoin directly. When they don’t, there are often specialty retail services that accept Bitcoin payments for a variety of items.
Bitcoin can be used to purchase everyday items such as food, clothing, or digital entertainment services.
You can also make some more unusual purchases using Bitcoin, including luxury automobiles, a gold mine, and even citizenship in Vanuatu.

What Can You Buy With Bitcoins?

For Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies more generally, one major marker of success is the list of things Bitcoin investors can buy using their tokens. Early on in Bitcoin’s history, this list was quite limited. Now, however, as Bitcoin has become ubiquitous and as its reputation has grown, you can buy just about anything with Bitcoin.

List of Things You Can Buy With Bitcoin Today

Food. It’s fitting that the first item on our list is food, as the very first real-world Bitcoin transaction was for two pizzas back in 2010. The price of those two pizzas was 10,000 Bitcoin, meaning that at today’s prices, each pizza was worth more than $140 million! Nowadays, a host of restaurants around the world accept Bitcoin payments, including both major chains and independent companies.
Travel. If you’re looking to spend your Bitcoin in a new location, perhaps first use it to pay for the cost of your travel. Websites like Bitcoin.Travel provide hotel and airfare listings payable in Bitcoin, and some of the world’s top airlines and travel providers also accept Bitcoin as well.
Online Shopping. Online retail and e-commerce sites have been some of the earliest companies to accept cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. While some sites, like Bitplaza, are dedicated to providing products for sale in Bitcoin, well-known preexisting retailers like Overstock and Shopify have also experimented with adding Bitcoin payment functionality as well. Now, services also exist which allow independent stores and sellers to accept cryptocurrency payments, too.
Precious Metals. While Bitcoin is not redeemable for gold in the same way that a gold-backed currency is, you can nonetheless use your Bitcoin to pay for gold if you’d like. Similarly, Bitcoin can now be used at certain retailers to pay for silver, jewelry, and a variety of other related items.
Electronics and Gaming Equipment. It may come as no surprise that Bitcoin, a digital currency, can be used to pay for a lot of other digital products as well. In the time since Bitcoin was launched, companies like Microsoft have accepted Bitcoin payments for video game products. You can also use Bitcoin to pay for web services, cloud storage, and a host of related offerings.

Some of the More Unbelievable Things Bitcoin Can Buy You

While the list above shows a few categories of everyday items you can purchase using Bitcoin, there are also lots of more lavish, outlandish, or even outright unbelievable things that you can pay for with these crypto tokens.

A Gold Mine. Back in 2014, the owner of an operational gold mine in Yukon, Canada listed the mine and all of its related assets for sale for 3,000 Bitcoin, or roughly $2 million at the time. Typically, Bitcoin “miners” use computer processing power to generate new Bitcoin tokens, but in this case, the term may have a more literal meaning!
Luxury Cars. Some early investors in Bitcoin had a particular interest in using the cryptocurrency to buy Lamborghinis. Perhaps that is part of the reason why one can now find so many luxury cars from brands like Bugatti, Maserati, and, yes, Lamborghini for sale in Bitcoin. If those vehicles are a bit out of your price range, it’s also possible to buy standard automobiles using cryptocurrencies as well.
Real Estate. Though Bitcoin is a virtual token, it can be used to pay for some very real things, and real estate is among the most tangible items for sale using Bitcoin. Reportedly, one of the first Bitcoin purchases of real estate took place in 2014, when an anonymous buyer paid 800 Bitcoin for an estate in Bali. At the time, the purchase was about $500,000, though as of this writing those 800 BTC would be worth more than $22 million. BitPay is a service that has facilitated the growth in real estate transactions using Bitcoin.
Charity Donations. A growing number of charities have added Bitcoin as a payment method. A donation of even a small amount of Bitcoin could make a significant difference, especially if the token’s price continues to ascend!
Citizenship in Vanuatu. The South Pacific island nation Vanuatu has offered so-called “investment citizenship,” payable in Bitcoin. The country has been ranked among the happiest in the world, perhaps making the investment all the more enticing.

Summary

Today, Bitcoin can be used to buy just about everything, from the everyday mundane to once-in-a-lifetime rare purchases. If you’re going to spend your Bitcoin to buy something, be it a sandwich or a trip to space, remember to be mindful of the potential volatility of the price of Bitcoin in the future. The Bitcoin tokens you spend for that everyday item now might be worth millions in a few years!