Virgin Galactic Now Taking Bitcoin For Suborbital Flights

Nerval's Lobster writes "Bitcoin hype has reached orbit: you can now use the virtual currency to fly on Virgin Galactic, which will begin taking passengers on sub-orbital flights in 2014. 'One future astronaut, a female flight attendant from Hawaii, has already purchased her Virgin Galactic ticket using bitcoins,' Virgin CEO Richard Branson wrote in a blog posting on Virgin's Website, 'and we expect many more to follow in her footsteps. All of our future astronauts are pioneers in their own right, and this is one more way to be forward-thinking.' Branson is an investor in Bitcoin, which has seen its per-unit value skyrocket from $10 to $900 over the past two years (today, its value stands at $766, but that could rapidly change). 'The lack of transparency from Bitcoin's founders has attracted some criticism, but its open source nature means anyone can audit the code,' he added in his posting. 'It is a brilliantly conceived idea to allow users to power the peer-to-peer payment network themselves, providing control and freedom for consumers.' A flight aboard Virgin Galactic costs $250,000, or roughly 320 Bitcoin at today's price. However, Bitcoin is also a volatile currency, diving and spiking in response to a variety of factors—while it's certainly possible that its value could zoom above $1,000 in the near future, there's always the possibility it could crash down to a few hundred dollars, or even lower."

Comments

Re:Economist's resource

[sg_oneill]

Considering it confuses inflation for deflation (hint: Bit coins are deflationary, goods cost less and less over time, so far, in otherwords, its an economy with programmed recession) leads me to think that perhaps this isn't actually a particularly competent guide.