Sir Richard Branson has revealed that his commercial space flight venture Virgin Galactic is to accept payment in bitcoins.
The 63-year-old entrepreneur is best known as the founder of Virgin Group, which owns more than 400 companies including the Virgin Atlantic airline and telecommunications provider Virgin Media.
A post on Branson's blog states that a female flight attendant from Hawaii has already purchased her Virgin Galactic ticket in bitcoins.
Want to come to space with @virgingalactic? Now you can pay with #bitcoins! (One future astronaut has already) http://t.co/dYVmSBLVAF— Richard Branson (@richardbranson) November 22, 2013
"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," the post continues.
Many of the early ticket holders for the suborbital space flights are also bitcoin fans, including actor Ashton Kutcher and Shervin Pishevar, investor in Uber and Tumblr.
+1 “@coindesk: Bitcoin surpasses Western Union in daily transaction volume as the price reaches a new all time high. http://t.co/vwGmEtwc4b”— Shervin Pishevar (@shervin) November 19, 2013
Pishevar commented that space travel and bitcoin's "stratospheric rise" go well together. He added:
Branson reveals he has already invested in some bitcoins and encourages others to do the same.
He said that, like bitcoin, Virgin Galactic is forward thinking, so it makes sense for the company to offer digital currency as a way to pay for journeys into space.
The first commercial suborbital flight, which is to be televised by NBC Universal, is set to take place in 2014.
"We would be delighted to welcome more of the bitcoin community as future astronauts," his blog post concludes.
.@virgingalactic is the future of travel. It’s time we let future astronauts pay with a futuristic currency http://t.co/dYVmSBLVAF #bitcoins— Richard Branson (@richardbranson) November 22, 2013
'Bitcoin is driving revolution'
Interviewing with CNBC, Branson commented that Virgin Galactic and bitcoin are a good fit: "Virgin Galactic is a bold entrepreneurial technology and is driving revolution - bitcoin is doing just the same.”
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He sees bitcoin as a low-risk option for Virgin Galactic, and when asked why it decided to accept bitcoin, replied: “Why not?”
“I think it’s fascinating what’s happened," he added. "Congress has just been spending a week looking at it, they might bring in some regulation but I hope it doesn't stifle the innovation of new technologies like bitcoin.”
Branson admits that there are risks in any technological venture, but points out that bitcoin's value has soared in a short space of time. He also said that he believes the price is ultimately going to settle higher than it currently stands today.
The price of a Virgin Galactic flight at present stands at $250,000, equivalent to 342 bitcoins at the current Bitcoin Price Index.
In the beginning
Branson, who now has an estimated net worth of $4.6bn, started his business career at the tender age of 16, when he set up a magazine called The Student, which advertised popular music records.
He set up a mail-order record business in 1970, opening a chain of record stores two years later. Over the next decade, the Virgin brand grew rapidly with the creation of Virgin Atlantic and the expansion of Virgin Records.
The 1990s saw the entrepreneur launch a number of other ventures, including Virgin Mobile and Virgin Trains. It was in 1992 that he sold Virgin records to Thorn EMI for a reported $1bn.
Back in February this year, Branson invested in black cab app Hailo, which enables people to hail taxis in 16 cities across the world using their smartphones.