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This London gallery has become the first in the UK to accept Bitcoin payments

A fine art gallery in Mayfair has become the first in the UK to offer collectors and buyers the opportunity to purchase works of art using Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

The Dadiani Fine Art gallery on Cork Street is mixing the traditional world of fine art with the bleeding edge technology after announcing it would begin accepting six leading cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Ripple, Litecoin and Dash, for pieces of art.

Thought up by Eleesa Dadiani, the gallery’s owner, Dadiani Fine Art hopes that its adoption of the tech can help to encourage more small businesses and independent firms to accept the decentralised currency technology and potentially utilise its low footprint to hedge against economic pressures.

Ms Dadiani commented: “We are combining old world business ethics and practice with the new world of technology – the current system is becoming stale and needs to be disrupted.

“Cryptocurrencies will provide a bridge from the elitist, centralist fine art market to a decentralised open source world where many more will be able to become a part of this exhilarating market.”

While the wild volatility in the price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have raised doubts from some analysts about the tech’s efficacy as both a stable currency and an asset class, the underlying blockchain technology is already being explored by everyone from big banks to retailers and charities.

Dadiani has plans to become the first gallery to develop its own cryptocurrency, DadiCoin, which will be launched soon, highlight the business’ confidence in the technology.

Eleesa believes that the more businesses that adopt Bitcoin and the like, the more readily it will be accepted by society at large and undermine those early doubters.

She said: “This could be a turning point for the cryptocurrency market. For many years, it has been ridiculed but when traditional businesses, such as art galleries, take it seriously it is a sure sign that this is a very important technology that will change things as we know it.

“It will also open the market to a new type of buyer, people who regard cryptocurrency as more valuable and stable than traditional currencies. They will become part of an old money market, using new money.”

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