$500,000 Bali Villa is Biggest Bitcoin Purchase Ever

A villa on the Indonesian island of Bali has sold for over $500,000 worth of bitcoin in what is the largest purchase ever made with cryptocurrency.

Sold through the bitcoin-only BitPremier luxury marketplace, the fully-managed property in the deLMango Villa Estate sold for in excess of $500,000 though the exact price and identity of the buyer involved remain unknown.

BitPremier was founded by Alan Silbert, who is the brother of Barry Silbert, a major bitcoin investor and founder of the Bitcoin Investment Trust. Barry Silbert is also the founder of SecondMarket and has invested in his brother's BitPremier venture.

Alan Silbert told CoinDesk that the purchaser of the property in Bali was an early bitcoin adopter from the US and that the sale represented "by far the largest" sale to date on the marketplace, which launched 10 months ago.

"This definitely validates the business model. It shows that bitcoin users want to buy things that are unique, and that are above and beyond t-shirts and electronics," Silbert said.

Previously, the purchase of a Tesla Model S for around $103,000 worth of bitcoin last December was seen to be the largest ever single purchase using only bitcoin.

Interestingly, at today's bitcoin price, the buyer only paid a little over $53,000 for the electric car, indicating just how volatile the cryptocurrency's price is.

There have been however bigger bitcoin transactions, which we known about thanks to the bitcoin blockchain. The largest known is a $147m transaction, which was carried out by bitcoin exchange Bitstamp last November, and remains the largest single movement of bitcoin ever.