Why I accepted £4m in Litecoin for a fleet of racing cars

Would you transfer £4m into cryptocurrency to pay for a fleet of fast cars? This is the question being asked by Eleesa Dadiani, the self-styled “Queen of Cryptocurrency”, who has set up an agency that aims to connect buyers desperate to pay digitally with sellers wary of accepting.

Her eponymous Mayfair art gallery has been accepting digital currencies, including Bitcoin, since last year. Now she aims to give buyers a way to pay in a range of cryptocurrencies for very valuable items. Her most recent deal facilitated the £4m sale of a fleet of racing cars using Litecoin, a Bitcoin rival.

The continuing volatility of cryptocurrencies – Bitcoin shot from $6,000 in November to $19,000 in a fortnight, before plummeting to $11,500 this week – has made many shy away from using it for payments.