“A cottage industry of stores buying and reselling goods online for Bitcoins has emerged, and some high-profile transactions have helped push the currency into mainstream consciousness. One Canadian man reportedly hoped to sell his house for Bitcoins, and a US man claimed to have traded his 2007 Porsche for 300 Bitcoins. The Cyprus banking crisis – which saw the tiny nation agree a bailout deal with the International Monetary Fund, European Commission and European Central Bank that will shrink the banking sector and lead to losses on deposits of more than 100,000 euros – also coincided with a run-up in Bitcoin valuation.”
