Channel man Boardman launches Bitcoin marketplace

BTXDeals sells computer equipment, fine art, jewellery and sporting goods

Serial channel entrepreneur Nick Boardman has taken the wraps off his latest venture - an e-commerce site which only accepts Bitcoin as currency.

BTXDeals is an online marketplace which sells a range of products including computer equipment, sporting goods, fine art, boats, watches and hotel packages. Prices for the goods are displayed in pounds and dollars as well as in Bitcoin, but payments are only accepted via the latter currency.

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency which has recently been adopted in part by the likes of Dell and Microsoft. The currency uses a stream of code to represent monetary value instead of cash and is created on large machines which completes the calculations.

The BTXDeals website is serial channel man Nick Boardman's latest venture. Back in 1992 he founded Rock Group before moving to Stone when the firm was acquired. Since then he has held senior roles at Centerprise, BluBox Software and Casetec.

He claims BTXDeals was born out of his "love for Bitcoin".

The firm claims to offer customers the best-possible value with a cost-per-sale typically half that of Amazon and eBay thanks to having "no hidden charges or additional fees".

"BTXDeals ensures that customers are getting a fair representation of the value of their virtual currency in the current market, and shopping for goods is made easy due to a transparent indication of currency conversion based on current exchange rates," the firm said. "The base price of goods is set in GBP sterling and updated every 10 minutes based on the exchange rate of Bitpay, the largest Bitcoin payment gateway."

The firm is currently headquartered in Staffordshire but has plans to expand into other territories next year.

Boardman said: "As the first of its kind, BTXDeals embraces the potential of Bitcoin and provides a safe, secure and transparent form of online shopping that puts the power in the hands of the consumer.

"We're passionate about the potential of this virtual currency and believe it will become the future for all e-commerce transactions."