Nothing says luxury like tapping into a digital trend that is past its best days. Italian car manufacturer Ferrari announced its intention to let the bourgeoisie purchase its luxury vehicles using cryptocurrency.
The plan was born out of Ferrari receiving requests from its wealthy customers to use crypto to purchase vehicles, Reuters reported Saturday. As it stands, the company will accept cryptocurrency from buyers in the U.S. before expanding the offering to the European market in the first quarter of 2024.
Ferrari will rely on BitPay, one of the most common cryptocurrency processors, for sales and will accept payment in bitcoin, ether, or stablecoin USD Coin. It’s not clear how many cars Ferrari hopes to sell with crypto, but the company’s roster is apparently booked through 2025, with 1,800 cars shipped to the U.S. in the first half of 2023.
“Some [car buyers] are young investors who have built their fortunes around cryptocurrencies,” Enrico Galliera, Ferrari’s chief marketing and commercial officer, told Reuters. “Some others are more traditional investors, who want to diversify their portfolios.”
Galliera says the company isn’t really worried about the climate impact of cryptocurrency when it comes to peddling their cars. The executive reiterated Ferrari’s commitment to reaching carbon neutrality by 2030. It’s a lofty desire, and one more likely in theory than in practice.
The crypto industry as a whole relies on an exorbitant amount of energy, with, for example, bitcoin being a cryptocurrency noted for its carbon footprint. Ethereum has made some recent attempts to cut its emissions by switching to a less energy-intensive mining practice. Cryptocurrency is such a blemish on the world’s carbon portfolio that President Joe Biden is aiming to crack down on crypto miners gobbling up all of our energy with the Digital Asset Mining Energy excise tax.
Nevertheless, it’s bizarre to see a company dive headfirst into crypto after the bubble has long popped. Once heralded as the future of commerce, cryptocurrency is nothing short of a punchline, marked by crypto exchange FTX taking a nose dive last November as $US9 billion in customer funds vanished due to a liquidity crisis. While the crypto has still made a lot of gains in global adoption, a majority of those who invest in bitcoin still wind up losing money according to The Bank of International Settlements. A working paper released by the institution says that 73 to 81% of new crypto speculators will inevitably lose money after their initial investment—a majority of those investors are “risk-seeking” men under 35 looking to make a quick buck.