Bartons is the first to partner with Accept Crypto and is likely to be followed by other dealerships as the digital currency starts to gain acceptance in automotive trading after first working in real estate.

Cryptocurrency has been available as a trading medium for automobiles in Australia since April, when Melbourne-based prestige used-vehicle dealership Dutton Garage partnered with crypto exchange business CoinSpot. 

Accept Crypto COO Ben Karaahmetovic told GoAutoNews Premium that his company had recently partnered with Queensland new and used-car dealer Bartons and had some interest from more dealer groups.

He said Accept Crypto acts as the compliance and accounting intermediary for the transaction on behalf of the dealer.

“On behalf of the dealer or the real-estate company, we handle all the compliance.”

“We verify the funds and make sure they haven’t interacted with any dark markets or anything that would be prohibited. We verify the actual identity of the buyer, their company structure, whether that’s a trust corporate trustee, whatever it may be, to make sure everything’s legitimate. 

“At that point, then we can facilitate the transaction so that everyone stays on the right side of compliance.”

“So once that’s done, we will simply provide a wallet address, the entire funds would be paid and we would use our liquidity partners to convert those funds into Australian dollars. And at that point, the transaction is done.”

The benefit to the dealer is that cryptocurrency transactions are very marketable.

“It’s easy to make the news when you do anything regarding crypto, because it is still that sort of mysterious sector,” Mr Karaahmetovic added.

“A lot of people are interested in crypto and are keen to use it.

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“For the dealer, it also can close a deal very quickly. Most people aren’t going to have a lot of cash sitting around. They’re likely to have funds in different assets and investments.

“With people who have invested in cryptocurrency, it will help to close the deal on the spot, because the transaction can be completed, in most cases, within an hour. That would be our general turnaround time if it was just a standard individual.

“That takes longer if it’s like a discretionary trust with a corporate trustee, for example, because we have to verify each party individually, but it’s still a quick process.”

Mr Karaahmetovic said the third benefit was that his company has a profit-sharing agreement with its partner dealers. 

“Any income that we receive through our service is shared with the dealers who generated that income,” he said.

“That opens up another revenue stream for them. They close more deals, and they have a significant boost in marketing potential.”

He said that one issue with the cryptocurrency industry was that it lacked legitimacy in the eyes of many people.

“That’s because they don’t really understand how it operates and when that happens, it introduces risk.

“The biggest roadblock we get into is just explaining that dealers don’t have to accept crypto. A lot of people are worried about the volatility because they know the market can go down significantly in any one day.

“So we mitigate that by having institutional liquidity providers. We would organise a trade lock in the price and when the transaction comes through, that will get wired and transferred into cash – it becomes just a standard banking transfer.”

By Neil Dowling