Vegas Mansion Could Go for $8M—in Bitcoin

A casino owner-turned-commercial developer is asking $7.85 million to sell a Las Vegas home, and he's willing to accept the online currency bitcoin for the deal. Jack Sommer says he got the idea to seek bitcoin for his 25,000-square-foot mansion from two of his sons, who've been involved in making and trading the currency. "The advantage is that we're expanding our market and adding some notoriety," Sommer says.

Sommer's sales agent says the home—which includes marble from China, Iceland and Brazil, a full basement, staff quarters with Jacuzzis, and a secret garden—may be the first in southern Nevada to be marketed formally around bitcoin. A Canadian man listed his Alberta home for the bitcoin equivalent of $405,000, and a Tesla recently sold for 91.4 bitcoin. Using the currency can streamline international business deals, says a bitcoin expert. "There are a bunch of people who have bitcoins, and they're dying for a place to spend it," Julian Tosh tells the Las Vegas Review-Journal. (More bitcoin stories.)