How do you buy your bitcoin? Through an exchange? LocalBitcoins? KYC-Free? Maybe even OTC? Well, this is how billionaires do it.
An Office In Mayfair, West London
This is home to The Dadiani Syndicate, the brainchild of art dealer Eleese Dadiani. Her gallery, Dadiani Fine Art, was the first to accept cryptocurrency payments, back in 2017.
Dadiani initially founded the ‘Syndicate’ as a kind of crypto-concierge service, for the ultra wealthy. This enabled holders to cash out their cryptocurrency profits into luxury goods like yachts and gold bullion. She once helped an anonymous Chinese billionaire buy four ‘used’ Formula One cars with $4 million worth of Litecoin.
However, she found “there were people who wanted us to assist them in buying enormous amounts of bitcoin.”
Enormous amounts of bitcoin!
A Peer-to-Peer Bitcoin Matchmaking Service
Dadiani says that she sees her role as very similar to that in the art world; she puts together people who want to sell and those who want to buy.
One client approached her with an interest in acquiring 25% of all bitcoin currently available. That would be over 4.4 million at a cost of $38.6 billion at current rates. Clearly, this is not going to be possible, but Dadiani is tasked with getting as close to 25% as possible.
One key challenge is to buy large amounts of bitcoin without affecting the market and causing ‘slippage’ between the expected trade price and the price as executed. Needless to say, she avoids using exchanges.
She also applies no AML or KYC procedures. Only dealing with people who are clients of reputable banks, she says that “it’s up to them to make sure their clients are abiding by regulations.”
Although quite where one finds a ‘reputable’ bank these days is anyone’s guess.
Media Paints A Misleading Picture Of Bitcoin
At least according to Dadiani, who suggests that interest in Bitcoin has never waned, “though the media paints a very different picture.”
As far as The Dadiani Syndicate is concerned though, its clients are only interested in bitcoin:
There’s little interest in other cryptocurrencies but we have not been doing this long and would be open to others in the future if clients wanted it. If someone wants large amounts of ether or another major cryptocurrency, we would likely be able to find a seller.
Dadiani was originally intending to launch her own Dadicoin in late 2018, but though her gallery website still claims this is coming ‘later this year’ it has likely just not been updated.
What do you think of such bitcoin buying services for the super wealthy? Share your thoughts below!
Images via Shutterstock