One of the UK’s most celebrated hospitality entrepreneurs, Stephen Hargreaves, is blazing a trail for the modern age, by accepting cryptocurrency as payment at his luxury flagship hotel, The Cranleigh Boutique.

In so doing, the hotel becomes the first venue in the North- West to include Bitcoin, Ethereum, Utrust Token and Tether, as accepted forms of payment. It’s another ‘first’ for the Lancashire-born entrepreneur, who has built an extensive portfolio of exclusive businesses in Bowness-on-Windermere, including The Cranleigh Boutique, The Boutique Hideout House, Baha Pacific Street Food restaurant, The Fizzy Tarté cocktail & champagne bar, and Lake View Garden Bar, all of which are unique and award-winning.

“We know that the interest and use of digital assets is growing, particularly over the past 18 months, with investors seeking to diversify their assets in times of economic turbulence,” says Stephen. “I’ve been contacted by numerous customers requesting we include a way to pay for bookings with Bitcoin at The Cranleigh Boutique. Although initially unsure of the level of appeal, it is very clear that there is a considerable market for this. This will be a first for us, for the Lake District and for the North-West, but we are renowned for our forward-thinking approach and for applying pioneering methods to our processes. We know consumer habits and preferences are changing; we’re spearheading that change across our region.”

Stephen will be working with well-established provider, UTRUST, to facilitate payments and is at pains to stress that The Cranleigh Boutique will not hold any digital assets on-site or on its systems to prevent cyberattacks, thus making it as secure a payment as that of a bank card.

Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency, without a central bank or single administrator; it can be sent from user-to-user on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network without the need for intermediaries. Launched in 2009, the price of one Bitcoin hit an all-time-high last month at $67,277. Similarly, Ethereum is a decentralized, open source blockchain with smart contract functionality. Ether is the native cryptocurrency of the platform.

Amongst cryptocurrencies, Ether is second only to Bitcoin in market capitalisation. Ethereum was conceived in 2013 by programmer Vitalik Buterin. It hit an all-time-high of $4,674.90 yesterday.

Cryptocurrency has become a popular investment since Bitcoin was launched, simply because of the potential gains and the modest fees associated with trading it. And with more and more retailers now accepting Cryptocurrency as payment (for example, Microsoft, Paypal, Etsy and Starbucks) it is becoming widely adopted, globally. The Cranleigh Boutique can now be counted among its numbers.

The newly refurbished Cranleigh boutique has a variety of accommodation options: a self-catering smart villa, Bon Vivant, the Hideout Boutique House, and the Church Suites, all of which can now be booked using Bitcoin, by contacting the reception team, who will take the booking and then send clients an easy-to-use link to a wallet payment screen, where they will then be able to complete the transaction.

“Once again, we’re ‘pushing the boundaries’ and by tapping into this growing digital boom – and a fresh market – we are demonstrating our desire to continue to innovate at every step. Digital currency is the future and we’re delighted to be leading the way in the North-West.” said Stephen.