The company's name dates back to the 1700s.

London-based bullion broker Sharps Pixley is now accepting bitcoin payments for gold and other precious metals, despite the crypto-currency in recent weeks having battled headwinds spurred by Chinese curbs.

Sharps Pixley claims to be the first bullion dealer authorised by UK watchdog the Financial Conduct Authority to accept bitcoin as a certified payment method for all precious metals – gold, silver, platinum and palladium. (Here is a feature including gold and Sharps Pixley's own new facility in the St James's Street area of London, here.)

“It is our view that many investors in bitcoin would like the option of holding intrinsic value in a traditional safe-haven asset like gold, and be able to switch across in a simple and cost-effective way,” said Ross Norman, Sharps Pixley chief executive. 

Since its inception in 2009, bitcoin has rocketed from being practically worthless to costing as much as $5,000 for one coin at peak trading times. 

But the crypto-currency's price has taken a hit in recent times, after China ordered all of its domestic bitcoin exchanges to shutter and banned initial coin offerings (ICOs). JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon touted it as a “fraud”, which triggered a slide in bitcoin's price shortly after his comments were reported.

Over the past month, bitcoin has seen highs of nearly $5,000 and lows of around $3,200, according to CoinDesk, showcasing the volatility of the crypto-currency. 

Giles Maber, business development director at Sharps Pixley, said: “We are bridging the gap between the world’s oldest currency and its newest, offering new and existing customers the means to exchange and diversify digital currency for a real, tangible asset which they can store and trade at Sharps Pixley.”

Sharps Pixley, whose name dates back to 1778, partnered with crypto-currency payment processor BitPay to enable customers to make bitcoin payments “in seconds, without leaving the site”. 

Bitcoin was created in 2009 by an unidentified person or group operating under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. In the wake of the 2008 financial tsunami, so-called “cypherpunks” sought to create a decentralised payment system independent of distrusted central banks and free of regulatory burden.

While banks have generally steered clear of bitcoin, the crypto-currency has gained the support of some money managers, technology enthusiasts and speculators wooed by its price swings.

Crypto-currencies have a market cap exceeding $150 billion, with bitcoin accounting for around $66 billion of the total. 

The supply of bitcoin is meant to be limited to 21 million, which is why some liken it to gold because there is a finite supply of both. Some bullish bitcoin analysts have cited prices as high as $100,000 for a single bitcoin within 10 years.

Blockchain

In spite of Dimon's negative outlook on bitcoin, JP Morgan and many of its competitors have invested millions of dollars in blockchain, the technology underpinning bitcoin and every other crypto-currency. 

A blockchain is a virtual distributed ledger of transactions shared peer-to-peer that can record ownership across a public network of computers rendered tamper-proof by advanced cryptography. 

The technology is causing a stir within the financial services sector as its supporters believe it could reduce hidden expenses in the financial system by ousting inefficiencies across areas such as payments, syndicated loans and equity clearing. 

Earlier this year, the UK's Royal Mint, the government-owned body that produces all of the country's coinage, launched a digitised gold trading platform underpinned by blockchain technology.