It’s no surprise that gamers with beefy rigs have been some of the most enthusiastic embracers of the cryptocurrency craze. After all, those high-end graphics cards that make Bioshock Infinite and its gaming ilk so purdy also mine digital dollars like nobody’s business. And if you want to spend some of those hard-earned cryptocoins on fresh new gear, boutique system builder Xidax is now accepting payment via Dogecoin, the altcoin based on the super-annoying Doge meme.
Or, as Xidax said in its press release: “Wow. Much custom pc.”
“The Dogecoin community is awesome. We’ve been approached by many customers who were excited to see us become the first custom PC builder to accept Bitcoin, but wanted to see us take it a step further,” Xidax executive vice president Zack Shutt said in a prepared statement.
Xidax seems intent on standing out in the custom PC crowd by jumping on cryptocurrency whole-hog. In January, Xidax became the first PC builder to accept Bitcoin as payment. The company also offers a line of cryptocurrency mining PCs preloaded with high-end AMD Radeon graphics cards, which are known for mining altcoins like Dogecoin and Litecoin at a fast and furious rate. (Mining Bitcoins is much more difficult now, essentially requiring custom ASIC hardware to mine enough Bitcoin to see a return on your investment.)
The big selling point? That your PC could pay for itself in as little as three to five months, despite costing $1,355 and up. That comes with a big asterisk, of course, since the market value and the odds of your successfully mining altcoins are both variable.
Xidax includes tutorials with its mining PCs so that even cryptocurrency noobs can start cranking out Dogecoins lickety-split.
Xidax may be the first boutique PC builder to embrace cryptocurrency, but it’s not the only e-tailer to do so. Overstock.com and TigerDirect both accept payment via Bitcoin, as do Reddit, WordPress, the NameCheap web hosting service, and numerous lesser-known websites. Despite the epic collapse of the popular Mt. Gox exchange, the future’s looking intriguing (if not necessarily bright) for Bitcoin, Dogecoin, and digital dollars in general.