Developers are aiming to sell the first house in Britain for Bitcoin.

The brand new four-bedroom family home, in Elmstead Market, is priced at £375,000 for cash - or 82.55 Bitcoin at today’s exchange rate.

That includes a discount of £25,000 for making a bit of Bitcoin history.

Bitcoin is a virtual currency which allows users to make payments without banks outside of government control or transaction fees, and with total anonymity.

The so-called cryptocurrency was created in 2009 and shrewd investors have seen their Bitcoins soar by 500 times their original value.

It is growing in popularity and is now accepted by some restaurants, airlines, shops and online retailers.

But property developers Go Homes, which are behind the 32-home Elmstead Green development, are now making the leap into bricks and mortar.

Ed Casson, group sales director, said: “Selling homes for Bitcoin will become common in the next five years.

“Our industry has largely remained unchanged in terms of innovation in the last 50 years. We are taking an opportunity to embrace this technology.

Boss - Ed Casson is behind the plans

“We’re offering someone the opportunity to pay for a new home with Bitcoin. Maybe it’ll be somebody who took a chance when Bitcoin were launched and now want to cash them in.

“We’re offering one of our new homes on a development site just outside of Colchester, giving someone the opportunity to trade Bitcoin for bricks and mortar - another popular asset.”

There are no known sales of UK properties for Bitcoin but the race is on, with entrepreneur Daniel Roy stating last month he would accept the virtual currency for his £1.65 million Peckham home.

But there is a risk with Bitcoin transactions because the exchange rate is notoriously volatile. Today it stands at £4,240 per bitcoin while in January it was trading as low as £667.

Mr Casson added: “We are essentially taking a risk, with wild fluctuations in the exchange rate, but we see that the property market is changing and we want to be the first to embrace that change.

“We believe the UK property market is about to totally change in terms of how homes are bought and sold due to new technologies now available and growing investment in property technology companies are making this all possible.

“This whole exercise, while fun in many ways, is all part of our company’s ethos to supply affordable, innovative homes, to all.

"It’s a bold statement, but we are driven to do our bit to help fix the UK wide housing crisis.

"This is only possible by innovation on the industry.

"It currently takes far too long for land to be acquired, for planning decisions, construction through to sales.

"All these areas need to change to speed up the process, and we are determined to do our bit to improve things.”