This month, around $ 529,000 in Bitcoin hit the digital portfolio of developers based in Miami Rilea Group and Cipres. In exchange, they gave the keys to a luxury condos unit to their residences under construction of riders near the Wynwood district.
It was the first direct transaction of cryptocurrency of direct portfolio of the group and among the few cases in which Bitcoin was used to exchange real estate despite a bull race in 2020 and 2021.
“Even our lawyers were somewhat uncomfortable,” said the president of the Rilea group Diego Ojeda. “We think that for the moment, this is the right time to really kiss this in the sense that we have less to worry. It becomes a much more common concept that you even hear from the White House.”
After the initial frenzy around the cryptocurrency bubble, then a series of controversies, the digital tokens were thrown as a change of pocket by the old-fashioned real estate industry. But following the widespread adoption of new technologies such as artificial intelligence and a presidential administration open to the creation of a regulatory framework, crypto -bros are back, for real this time – at least it is the least.
“People have progressed in age, have progressed in life, and this is the next generation,” said Christopher Okada, CEO of Okada & Co.
Okada markets an office building in Manhattan which he has for $ 28 million and says he will accept crypto as payment. It is the same building that he listed as an uncompecable token in 2022, weeks before the fall in the market.
“All those who were involved (in the web3) in their twenties and thirty are now in the thirties and the forties,” he said. “This is not a crazy foreign thing like 10 years ago.”
A series of investment vehicles linked to commercial real estate at the cryptocurrency has been launched in recent months and several lenders have looked into the market. This should fade up in the coming years, the Deloitte Center for Financial Services predicting that 4 t $ of real estate will be tokenized by 2035, from less than $ 300 billion in 2024.
In the past six months, the Bitcoin price has increased by 40% supported by the promise of President Donald Trump to create a regulatory framework For digital assets. In March, he signed a executive decree Allow the government to treat Bitcoin as a reserve asset as well as to store other digital assets.
Last year, Steelwave started A fund of $ 500 million This allows investors to convert their limited partner challenges to commercial tokens for digital tokens for investment. In December, the same day that the Bitcoin price exceeded the milestone of $ 100,000 for the first time, Grant Cardone announced its Real estate-bitcoin hybrid funds. And following a one -year regulatory examination, Robert Ventures launched a Offer of qualified obligations of the Commission of Securities Combine real estate development and digital assets in February.
A group of former employees of the Crypto Kraken exchange company has acquired this month Cryptographic cash flow vehicle Designed for public market investors.
In January, Hankey group Created a program This allows holders of digital parts to use Bitcoin as a guarantee to access the financing of real estate, eliminating the need for cash payments.
The owner of the broker Zito Realty LLC, James Zito, is a real estate and cryptocurrency agent who uses Propy, a web 3 software that facilitates high value transactions using crypto. The platform launched its entire service, using Coinbase, in October.
“This is growing so quickly,” said Zito. “But I see change, and I see self -confidence.”
President Donald Trump with the “Czar Crypto” David Sacks and Bo Hines, Executive Director of the Presidential Council for Digital Assets.
For some, the trend may seem too familiar. During the pandemic, with actions that reach a peak and recovery cash in the economy, money was pumped into alternative investments. Large companies like Robin And Tesla and influencers like youtuber Logan Paul and worldly Kim Kardashian Promoted to other digital tokens, bringing them in the dominant current.
Blockchain companies have started to rent offices, and companies like Jamestown have agreed to accept rent payments in crypto, even traditional tenants. Other web3 technologies have been crazy, with commercial real estate NFT and the fascination of the Metaverse capture industry.
In other words, until the bubble burst. Macroeconomic challenges, alongside scandals such as the collapse of the FTX, sent investors in a spiral, causing them lose $ 2 In the 12 months following the November 2021 peak of Bitcoin. This quickly slowed down the institutional adoption of crypto and blockchain technology to a ramp.
“People who believe in the crypto, like hardcore believers, are not moved by things like that,” said Eduardo Foss, head of the company AI Cre Diald AI. “The problem is not so much demand, the problem is regulatory uncertainty. No one knows what is good or bad in terms of structuring a coin backed by assets.”
Today, the price of Bitcoin oscillates around $ 95,000. However, many in commercial real estate, an industry very sensitive to uncertainty, remain cautious.
Before its sale at 94 NE 29TH ST. in Miami, Ojeda consulted its lawyers to limit any potential danger even if there are not yet books on books. This includes hiring a company to ensure that money is clean, pressing an entire agent who can work on cryptocurrency sales and create an addendum for the sales agreement which indicates that the buyer assumes the risks if there are changes of currency when the crypto is exchanged to the USD.
These additional steps are worth it, he said.
“A crypto owner, who said before:” I’m a little in the dark here and I don’t really know where I can put a little of this money “, well, now there is someone who does not avoid him (he),” said Ojeda. “It is a new buyer pool. These people, they do not want to wait for the banks, they do not want to ask for permission. ”
But, similar to Gold, many investors who hold the crypto do not really want to pay using Crypto, said Bryan Routledge, Associate Professor of Finance at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University. In addition, nature radically different from the two makes it difficult to fusion the volatile nature of digital tokens with the illiquid essence of real estate.
“Real estate transactions are really complicated for many reasons. They are tall, they are lumpy, the construction takes a lot of time, there is a lot of risks, “said Routledge, whose research includes price stability mechanisms for cryptocurrency coins. “If we add Bitcoin or Ethereum, does it change the transaction in a useful way? It is difficult to see.”
