Manhattan has now joined the ranks of marquee places where bitcoins are used to buy real estate. Property developer Ben Shaoul, owner of Magnum Real Estate Group, is in contract to sell two Upper East Side apartments. But is there really a huge upside to paying for homes in crypto? “Everyone’s getting on the crypto train,” Shaoul told Modern Consensus. “I just chose to board it faster.” The two units are both ridiculously small by non-urban standards but for this neighborhood, it’s fairly common. The first unit is a 624-square-foot studio that was asking $875,000. That’s about the size of a car garage in the suburbs. The other is a…
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Japan’s first bitcoin real estate deal closes as a major Japanese crypto exchange is hacked
The Land of the Rising Sun continues to be a cryptocurrency hotbed
It’s increasingly hip for companies to find a way to leverage the blockchain, and a Japanese real estate company called Yitanzi is the latest to get some press for its bitcoin efforts. Yitanzi just completed the country’s first bitcoin-transacted real estate deal, selling a commercial building in Tokyo for 547 bitcoin, almost U.S. $6 million. At the same time, Yitanzi has made it known that it will be accepting other cryptocurrencies in the future, though it hasn’t designated any timeline or specific currencies to implement. So is this sale indicative of a new normal? Not especially. “It certainly opens up the possibilities, but I think the opportunity is in blockchain…
