The real estate of the leading British auction house Christie’s reportedly established a dedicated crypto division because it intends to allow digital currency payments.
Summary
- Christie’s International Real Estate is planning to support a crypto division to support the sale of real estate with the help of digital assets.
- CEO Aaron Kirman said that the relocation is going on an earlier sale of several millions of dollars that were fully established in Bitcoin.
- More than $ 1 billion in luxury real estate is now mentioned by Christie’s with sellers who are open to cryptocurrency payments.
Speaking of the New York Times, Christie’s International Real Estate -CEO Aaron Kirman confirmed The move comes in the midst of a growing demand from high neat-worthy people who want to buy real estate with the help of cryptocurrency, where traditional banks are completely circumvented.
Kirman said that the company has already facilitated several major real estate deals with the help of crypto and is now seeing a wider market shift.
Why does Christie’s international real estate now turn to crypto?
According to Kirman, the decision follows the successful sale of a real estate of $ 65 million in Beverly Hills in 2021, where the buyer paid completely in Bitcoin. The transaction was handled without banks being involved, with the help of a team of legal, compliance and crypto professionals to guarantee both safety and legality.
Building on that experience, the company is now planning to formalize the model in a dedicated division aimed at real estate deals that are kept exclusively with digital assets, Kirman said.
The new service will take care of customers where both the buyer and the seller prefer Crypto, in particular for privacy-related reasons.
Privacy is another important engine of this trend, Kirman explained, such as rich individuals, including celebrities and international investors, increasingly prefer crypto transactions for the improved anonymity they offer compared to traditional payment methods.
Although many such buyers already use LLCs and trusts to cover up ownership, transactions -based transactions have proved to be more difficult to trace with an extra layer of privacy.
“We have been really successful in protecting the buyer’s identity,” said Kirman and noted that in some crypto-based transactions even the seller did not consciously remained who the buyer was.
Real estate owners are willing to accept crypto
Christie is said to have more than $ 1 billion in properties currently mentioned when sellers are willing to accept cryptocurrency. These include high -quality houses in California, such as a residence of $ 63 million Beverly Hills and the “Invisible House” in Joshua Tree, which is mentioned for almost $ 18 million.
Kirman noted that many of these sellers regard crypto-acceptance as a way to attract innovative and tech-forward buyers.
Crypto-based real estate purchases, although still rare, are not new. High -quality transactions increasingly have digital currencies, especially in the US and various other corners of the world.
Some of the first movers in the scene include Dubai Properties, which started with the acceptance of cryptocurrency payments for the sale of real estate in 2022, and Kuper Sotheby’s International Realty, which in 2017 completed a real estate transaction with Bitcoin.
More recently, the Japanese The Open House Group started to accept payments in Cryptocurrency, including Bitcoin, XRP, Solana and Dogecoin.
Christie’s history with the digital currency room
Christie’s headlines made it in 2021 when it became the first major auctioneer to sell an NFT artwork – Beeple’s Algags: the first 5000 days – for $ 69.3 million. Since then, the auction house has launched its own Ethereum-based NFT platform and has organized the countless digital art auctions.
Christie’s, in addition to Sotheby’s, has played a key role in legitimizing the NFT sector on traditional art markets.
