Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have already been used as a medium of exchange when buying or renting real estate. There are even multiple real estate agencies who have properties listed for Bitcoin at this very moment.
Despite having been used for payments in the world of real estate, cryptocurrency is still far from the preferred means of exchange for most people. However, there has been sold more real estate for Bitcoin than you probably think. There are even cases of individuals selling their probably only for Bitcoin, including a $24 million mansion in London.
Barbara Corcoran has publicly said that she sees a bright future for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in the world of real estate, as they perfectly suit the type of the industry. Crypto payments are more private, secure and have a permanent record on a public ledger, which essentially is a public database, so a purchase always can be verified. With the introduction of smart contracts, an agreement surrounding the renting or owning of a property could even be coded into an interchangeable record on blockchains like Ethereum.
A few downsides were however mentioned by Barbara, including Bitcoin very apparent volatility and the fact that they aren’t that easy to use. If you screw up and don’t know what you’re doing, you could end up locking yourself out of your crypto funds, and in this case, no one can help you retrieve them. Barbara added that she always loses everything from her keys to her phones so there would be a great chance of her losing the private key to her funds, which is why she herself doesn’t use cryptocurrency. But despite all of this, she is still optimistic about cryptocurrency in real estate.