James Pratt Auctions and NuYen Exchange announced the launch the world’s first live property auction using cryptocurrencies. The auction will commence on Apr. 8th and buyers will be able to use Bitcoin (BTC) and Binance Coin (BNB) to purchase a beach-front modern mansion in the town of Casuarina in East Australia.
World’s First Live Property Auction
While cryptocurrencies have been a regular occurrence in the real estate industry for quite some time now, the market was yet to see the mainstream interest in such deals.
That is until James Pratt Auctions announced that it will be hosting the world’s first live property auction using cryptocurrency. The world-renowned auction house announced the auction in an Instagram post on Mar. 7th, saying that it partnered with Binance and NuYen exchange on the project.
TrigonTrading, an OTC trading, exchange, and custody service based in Australia, will be assisting NuYen exchange to settle the auction, the company confirmed in a tweet.
We are assisting the @NuYenExchange team to settle the transaction in #bitcoin https://t.co/yVZUPGsHls
— TrigonTrading (@TrigonTrading) March 11, 2019
Changpeng Zhao, the founder, and CEO of Binance, tweeted that buyers will be able to purchase the property using both Bitcoin and Binance Coin.
The world’s first live property auction using cryptocurrency streaming. Accepting Bitcoin & Binance Coin #useBNB https://t.co/pt4ULhkSOC
— CZ Binance (@cz_binance) March 11, 2019
The property listed at the auction is located in Casuarina, a town located in north-eastern New South Wales, Australia. The beachfront residence is aptly named “The Jetsons,” due to its exaggerated futuristic style and is bound to attract bidders with “quirky, yet refined taste.”
Registration for the auction is open now on the Realestate.com.au website—the onsite auction will be conducted on Monday, Apr. 8th, at 11 am AEST.
Cryptocurrency Slowly Finding Its Place in Real Estate
And while the Casuarina mansion will be the first time a house was sold in a live auction, it won’t be the first one that was bought with cryptocurrency.
December 2017 saw the first known Bitcoin-only real estate deal close in Miami. According to The Real Deal, Ivan “Paychecks” Pacheco, who co-founded the cryptocurrency website Bits to Freedom, paid 17.74 Bitcoin for a two-bedroom unit in Miami’s Upper East Side neighborhood. At the time, the transaction was worth around $275,000.
In 2018, a property in Mount Druitt, a Sydney suburb, became the first one in Australia to be sold only for the cryptocurrency. The US has seen the most real estate purchase involving cryptocurrencies, however, with crypto millionaires from China flocking to the country’s Silicon Valley to diversify their assets.
Antalya Homes, one of the biggest real estate firms in the transcontinental country of Turkey, recently published a release saying that it successfully sold 9 different properties for Bitcoin.
One great feature of cryptocurrency is that it enables cross-border transactions of any amount for a fixed fee—this feature can be leveraged to expand the international real estate market, enabling property buyers to seamlessly acquire property in other parts of the world without the friction of large transfer and forex fees.
Update: An previous version of this article stated that Binance had a formed a partnership with James Pratt Auctions and NuYen Exchange, however this is NOT the case.
