Crypto buyers now looking to purchase a physical home

Singapore

THAI developer One.Six's target buyers for The Strand, its 30-storey "ultra-luxurious" condo in Bangkok, are affluent, seasoned investors aged 25 to 35, said its co-founder Chawin Athakravisunthorn. In contrast, the typical property buyer in Thailand is often older, or "the parents of this generation", he added.

"By offering crypto as an alternative form of payment, we're able to be more attractive and gain exposure to this (younger) market, where buyers may have been successful with crypto investments and want to diversify into (tangible) assets like real estate and also want to enjoy a luxury lifestyle," he noted.

One.Six has "received interest" from both foreign and Thai buyers in potentially using cryptocurrencies to purchase residential units at The Strand, via the Zipmex collaboration, Mr Athakravisunthorn said.

Likewise, Zipmex CEO Marcus Lim told BT that prospective customers attracted to the option of paying with crypto are likely between the ages of 35 and 45. Those who have made windfalls from the bitcoin bull run in the past year might be keen to invest their profits in hard assets, he added.

Globally, property-listing platforms aimed at crypto-friendly buyers and sellers have also emerged.

Bithome, for instance, features properties around the world that can be transacted with bitcoin; it offers an escrow service in partnership with a Swiss crypto broker. Sellers pay the portal between US$29 and US$89 per month to list their properties, which have included apartments, office buildings and logistics centres.

A 5,067 square foot penthouse in Miami Beach's Arte condo sold for US$22.5 million in cryptocurrency in end May, making it the most expensive known residential crypto real estate transaction in the US to date. According to Forbes, Arte had received a dozen offers for the unit since announcing that they would be accepting crypto for sales in mid May.

Blockchain technology, which enables crypto's existence, has also been used in novel approaches to property investment. Like Kasa, Singapore-based fintech Shareable Asset lowers barriers of entry into the market through the use of digital tokens, such that retail investors can own a fractional share of real estate assets. Critics say some of these may just be less regulated forms of real estate investment trusts.

San Francisco-based blockchain startup Propy in May announced an auction of an apartment in Kiev, Ukraine, as a non-fungible token.

One.Six CEO and founder, Tanyatip Chearavanont, told BT she believes crypto is "here to stay".

"We want to provide convenience for our customers who have different preferences; for certain people, that may be payment through cryptocurrency."

READ MORE: A Thai luxury property is accepting crypto as payment, while peers shy from option