$BTC: Jeff Bezos-Backed Property Startup Sells Its First Home in Colombia for Bitcoin
The first real estate transaction conducted using the flagship cryptocurrency bitcoin ($BTC) in Colombia has just been made after a Jeff Bezos-backed Latin American real estate platform secured a deal for an apartment in Natura city, in the northern part of the country.
According to Valora Analitik, the deal was mediated by online real estate firm La Haus after it received a reserve payment of 0.03 BTC a month ago, and it’s not the first sale the company has made for BTC as it has sold a property for the cryptocurrency in Mexico.
The transaction was made via Bitcoin’s layer-two scaling solution, the Lightning Network, through a payment processor called OpenNode. The buyer wasn’t in Colombia at the time of the purchase, which comes roughly a month after La Haus started accepting bitcoin payments.
La Haus’ president and co-founder, Rodrigo Sanchez-Rios, has said that the firm believes BTC will be “the reserve currency of the future.” Through its partnership with OpenNode, La Haus allows buyers to make payments using the cryptocurrency, although sellers receive in fiat currency.
The firm is looking to expand bitcoin payments for all of its developments throughout Colombia. Jehudi Castro, its vice president of future and innovation, said in a statement that the fact that the transaction took less than a month “speaks of the unsatisfied need that existed.”
#LaHausBTC | “Estamos trabajando para llevar este tipo de alternativa hacia el resto del país, de manera que los métodos de pago y la forma de inversión, no sean una barrera para acceder a los bienes residenciales” @JCastroS nuestro VP de Innovación y Futuro
— LaHaus (@LaHausCom) February 4, 2022
La Haus is backed by Bezos Expeditions, an American investment firm that serves as a “family office for Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos by managing his personal investments. The firm invests in early stage ventures, late stage ventures and seed stages of companies in many different sectors.”
It’s worth noting that the use of cryptocurrencies in Latin America is growing in general. The real estate sector is one of the major drivers of that growth, with some companies in Venezuela accepting the USDT stablecoin for cars and properties.
In Europe, real estate developer Prometheus International sold two luxury homes on the Portuguese island of Madeira for a total of €4.1 million ($4.7 million) paid for in the popular cryptocurrency Cardano ($ADA) in October 2021.
