The first US property will be sold entirely through a blockchain transaction on Ethereum in South Burlington, Vermont, putting the city on the map as a “global blockchain leader.”
Ethereum Used for Real Estate Deal
South Burlington, Dubai and Kiev are all part of a pilot program with global blockchain-based real estate marketplace Proppy inc. who handled the transaction.
Katherine Purcell signed off on the transaction in late February through the San Francisco based Proppy which uses the Ethereum network to transact and record all contracts and documents instead of the city’s record system. Vermont is the first state in the US to allow this type of transaction.
Purcell spoke to Inverse, saying she was a little nervous about making the deal but also excited.
“This type of technology excites me. Its encryption capabilities are top of the line in terms of keeping deeds and other documents safe.”
While this was the first Blockchain based transaction in the U.S. for Proppy they made the first blockchain based real estate transaction in the world last year. In October 2017 Techcrunch founder Michael Arrington who also sits on the board at Proppy remotely purchased an apartment in Kiev, Ukraine.
This is the first step in a planned real estate take over said an anonymous source at the real estate marketplace. “This first deal makes it much easier for the rest of the 49 states to iterate the process,” the source told Zero Hedge. ‘In fact, Arizona and Colorado are next.”
Proppy took in about $15 million when it launched the ICO of its PRO token which is today trading at around a dollar.
Real Estate Will be Blockchain Based Soon
While this may be the first U.S. real estate deal completely transacted using blockchain technology it is not the first real estate sold using cryptocurrency in the US.
Newsbtc reported on Michael Komaransky, an early player in the bitcoin market when he sold his Miami mansion for 455 Bitcoin in what at the time was being called the most expensive Bitcoin to Bitcoin real estate sale ever.
The first also conducted in Miami was when Ivan ‘Pay checks’ Pacheco paid 17.741 Bitcoin, the equivalent of $275, 000 for a condo. Both of these sales were Bitcoin to Bitcoin only, meaning that there was never any conversion to fiat currency (US Dollars Etc.) in the transaction.
Though many would still shy away from making large real estate deals in cryptocurrency due to the volatility of the market the trends towards conducting the deals using blockchain technology is only beginning according to Proppy.
“The people from Proppy were fantastic to work with, I’ve been reading that this tech is perfect for certain types of transactions. Real estate is one of them,” said buyer Katherine Purcell about her experience.
