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The famous Christie's auction house, famous for its incredible sales of art objects, decided to expand its horizons and attract a new audience of cryptocurrency lovers. Now they accept Bitcoins as payment. By opening a division of Christie's International Real Estate, the company officially allowed the use of cryptocurrency when buying real estate.

The main task of the new direction is to make the purchase process as simple as possible and, importantly, to preserve customer confidentiality. Instead of the usual bank transfers for millions of dollars, you can now pay with bitcoins.

The decision to start work in this area was made not on the basis of theoretical calculations, but due to very specific financial transactions. As noted by Aaron Kirman, head of the new division, a landmark event was the sensational purchase: a luxury house in Beverly Hills, sold for an incredible $ 65 million, and the payment was made exclusively in bitcoins.

This case clearly demonstrated that the interest in crypto transactions in the field of luxury real estate is not only there, but is also ready to be realized at the highest prices. For Christie's, which already has significant experience working with digital art, it was a natural step to extend this experience to the market of elite "physical" assets.

Kirman argues that the main reason for the popularity of crypto transactions among very wealthy clients is not so much a fascination with technology as an unprecedented level of anonymity. The old methods, including offshore companies and trusts, which have long served to conceal information, no longer provide complete protection – experienced investigators can easily identify the final owners. Blockchain, in turn, offers a fundamentally different level of security.

Aaron Kirman is optimistic about the future. He predicts that very soon, in the next five years, more than 30% of residential real estate transactions will be related to cryptocurrency, whether as payment or as collateral. While Christie's and Sotheby's are shaping this future, the luxury real estate market is gradually shifting to blockchain. The question is no longer whether this will become a mass phenomenon, but when crypto wallets will become as commonplace as house keys.