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Cryptocurrency has grown from being a digital asset in the mouths of tech enthusiasts to being a revolutionary financial tool. In the real estate industry, this technology is slowly but surely disrupting the traditional order of doing business. By leveraging blockchain technology, smart contracts and DeFi, the real estate sector is going through tremendous change.
A survey done in 2023 by Statista revealed that 15% of real estate firms used crypto as a mode of payment. Additionally, 20% of the respondents stated that they had already started the adoption process, while 26% stated that they were already in the pilot stage of the tech. This means that more investors in the real estate sector are finally grasping the benefits of using crypto.
Looking at India, for example, Triple-A reports that there were an estimated 97.5 million crypto users in 2022. Considering that the real estate sector in the country is growing substantially, you will see more investors go the crypto way. And the more 1 Bitcoin price in India continues to rise, the advantages accrued by investors will be even higher.
This article will go into more detail about how crypto is changing the operations of the real estate industry.
Payments made easy
As mentioned above, more real estate firms are using crypto as a mode of payment because of its speed and cost-effectiveness. Because of the amount of paperwork or details involved in making real estate purchases, the transactions take long, weeks or even months using conventional methods. However, with cryptocurrency, the speed of transactions is highly reduced. Once the agreement is made, you can take even a few hours to complete the transaction.
Also, traditional forms of payment can be quite costly because of the many intermediaries involved. For example, if you are making payments using a credit card, five or six parties are involved. And mark you, all these charge a particular fee to provide services. You have the credit card network, the cardholder, the cardholder’s bank, the merchant and the merchant’s bank. Combine all these fees, and the amount is overwhelming!
However, with crypto, there are no intermediaries involved. You just need the seller and buyer’s crypto addresses. Once everything is complete, you make a direct transfer of the tokens from one wallet to another. This also adds up to the reason why the speed of transactions is reduced.
Crypto-backed loans are taking over
As Bitcoin rises in value, many Bitcoin holders have realised that they can secure property by borrowing against their cryptocurrencies instead of selling them. This works to serve two purposes:
- Real estate investors can access funds without attracting taxes on capital gains.
- Borrowers still keep their exposure to appreciating prices while securing assets like homes.
This trend has become popular among individuals who struggle to get traditional bank loan approvals yet own large crypto portfolios. These individuals often face a challenge with traditional banks since they lack steady income or a credit history. However, platforms like Xapo Bank and Ledn allow such Bitcoin-wealthy individuals to get loans within hours. In fact, Mauricio Di Bartolomeo, the co-founder of Ledn, stated that the average funding time was 9.6 hours.
Within Q1 2025, Ledn reported having issued crypto-backed loans worth over US $300 million. According to Di Bartolomeo, the plan is to give out loans worth over US $1 billion by the end of 2025.
Another company, Milo, has set a standard and gives up to 100% financing on home purchases with loans up to US $5 million.
Tokenisation is becoming more common
Imagine owning a portion of the Taj Mahal Palace yet still living in a rental house. Seems impossible, but that’s what tokenisation of real estate is offering. As long as blockchain technology has been around, so has the tokenisation of assets. A report by McKinsey stated that by 2030, the value of tokenised assets was estimated to reach US $5 trillion.
Real estate is among the biggest beneficiaries of tokenisation, with the Deloitte Centre for Finacial Services predicting that US $4 trillion worth of real estate will be tokenised by 2035. This is up from the less than US $0.3 trillion that was recorded in 2024. This market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 27% between 2024 and 2035.
With tokenisation, the real estate asset is divided digitally into fractions as the owner deems fit. After dividing the property, it is up for purchase, where one investor is free to purchase all the bits, or many investors can collaborate to purchase the whole. This trend allows small investors who have the zeal but lack the capital to invest in large properties to enter the market.
For example, if you have property worth $500,000, you could divide it into 100 bits worth $5000 each. This makes sales similar to crowdsourcing, where you do not have to wait for one investor to do the job. Rather, 100 smaller investors can complete the transaction.
The real estate industry is growing at a rapid rate, and it is only fitting that disruptive technology like crypto should match its pace. Currently, there are more than 659 million crypto users, and a good portion of them are heavily invested in real estate. This means that in the next few years, the real estate sector will undergo a kind of transformation that was only thought possible in sci-fi movies.