Acquiring real estate through cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Binance Coin (BNB), is already a reality in many countries, including the United States, England, and Brazil. With the rise of this market and the increasing acceptance of these assets as a legitimate form of payment, investors and buyers are exploring new possibilities for transactions with cryptocurrencies, including the real estate sector.
Imagine if a few years ago you woke up to the news that someone paid more than one million dollars for three plots of digital land next to famed rapper Snoop Dogg’s digital mansion. You’d probably ask yourself, “What is digital real estate, and why would someone pay for that?” Over the past year, there’s been a rush to buy properties, art, and land- but all of it exists in a virtual world called the metaverse. Although this world existed long before the pandemic, lockdowns propelled the online world to a new level, catching the attention of private buyers and brokerages alike who began to funnel tier money into this augmented reality. But how did this world emerge, what does the future hold, and can anyone join the virtual world?
If someone tried to sell you a virtual building, would you buy it? That’s right- a virtual building. Not something that will ever be built in the physical world, or something you can occupy, but an image you can look at, or a video you could watch. This is exactly what’s being proposed as architecture enters the realm of NFTs (non-fungible tokens) that have taken the world by storm. And in the design profession, which continuously seeks to redefine what it means to be an architect, NFTs have big implications for the future of digitization and commoditization of the unbuilt environment.
In a world increasingly obsessed with the potential of Blockchain (the decentralized technology behind Bitcoin), lawyer and cryptocurrency millionaire Jeffrey Berns has purchased an enormous 67,000-acre plot of the Nevada desert near Reno envisioned as an “experimental community” revolving around the technology.
His company, Blockchains LLC, has worked in collaboration with Tom Wiscombe Architecture and Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects (EYRC) to design “Innovation Park” which will be “developed into a smart city with decentralized Blockchain underlying all infrastructure.”
