Bitcoin Breaking News Brief
Coinify Processes Bitcoin Real Estate Sale
Jamie Redman | Mar 11, 2016 | 15:51
The Copenhagen-based blockchain currency service provider, Coinify ApS has just announced the first real-estate purchase in Denmark with Bitcoin. The transaction was just processed by Coinify’s merchant services and with the help of Just-Sold real estate agency. The blog post states:
“A 117 bitcoin transaction worth 290,000DKK was recently processed by Coinify merchant services to facilitate the purchase of a property in the town of Mørkøv in the north-west part of Zealand. “
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Coinify Helps Home Buyer With Bitcoin Purchase and Compliance
Founded in 2014 by Lasse Olesen, Coinify’s merchant services is one of the leading European payment processors and ranks 5th globally in the industry. According to Crunchbase, the business is backed by a multi-million dollar undisclosed capital injection from the Danish Government and Accelerance. The company claims to have facilitated thousands of blockchain currency payments with its service. At the buyer’s request, the Just-Sold realty agency signed up for Coinify’s merchant program so the Bitcoin payment could be processed. Coinify also helped with the regulatory policies and compliance factors of the sale. Compliance Officer, Joosep Vahtras, at Coinify said to press:
“Whenever there are so called large cash transactions with traditional currency, there are always questions regarding the source of funds. According to Anti Money Laundering rules, a person must disclose the origin of assets when purchasing for more than the equivalent of 100.000 DKK (15.000 EUR).”
Selling homes for Bitcoin has happened in the past with real estate sold in places like San Francisco, Lake Tahoe, Las Vegas, Greece, and more. This sale happened in the Nordic region by an undisclosed early Bitcoin adopter who has also reaped quite a bit of cryptocurrency within the mining sector. The real estate agency Just-Sold said often times sources of funds such as physical cash is difficult to verify. However, Bitcoin has a digital ledger that is public and very transparent the business says. Coinify’s Vahtras explains, “Since banks operate with closed ledgers a great amount of resources are required for obtaining the information in midst of the bureaucracy and customer privacy. In comparison, Bitcoin as a payment system uses open public ledgers that are transparent and easily accessible for everyone.”
The Danish startup created in 2013 Just-Sold isn’t your typical real estate business model because it has started the company with a focus on transparency. Just-Sold believes its model helps add a layer of trust to the industry between sellers and buyers. The company believes its services offers a whole new concept in the housing market. With the latest Bitcoin transaction, the company has accomplished with Coinify it believes its a natural step in its innovative practices. Just-Sold CEO Jesper Jørgensen explains:
“We are very satisfied being the first real estate company in the Nordics using a blockchain currency in a real estate purchase. As an innovative company it is only natural for us being open to new technology and taking innovative steps – also within payment methods. It is a part of our business DNA.”
The real estate sale is great news for the Bitcoin community as it is just more assurance the currency remains valuable. Using Bitcoin for the sale of the home is a benchmark for the Nordic region as well as for Coinify and Just-sold. As the company says, “processing of a real estate property purchase, stood out as a great opportunity to demonstrate yet another use case for bitcoin.”
What do you think about this latest Bitcoin purchase? Let us know in the comments below.
Editor’s note: The source of this article seemed to have a typo and this editorial has been corrected to reflect that.
Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Coinify, and Just-Sold websites
