The first-ever Portuguese real-estate purchase has been settled for Bitcoin – without involving a conversion back to fiat money.
As reported by the local news outlet Idealista, the deal was for a T3 apartment in Braga, costing the buyer exactly 3 Bitcoin. That’s about 102,000 euros, or 108,000 dollars, at current prices.
Until last month, purchasing real estate using cryptocurrencies required buyers to first convert their holdings to euros. However, Portugal’s Order of Notaries has since established clear rules on how to form deeds for real-estate sales made directly in digital assets.
“This deed represents a historic milestone, the transfer of a digital asset to a physical asset – a house – without any conversions to euros,” said real estate company Zome on its Facebook page. The group participated in the deal alongside the Antas da Cunha law firm, the Portuguese Chairman of Notaries, and other crypto-related partners.
The deed creation process required additional details that are not required for the creation of an ordinary contract. These included the bank account of the payer, the digital asset involved (Bitcoin), the network address, the parties involved, and proof of the crypto transaction taking place.
If the transaction had exceeded 200,000 euros in value, authorities would need to be notified, and crypto prices would need to be compared from the date of the deed to that of the promissory contract.
Nuno da Silva Vieira – a lawyer at Antas da Cunha – believes that digital currencies are a great opportunity for growth and value creation in the region. “This type of business will have an exponential increase and Portugal is showing very promising signs in terms of the digital economy,” they said.
The global south is increasingly turning to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as actual “currencies”, and regulatory assurances are allowing them to be used as such.
The Central African Republic, for instance, has now become the second country to establish Bitcoin as legal tender. Panama has also legalized the use of cryptocurrencies for tax payments and does not place capital gains taxes on digital assets.
On the property front, Latin American Proptech firm La Haus has begun accepting Bitcoin for home payments through OpenNode. The company sold a Mexican apartment for 5.78 Bitcoin in January.