Inside Groundbreaking Crypto Listings in Denver and Beyond

Colorado is being promoted as a mecca for cryptocurrency, with even Governor Jared Polis helping to deliver the pitch. Now, Shelly Vincent, managing broker of eXp Realty and president of a new affiliate dubbed Blockchain Properties, is touting a series of groundbreaking real estate listings for properties such as a jaw-dropping penthouse near Coors Field priced at $12 million, in which the sellers want to complete the transactions entirely in crypto, without conversion into more traditional currency.

Vincent believes that if everything happens the way the current owners hope, the sales will be the first of their kind.

"I've done quite a bit of research before making that claim," she says. "Even back to 2018, you'd see articles about houses being purchased for crypto," as evidenced by "Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Fever Hits Colorado's Luxury-Home Market," a Westword post from March of that year. "But in all of them I could find, buyers had to change their crypto into cash first, which is not what we would consider a crypto-based purchase."

Doing so can be time-consuming, she explains: "Traditional lending companies need to know where the money comes from, and until recently, cryptocurrency wasn't even recognized as an asset by many lenders when buyers were wanting to purchase a home. Their holdings would have to season — seasoning is the waiting period they'd require for them to be considered an asset — and the minimum is generally ninety days."
Fees are associated with this procedure, as well. "But we're talking about changing the game, where you never have to sell your cryptocurrency," she says." You can take the amount in your wallet and transfer it directly to the seller to make your purchase."

Under the process developed by Vincent, cryptocurrency can be utilized for a variety of other real estate-related purposes, too. "What we're saying is, you can use a crypto investment for a down payment, earnest money, whatever," she maintains. "With our title company, Canyon Title, you can type in an address, and everything's verified immediately. It's done. No certified checks, no driving to the title company. It's simply transferring wallet-to-wallet from your cell phone."

The players involved are heavy hitters. As Vincent points out, eXp Realty is "the largest real estate broker in the State of Colorado. We have more than 1,400 agents and did over $5.6 billion in the state last year." Canyon Title is another sprawling concern, with four offices in the greater Denver area as well as more in Arizona.

Still, Vincent understands that a sizable slice of the general public continues to view cryptocurrency as a crazy fad in which values fluctuate wildly, going from billions to thousands in a nanosecond. She does her best to puncture the misconceptions.

"There is volatility, but not at the rate at which many people perceive it to be," she allows. "I would liken it to gold. Bitcoin, in my mind, is something like the gold standard of cryptocurrency, and other currencies, like Ethereum, operate off that standard. You definitely have coins and currencies on the digital spectrum that are more volatile than others, but Dogecoin has been very consistent for quite some time, and with our title company, we have a very specific list of coins we're more comfortable transferring than others. And in any cryptocurrency transaction, we put into place processes that allow for that volatility and operate within very specific time frames. We need to make these transactions as quickly as possible to maintain the closest possible value."

Speed and efficiency are part of the appeal for Rick Romano, owner of the penthouse located at 2245 Blake Street. But Vincent emphasizes that they're not the only ones.
"He slowly bought the two top levels of this downtown building right by Coors Field and combined three large condominium units into one with multiple living spaces," she says. "The finishes are very high-end, but it's one of multiple homes he and his family own, and at this time, he's decided to move some different assets — and since one of his primary business interests is in the blockchain world, he wants to ensure that he has the liquidity within the cryptocurrency/digital field so he can use the money anywhere in the world he sees fit, since he also has properties in Italy. In a traditional transaction, using world banks, it could take weeks for their seasoning, holding and verifying, and the costs add up. But within a cryptocurrency wallet, he can immediately exchange it for any world fiat [government-backed currency] without any of those holding periods."

Peter Blakk, who wants the sale of 12370 Tapadero Way, a four-bedroom, single-family home in Castle Pines listed for $975,000, to involve cryptocurrency, "has the exact same reasoning," Vincent confirms. "He's very involved in the cryptocurrency industry. He has homes in Sweden and the U.S., and he wants to keep his money very liquid. And thanks to the latest technological advances allowing for cryptocurrency payments, it would allow him greater liquidity and access to his funds, rather than having to wait for his funds to transfer and paying fees every time."

Vincent believes crypto is the wave of the future, and those real estate companies that refuse to ride it will be left behind. "My passion is to bring this to the masses and help us adapt to the changing currencies available now," she says. "I think we as an industry need to catch up with this, embrace this. Last year, 20 percent of millennial homebuyers used cryptocurrency investments in buying a home, so the demand is definitely out there. It's our responsibility as an industry to service our clients appropriately where they're at."

Click to view the listings for 2245 Blake Street and 12370 Tapadero Way.