Digital currencies like Bitcoin, long associated with volatile trading and speculative finance, are increasingly being scrutinized for their more utilitarian role in one of the world’s oldest and least digitized asset classes: real estate. From cross-border property purchases to fund settlements and rent payments, proponents argue that blockchain-based currencies could ultimately streamline transactions that today remain slow, fragmented and costly.
Real estate is particularly exposed to gaps in existing financial infrastructure. Real estate transactions often involve multiple intermediaries, manual escrow processes, jurisdictional compliance hurdles, and international wire transfers that can take days or even weeks to settle. For global investors, foreign exchange costs and capital controls make it even more difficult to participate. These inefficiencies have sparked a new wave of experimentation around digital currencies designed specifically for real estate rather than general consumer payments.
An emerging concept is the use of stablecoins – digital tokens linked to traditional currencies – as settlement rails for real estate transactions. In theory, a dollar-backed stablecoin could function like digital money, allowing buyers, sellers, lenders and service providers to move funds instantly, with full auditability and without exposure to price volatility.
A frequently cited example is TransactionCOIN, an emerging dollar-backed stablecoin designed explicitly for real estate transactions. Unlike cryptocurrencies whose value fluctuates, TransactionCOIN would be fully collateralized by US dollar reserves and used primarily for payments, deposit and settlement throughout the real estate lifecycle. In practice, this could mean earnest money deposits placed on-chain, closing proceeds released automatically once contract conditions are met, or rent and mortgage payments settled in real time rather than through batch-processed banking systems.
The implications extend beyond individual property sales. Cross-border real estate investing – already a multi-trillion dollar market – could be significantly changed if capital could flow frictionlessly while remaining denominated in dollars. Investors in Asia or the Middle East, for example, could deploy funds in U.S. or European assets without going through correspondent banks or converting currencies, while still maintaining exposure to the dollar. Supporters argue it could broaden the global investor base and lower the cost of capital for property owners.
Stablecoins also intersect with another developing trend: the tokenization of real estate assets. Tokenization refers to the representation of ownership interests, debts or revenue streams in the form of digital tokens that can be issued, exchanged and settled on blockchain networks. Although the concept has attracted attention for years, liquidity and settlement issues have limited its adoption.
That’s where projects like RealEstateCOIN, an AI-managed global real estate token fund offered by the World Real Estate Bank, comes in. The fund concept envisions institutional-grade exposure to tokenized real estate debt, equities, credit, and derivatives across global markets. Portfolio allocation and risk management would be managed by AI-based systems, with issuance and trading carried out on emerging real estate token exchanges such as World Property Exchange and other existing Tier 1 crypto exchanges.
In this model, a stablecoin such as TransactionCOIN serves as the connective tissue of the ecosystem, acting as a native settlement currency to buy and sell RealEstateCOIN and other institutional-grade real estate tokens, distribute rental income or dividends, and repurchase investors’ capital. By standardizing settlement around a single digital dollar, proponents argue the system can reduce operational complexity while improving transparency for investors and regulators.
Another potential use case is the mortgage finance, private credit and real estate debt markets. Loan granting, management and repayment processes remain highly manual and geographically compartmentalized. Digital currencies could enable near-instant loan funding, automated interest and principal payments, and real-time reporting for investors in mortgage-backed instruments. For lenders, this could mean faster turnover of capital; for borrowers, faster access to financing.
Operational payments represent a more gradual but undoubtedly more immediate application. Property managers, developers and owners manage recurring payments to contractors, utilities, insurers and tax authorities. With programmable digital dollars, these payments could be automated, reconciled instantly and recorded immutably, reducing administrative costs and disputes.
Yet significant obstacles remain. Regulatory clarity varies widely between jurisdictions, and real estate transactions are among the most regulated financial activities in the world. Any digital currency used at scale would require robust know-your-customer and anti-money laundering controls, clear governance frameworks and transparent reserve management. Institutional adoption will likely depend less on technological novelty than on trust, respect, and integration with existing legal systems.
Proponents of real estate-focused digital currencies say the goal is not to circumvent regulation but to modernize it. By integrating compliance rules directly into programmable payment systems, they argue, regulators could gain more visibility into transactions rather than less.
Michael Gerrity
As concepts like TransactionCOIN and RealEstateCOIN move toward deployment and seek broader adoption, it is increasingly clear that the conversation around digital currencies in real estate is evolving. Instead of speculative trading, the focus now turns to digital infrastructure – how money moves, settles and is accounted for in the world’s largest asset class: real estate.
Michael Gerrity, founder of the World Real Estate Bank, says: “If this shift continues, digital currencies may not replace traditional real estate financing overnight. But they could quietly become the underlying rails, digitally moving billions of dollars each year and reshaping the way real estate is bought, sold, rented, financed and financially managed on a global scale.
