Mercado Libre (MELI), South America’s largest real estate marketplace has decided to start allowing cryptocurrency payments for real estate.The $81 billion company does not settle the transactions directly, but they do own the digital payment system Mercado Pago. Mercado Libre is an Argentine company that operates marketplaces for e-commerce and auctions online.
Mercado Libre hosted a cryptocurrency webinar that was attended by more than 300 real estate agents. The webinar explained how cryptocurrency works and how it may impact their industry. Their involvement with cryptocurrencies isn’t too significant yet, as they don’t even handle the transactions themselves. However, the interest they are showing and initiative they’re taking is promising.
Regarding the impact of cryptocurrency on the real estate industry, it is just a payment method. However, it has its benefits, including but not limited to:
- Multi-million dollar transactions with fees under $10 (in some cases).
- Secure, easily-proven transactions thanks to shareable transaction IDs and blockchain explorers.
- The freedom to transact anywhere in the world without liquidity issues and other challenges that banks pose.
- Effortless tracking of transaction settlement status.
