Photo by La Haus
Colombian proptech La Haus continues to attract attention. This time, it’s not just because of its high-profile investors like Jeff Bezos, but because the company will now accept Bitcoin for investing in real estate projects in Mexico.
The project will begin in La Haus’s Kahaal real estate development that is underway in Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo. However, the company expects that this same choice of investment can be later replicated for its other 80,000 properties.
Why use Bitcoin for real estate developments?
We’re seeing increasingly more use cases for Bitcoin across Latin America. First, Mexico’s crypto exchange Bitso, which is used for remittances, became a unicorn a few months ago. Last June, El Salvador officially turned it into legal tender.
Even startups like Lemon are innovating in this sense. Lemon recently launched a “crypto card” in partnership with payments giant Visa to allow international transactions with cashback in Bitcoin.
La Haus is jumping into the trend with this announcement. It will accept Bitcoin for investing in real estate projects in Mexico using the Lightning network and the Bitcoin processor OpenNode.
The Colombian proptech highlighted that it decided to embrace Bitcoin as payment from its investors since it “has seen valuation growths close to 500% per year compared to the U.S. dollar”.
As of this writing, Bitcoin reached a new record price of $68,272.54 per unit and has a global market capitalization of $1,289,832,738,656, according to CoinMarketCap.
The cryptocurrency has had a good run in recent months, reaching record highs almost on a daily basis.
La Haus also mentions that the cryptocurrency has been well received in Latin America because it’s made it easier and safer “to make transactions and investments, and it’s also attacking problems in the region like inflation and the high percentage of unbanked people and those underserved by the banking system”.
To lead its Bitcoin-based investments, La Haus has appointed Jehudi Castro-Sierra as Vice President of the Future. Castro-Sierra is a former presidential advisor on digital transformation and deputy minister of Digital Economy. He had both roles under Ivan Duque’s current presidency.
La Haus behind the scenes
The proptech was founded in 2017 by Jerónimo and Tomás Uribe, sons of former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, as well as Rodrigo Sánchez-Ríos and Santiago García. As of today, it has raised over $150 million.
La Haus is backed by well-known entrepreneurs and funds, including Jeff Bezos’ investment fund; Kaszek Ventures; Nubank founder David Vélez; Rappi cofounder Simón Borrero; Greenspring Associates; Gabriel Gilinski, son of billionaire banker Jaime Gilinski, and Colombian singer Maluma.
La Haus will explore initiatives around Web3, tokenization, and disintermediation, Castro-Sierra said. The company has a strong tech development operation, which allows the high-stakes activity of buying real estate from a mobile device.
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