Former Child Actor, Brock Pierce, whose biggest role was in the 1992 film “The Mighty Ducks” has recently purchased a $1.3 Million mansion in Amsterdam, using Bitcoin as payment. This marks the first-ever crypto-backed mortgage.
The actor-turned-crypto enthusiast used Nexo, a swiss cryptocurrency startup to aid his purchase. Nexo is a wallet which allows users to lend up to the amount of $2 million in 45 different fiat currencies within 24 hours.
The Nexo co-founder Antoni Trenchex said: “He backed the entire loan for the house with bitcoin,” and that “This was our first-ever crypto-backed mortgage.”
Since moving away from the acting scene, Pierce now holds 95% of his Net worth in cryptocurrency and has now become a crypto entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He is also now the chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation.
Back in November 2018, Brock used $3 million worth of Bitcoin as collateral to purchase his grand Amsterdam mansion. Antoni Tenchev of Nexo announced that pierce never intended to use his Bitcoin holdings at first, but needed cash to buy the property and ended up having to use it as collateral.
“So we take that bitcoin and other digital currencies as collateral using a third-party qualified custodian to store it and give them fiat cash for it. But neither the client nor us have access to the coins.”
“For a loan of $10,000, you will need to deposit $20,000 in bitcoin. So we lend you 50 cents on the dollar.”
Being able to use his crypto holdings to borrow Fiat is extremely convenient, says Pierce. He also suggests that it “aligns with my philosophy that real estate and tokenization will be a quadrillion-dollar-market.”
The tokenization of assets like property is a rising trend, says Mike Novogratz. He also said that many companies have taken to tokenizing luxury homes in the real estate markets of Aspen, Colorado and New York.
“You’re going to see more and more of that. It’s not nearly as sexy as Web 3.0, but it’s a part of this broader movement of tokenization, digitalization in blockchain. The blockchain makes a lot possible.”
Ryan Serhant, a real estate agent from New York City says that, “With blockchain tokenization, we can remove the unruly pressure of traditional bank financing, which is much healthier for the project and all of the stakeholders,” Serhant said. “Tokenization is paving the way for a new forefront in real estate development.”
There are numerous condo buildings which are getting their own tokens now, which represent a fractional interest in the property. Due to this, owners can invest in high end property with just a small expense.
