Latin American Proptech La Haus to Accept Bitcoin for Property Purchases

La Haus, a Latin American proptech company, is now accepting bitcoin for home purchases through on-chain transactions and the Lightning Network, the company announced Wednesday.

Payment with bitcoin will be available for investing in condominiums in Kahaal, a luxury housing development in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, the company said, adding that it plans to soon expand cryptocurrency acceptance to more properties in its inventory of more than 80,000 listings.

“As we expand across Latin America, bitcoin can solve some of the problems that come with buying a home with local currencies. The bitcoin and real estate worlds have excellent synergy,” Rodrigo Sánchez-Ríos, president of La Haus, said in a statement.

La Haus, with presences in Colombia and México, facilitates more than $1 billion in gross transactions per year, with more than one million monthly users, the company reported.

Launched in 2017, the company has raised over $150 million in venture capital funding from firms such as Acrew Capital, Bezos Expeditions, Kaszek Ventures and TIME Ventures.

The company has also recruited Jehudi Castro-Sierra, former advisor to the Colombian presidency on digital transformation issues, as vice president.

“Bitcoin enhanced by Lightning allows instant, global settlement in a more efficient way,” said Castro-Sierra, who added that the company will explore initiatives around Web 3, tokenization and disintermediation.

In April, the largest e-commerce player in Latin America, MercadoLibre, unveiled a bitcoin-only real estate section within its platform for the purchase and sale of properties with that cryptocurrency.