Bitcoin and how it could affect the Real Estate market in Costa Rica?
January 23, 2018
Properties in Costa Rica
What is valuable?:
A bar of gold?
A sunset on a tropical beach?
A swim in a nice sunny day?
Your children learning about sloths in the middle of the rainforest?
Bitcoins?
This last concept has acquired high relevance in the last few months as well as price in the market. Every single day the media is giving more and more attention and as more and more people used them as currency to exchange goods and services.
For many, bitcoin still is a difficult thing to understand used only by people that know very well computers. But the fact is that this cryptocurrency has five features that money has: durability, portability, fungibility, scarcity, divisibility, and recognizability. The difference relies more on the fact that has no physical attributes such as metals or is backed by a government or a bank. The value comes from mathematics as there’s a limited number of them and there’s work involved in the creation of this set of data. The open accounting system and anonymity add a lot of appeal to this new way of the economic realm ( bitcoin project, 2018).
The impact on the real estate market is difficult to predict but the exchange of bitcoins for a property is part of the reality. Any seller with the proper tools and knowledge will accept bitcoins. The bitcoin value agreed between parts is a moving number that tends to grow every day according to most experts. In Costa Rica, this tendency is replicated as this kind of money has a growing number of users. But, according to a short survey that we did, most sellers still prefer hard currencies.
The risk that the value of bitcoin drops suddenly is a source of debate. Lessons from history warn about a similar behavior among people that gave too much importance to tulip bulbs or internet domains…
So, it is worthed to reconsider if it’s more important to accumulate a number of bitcoins, dollars, euros or to enjoy real experiences and enjoyment in your own land…