When writing and compiling Fisher’s Year in Review, we like to look at the trends that have affected the Nantucket market, but we also enjoy peeking forward to the future. Well, what’s in the works as I type is an open house occurring in Gulfport, Florida, for the first United States-based NFT Cryptocurrency transaction. The first cryptocurrency-based property transaction was documented in the U.S. in 2017 and then again in April of 2021 when a Miami home sold for the equivalent of $22.5 million in cryptocurrency. So while it isn’t yet a predominant force in island real estate transactions, we anticipate it’s starting to make its way here.

Based on the dynamic characteristics of this digital asset and its growing user base, we suspect high-end markets like Nantucket could see broader adoption sooner than you may think. Currently, there are three main ways to transact using cryptocurrency:

1 To date, the most popular is a crypto transfer to US Dollars
2 You can also find a buyer and seller who match up in wanting to transact in digital currency
3 One can also create a property that goes to auction based on NFT

Number one is the most likely scenario. The other option is to use the cryptocurrency tokens as collateral on a loan, which has been done here on the island—a buyer borrowed against the balance of their digital assets to purchase their Nantucket property. The benefit of using crypto is that it can be much faster to transact and may even have lower fees when compared to traditional methods.

If you are interested in learning more about how smart contracts, blockchain, and cryptocurrencies might influence the Nantucket market, either call us or keep watching the Fisher blog as we share more information in the coming months.