From Bitcoin to Buildings: How Digital Assets Are Creeping Back Into Real Estate | by Daniel Kaufman | The Capital | Apr, 2025

Commercial Real Estate Tiptoes Back Into Crypto — And This Time, It Might Stick

For a brief moment in the last cycle, it felt like crypto and commercial real estate were headed for a real collision course. Then the bubble burst, the scandals piled up, and traditional real estate players retreated to safer ground.

But today?

Crypto is quietly creeping back into the real estate conversation — and the moves are getting more serious.

Earlier this month, Miami-based developers Rilea Group and Cipres closed a roughly $529,000 bitcoin deal for a condo unit at their under-construction Rider Residences project near Wynwood. It was a direct wallet-to-wallet transaction — no banks, no conversions — just crypto for keys.

Even the developers’ attorneys were uneasy.

As Rilea Group President Diego Ojeda put it:

“We do think that right now is the right moment to really be embracing this… It’s becoming a much more common concept that you’re even hearing from the White House.”

The reality is that after years of being treated like a punchline, cryptocurrency is once again finding a foothold in real estate — this time bolstered by real technological…