Christie’s Unveils Crypto Division for Its Real Estate Arm
Christie’s International Real Estate clients will be able to buy and sell homes via cryptocurrency.
On the back of major progress for crypto legislation in the United States, high-profile cryptocurrency adoption moves are accelerating rapidly. The latest to join the party is Christie’s International Real Estate — the luxury real estate arm of the legendary auction house — which will allow buyers and sellers to transact directly in cryptocurrency, bypassing the traditional banking system.
The activation sees an entire team of lawyers and analysts dedicated to handling real estate transactions via crypto payments. The New York Times reported that Christie’s has a portfolio of homes worth more than $1 billion available with sellers who are willing to accept cryptocurrency.
In an interview with the New York Times, Aaron Kirman, the CEO of Christie’s International Real Estate and the initiator of its crypto division, said that the firm had already closed deals in crypto. “The trend was obvious — crypto is here to stay,” he stated.
Kirman also told the Times that buyers can maintain anonymity in the purchasing process, and that there is high demand for such deals among his high-net-worth clientele. Kirman has not replied to The Defiant’s request for comment by press time.
Christie’s is one of the world’s oldest and largest luxury brokerages, with a projected $5.7 billion in global sales for 2025, based on its year-end report in 2024. The International Real Estate branch is active in nearly 50 different countries, including major markets such as New York, Paris, London, Dubai, and Singapore.
Regulatory Shift
The move comes just a week after the celebrated close of “Crypto Week” in the United States, when the GENIUS and CLARITY acts were approved by the House of Representatives. President Donald Trump signed the stablecoin-focused GENIUS Act into law last Friday, the culmination of months of negotiations and debate in Congress. The landmark move solidified clear cut regulations surrounding the use of stablecoins in the United States.
Kirman told The Times that he sees the increasing demand for cryptocurrency as a sign of “openness to innovative buyers, some of whom are crypto millionaires and billionaires looking for real-world assets to diversify.”
This is not the auction house and brokerage’s first involvement in the crypto space. It was a major high-profile player in the NFT boom that peaked in 2021-2022, housing NFT auctions via its on-chain auction platform, Christie’s 3.0.
Christie’s also brokered the landmark Beeple Everyday 1/1 NFT, which sold for $69.3 million in 2021, and is largely attributed as the spark that set off the NFT bull run.
On July 21, Christie’s completed another milestone NFT auction, when the “A Goal in Life” NFT, which is a collaboration between football superstar Lionel Messi and digital artist Refik Anadol, closed for $1.85 million.
Last month, the U.S. federal housing agency directed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to consider cryptocurrency holdings in mortgage loan risk assessments. The housing authority noted, however, that the crypto holdings must be held on U.S.-regulation centralized exchanges to be considered eligible for consideration.