By
Chimamanda U. Martha
April 25th, 2024
As cryptocurrencies are slowly entering into the mainstream adoption, property management platform – ManageGo has integrated few cryptos as a payments option in their app.
Bitcoin has been at the forefront of the crypto mania with its price jumping by over 1000% in past one year. Its tremendous run and huge support from retail investors has grabbed the attention of many big financial institutions who are now considering to develop and launch Bitcoin-based investment products by the next year. This shows that Bitcoin is now all poised to enter for mainstream adoption as a future digital currency to be used for everyday transactions.
Moreover, real estate is one area where Bitcoin has managed to emerge as a preferred payment choice for buyers. In the last year, many big real estate companies in U.S. and the middle east have started accepting payments in form of Bitcoins. The reason is quite simple.
Real-Estate payments involve investments worth thousands of lacs of dollars and if the buyer has to transfer such huge amounts digitally, he/she ends up paying hefty fees to the bank for each transaction. The low payments charges of the Bitcoin blockchain network provide a lucrative option against bank transfers and thus this mode of payment has resonated quite well with the buyer community.
In one of the recent developments in this direction, Williamsburg property management platform – ManageGo announced its plans of integrating three major cryptocurrencies – Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin into its payments app.
This will allow all its registered tenants to pay their monthly rentals through cryptocurrencies. ManageGo’s Chief strategy Officer – Chaim Lowenstein has clarified that looking into the increasing adoption of a few major cryptocurrencies, the management has decided to integrate this payment option only for the convenience of its customers.
The company in no way intends to invest or hold the cryptocurrencies. The ManageGo app has employed Coinbase’s application programming interface (API) which will convert the crypto into fiat currencies which will be then further sent to the landlords.
Lowenstein said that “We tested out the API from Coinbase and saw that it’s doable and we could build it into our platform. We saw we could do this and take the risk out of it by converting it. … It would be like if someone wanted to pay with marbles and we could convert marbles overnight.”
The New York-based company, ManageGo, is just a platform integrator connecting the landlords and the tenants and doesn’t manage or own a property outright. However, it does manage payments between the two parties involved in a deal.
Founded in 2010, ManageGo manages more than 6000 properties in the city itself. Lowenstein believes that adding of cryptocurrencies as a payments option will give their business a good boost and gain more prominence in the market.
Lowenstein said “It fits the profile for the type of tenants we have and just doing a little surveying we saw there would be an interest. We thought this would be a next-level amenity for that type of audience and clientele.”
ManageGo is certainly not the first-of-its-kind company to adopt this idea. earlier this year, Switzerland-based VisionApartments had announced about accepting Bitcoins as a payment option. However, unlike ManageGo, VisionApartments accepts crypto payments for its own properties.