At the end of September in Kiev for the first time bought an apartment for crypto currency. Artem Afyan tells how the deal was conducted Recently in Ukraine, a deal was made, within the framework of which a real estate was bought for a crypto currency. The deal took place on the Propy platform. It was held a month after active discussions on whether the crypto currency is legitimate and whether the state should issue a mining license. Since Yuskutum was a legal adviser during the transaction, I will try to answer here a lot of questions and remove part of the verdicts by correspondence from unknown experts about the illegality of the contract.

To begin with, we went beyond the usual discussions about the legal status of the crypto currency, and answered two questions: 1) is it forbidden to sell crypto currency? 2) What are the tax consequences of the transaction?.

Recently, the NBU withdrew the question of a money surrogate, but said that the crypto currency has not yet a certain status. Since there are no prohibitions on the crypt, we moved on to the second part. All conversations about the status revolve around several definitions: property rights, intangible asset, goods. We came to the conclusion that for our transaction there is no difference in the tax consequences. Incorrect definition of the status of an object when performing a sacred duty payment of taxes, does not create legal risks. If all the requirements of the law are met, then the law does not matter how you name the object or the contract itself. Therefore, we did not determine the status of the crypto currency in general. So they wrote "crypto currency etherium".

The second obstacle to the transaction was the obligation for foreign citizens to obtain a tax code. Recently, it is very difficult to do this, and, unfortunately, can not be done online. But the essence of the project is that a person sitting on the sofa, could become a Ukrainian rentier. The Ukrainian state wants to personally look into the eyes of every investor!. Although, given the domestic realities, it even looks reasonable. Anyone wishing to invest in our economy can indeed be suspected of insanity. I hope that this annoying gap will soon be eliminated, but we put the first restriction in the deal that we can only have a legal entity as a buyer. With the seller, the situation is reversed: as long as there is no legal regime for crypto currency, it is unclear how to put it on the balance sheet. Therefore, the seller we could become only one to whom Ukraine graciously allowed not to balance: an individual in all its glory, regardless of citizenship.

Then we built a link between the agreement on the platform and the notarial contract. After all, contrary to some paraphrases of journalists, the deal could go all the way to the blockade, with the help of only smart contracts or only in the imagination of the parties. Our goal was to enter information on the new owner in the register. Also, a transaction must be preceded by certain legal actions, for example, real estate valuation. Therefore, such a mechanism was developed: on the platform, the parties fix the agreement in the form of a contract of intent to purchase an apartment (it does not give me the opportunity to name the provision of the Civil Code that it should have a notarial form), according to which (a) the agent is transferred a deposit ) the buyer forms the text of the power of attorney for the local representative. This text system will be specially formed for each jurisdiction. Then the buyer will only have to tear himself away from the couch, go to his local notary, certify and send a power of attorney to the specified address.

Further, at the place of real estate, absolutely trivial actions are taken to prepare a deal. There was only a hitch in how to tie a hash in the locker with a notarial contract and a registry. And here the original solution was found: the hash became the contract number. Us after all, nothing restricts the right to assign a contract number. We do not even need a number to contain only numbers. So the contract got its hash-identifier.

Then there was the signing of the transaction with the notary, extracting the rights to real estate from the register was uploaded to the system and the smart contract unlocked the crypto currency, which was transferred to the seller's account.

As you can see, the task did not require changes in the legislation, and was implemented by existing legal norms. There is nothing new under heaven. As a physicist sees in all the set of atoms, so a lawyer can decompose any situation into a burden of obligations and rights. In fact, so you can change everything for everything. Replace the crypto currency with a carload of rubble, and an apartment with a car - and you get exactly the same set of obligations.

Has the deal become a revolution? I do not think so. The main thing that happened - another psychological barrier broke between classical and crypto-economics. Do I expect that there will be many such deals? No, but they will. Cryptoeconomics is growing, cryptocapitales also need calm harbors. Real estate - the best option.

That's how a Malaysian crypto-trader will play at the stock exchange, he will recoil on his armchair, roll his eyes dreamily to the sky and buy real estate in the center of Zhashkova. Of course, I am sarcastic, but the proximity of Ukraine to Europe and the relative cheapness may well attract a number of investors. For Ukraine, this deal was another reason to demonstrate its openness to innovation, and I hope this channel will revive our unhappy situation in the real estate market. In fact, the only innovation is that before this deal, there was much discussion about this possibility, and today it has already occurred.